In a letter to the Guardian, Jayne Ozanne, a senior member of the general synod for the diocese of Oxford, said: “Abuse of power, particularly in relation to sexual misdemeanours, will never be dealt with by those within the same said power structures.

“The urge to protect one’s reputation is too strong.

“Make no mistake, the instances of sexual abuse and harassment within the church are manifold – at virtually every level of the hierarchy.”

Ozanne says that a bishop advised her not to report her claim that a priest had raped her in the 1990s. 

“I trusted him because he was a priest,” she told Channel 4 News. “Shame and guilt is what kept me quiet and silent for so many years.”

Premier spoke to Natalie Collins, who started Spark – a group that equips churches to prevent violence against women. 

She told Premier that Christian circles may face different problems when it comes to helping people feel they can speak.

Speaking during Premier’s News Hour, she said: “We have whole issues with purity culture and modesty culture which says, ‘well, women, if you dress a certain way it’s your fault if a man behaves in that way’ and so actually for a lot of women they have been conditioned to blame themselves and say ‘if he’s done that to me it must be my fault’.

“The focus should more be on – instead of saying, ‘what can women can be doing to speak up?’, ‘how should women be changing how they respond?’ – we should be saying ‘How do we stop men be…

The Bishops of Barking, Edmonton, Stepney, Croydon and Woolwich wrote a letter to Alok Sharma, urging him to back the Newham property licencing scheme.

The Bishop of Woolwich, Rt Rev Woyin Karowei Dorgu told Premier why the Bishops decided to join forces.

He said: “We felt that it’s our responsibility because it’s one of the priorities of the ministry of the Bishop to speak for the voiceless and to speak for those who are marginalised, oppressed and are suffering injustice in society as Jesus would do.”

The decision for the pioneering property licencing scheme in Newham is imminent and the scheme cannot roll further without backing from Mr Sharma.

Rt Rev Dorgu told Premier it is “very urgent” for tenants to be protected.

While the Bishops alongside leaders from community organising charity Citizens UK welcomed recent moves to tackle the rising problem of bad landlords, they delivered the letter as “more can be done by local councils and community leaders”.

They also claimed in their letter that there is evidence that landlords continue to get away with leaving tenants in shocking housing conditions.

Rt Rev Dorgu highlighted the problem to Premier.

He explained “In the face of making so much money and wealth out of the industry, we’ve also experienced such a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.

“Some of the states in which these homes…exist, is just simply unacceptable.”

The Bishops’ letter was…

Church leaders were told they could only continue to hold them if they obtained permission from the district official’s collector’s office.

However, Pastor Johnson Sathyanathan, president of the Synod of Pentecostal Churches in Coimbatore told Morning Star India: “It is a well-planned conspiracy against the Christian community, as the Hindu extremists know that it is not easy to approach the collector’s office for such permissions.”

He continued: “The time to get such approvals can stretch from a year and a half to many more years.”

Orders were issued after complaints were apparently made by members of a paramilitary group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party.

10 churches have been affected by this order in the last two months – all ones which Pastor Sathyanathan says have been doing ministry for years and people have never had a problem with before.

Since Narandra Modi took power in 2014, hostility against non-Hindus has become worse according to religious rights activists.
India is ranked 15 on Open Door’s 2017 World Watch List.