Worcestershire vicar describes his 'living hell' in village parish
Dec 17 2009 By Edward Chadwick
A sleepy Worcestershire village has seen 14 vicars leave its parish in 40 years. Edward Chadwick meets the latest minister who claims he is being forced out by threats and intimidation from his parishioners.
When Mark Sharpe quit the police force to become a man of the cloth, he thought he was leaving behind a life of threats and violence.
But little did he know his new career would throw up as much conflict as the frontline of law enforcement.
“I was standing there in my dog collar wondering whether I was going to have to defend myself on my doorstep from someone who fancies himself as a mafia hitman and is standing there with his fists clenched,” he said.
The incident he described was not at an inner city church but outside the Rev Sharpe’s rectory in the hamlet of Hanley Broadheath in rural Worcestershire.
It has been the unlikely setting for a tale of “intimidation” and “sinister” behaviour which the father-of-four says he has been subjected to constantly since arriving five years ago.
The 42-year-old says his phone lines have been cut, his car tyres slashed and his pet dog poisoned during the campaign of harassment.
He has now fled his home and has become the 14th vicar to leave the parish in 40 years. He is now taking the diocese to tribunal claiming he wasn’t supported while he feels he was bullied out of his job.
But locals and even the flock’s former vicar have claimed there is no problem within the congregation.
“The mood was quite sinister as soon as I got here,” said Mr Sharpe, as he helped to pack boxes of his belongings in to a removals lorry.
“I was told that one of the churches was a ‘local church, for local people’ and I would only get along if I kept my nose out of affairs.”
Mr Sharpe claims he had been tasked with sorting out 40 years of mismanagement which ranged from what he claims were simple matters of administration up to more serious matters.
He claimed that his efforts to wrestle powers back the community were at the heart of the abuse he suffered since 2005. The vicar even had CCTV cameras installed outside his home because he was concerned about his children, aged between nine and 19.
He will take the diocese to an employment tribunal in May next year, claiming for constructive dismissal. Union leaders at Unite claim the Bishop of Worcester, the Rt Rev John Inge, and the Suffragan Bishop of Dudley, the Rt Rev David Walker, washed their hands of the affair “like Pontius Pilate”.
Both men have been urged to resign.
“There was some very sinister behaviour from a small group of individuals,” said Mr Sharpe.
