Top UK barrister to lead review into collapse of CofE’s Independent Safeguarding Board

Sep 12, 2023 by Jill

from Premier:

An independent review into what happened to ‘Phase 1’ of the Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) is to be led by a top public law barrister, the Church has announced.

The ISB was put in place to investigate several cases of clergy or church sexual abuse, alleged to have happened in the Church of England. It attracted national headlines when it imploded earlier this year, after two of its members were suddenly sacked and the interim chairperson resigned, leaving confidential cases unresolved and seemingly no-one assigned to continue delicate support work with vulnerable survivors.

The Archbishops’ Council has instructed Sarah Wilkinson, a barrister from Blackstone Chambers, to undertake a review of what went wrong. According to her firm’s website, she is an experienced public law practitioner, with more than 10 years experience, who has represented the Government both as sole and junior counsel in a wide range of high-profile judicial review cases.

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