By Catherine Pepinster
A Charity Commission report of its inquiry into Ampleforth College and Abbey has raised serious concerns about its past safeguarding. The report into the St. Laurence Educational Trust, which runs Ampleforth College, and Ampleforth Abbey Trust, which operates Ampleforth Abbey, has taken seven years to be completed.
It was first opened in 2016 to assess both charities’ approach to safeguarding, including their practices and procedures, and how the charities ensured a safe environment for their beneficiaries. Monks from the Abbey provide chaplaincy and teaching to pupils at the college.
The findings reveal there were significant weaknesses in the charities’ approach to safeguarding, governance, and management. It found numerous occasions that “put students at the college at risk of harm”. It concludes that both institutions have made progress to improve but the two trusts’ handling of the allegations led to the length of the inquiry.
Six months ago an Ofsted inspection found the school was “good” — a huge turnaround in two years after Ofsted had ruled that education there was “inadequate”, mainly because of its poor safeguarding. It had found alcohol was smuggled on to the premises, sexual activity was going on between vulnerable pupils, and that the head teacher was unable to veto monks, about whom there was concern, from living in the nearby abbey.
The report was begun after press reports of nine previously undisclosed allegations of abuse of pupils at the college and its preparatory school, Gilling Castle, which the Ampleforth Abbey Trust had been aware of in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The perpetrators were alleged to be staff and monks.
An interim manager was appointed by the commission who found that all the Ampleforth Abbey trustees were monks who had a lack of knowledge of trusteeship and a lack of confidence about their roles. They “had not thought more broadly about safeguarding across the entire Ampleforth site (which they own) and across the range of its activities, instead focusing on particular matters of ongoing concern for the religious community”, the commission report says.
The commission also found that the trustees failed to inform them of nine allegations and convictions in 2014, 2015, and 2016, both recent and historic, and that this constituted mismanagement. Among the most serious incidents was a failure by the acting superior to deal with safeguarding concerns over a monk which meant that “children across the Ampleforth site were put at risk for an extended period of over nine months”.
The Charity Commission also raised questions about the Benedictine monastery’s ancient tradition of hospitality to travellers. A “wayfarer” scheme run at the abbey offered overnight accommodation to travellers but visitors were not subject to background checks despite the proximity of the accommodation to pupils boarding at the school. At one point in 2018, North Yorkshire police became aware that a registered sex offender had stayed overnight. The wayfarer scheme was shut in 2018.
Other scandals to hit the 200-year-old school in recent years included a damning indictment in 2020 from Gavin Williamson, then the education secretary, who said the school’s improvements had been too slow and insufficient after it failed to meet independent school standards and he ordered the St Laurence Trust to stop admitting new pupils — a ban that was later lifted.
These concerns followed a report in 2018 from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) saying there was a culture of acceptance of abuse at Ampleforth, where some of the monks abused children. For more than 40 years, the IICSA said, it prioritised the monks and their own reputations over the protection of children “in order to avoid scandal”.
At the time the Charity Commission intervened, five monks resident at Ampleforth were subject to safeguarding plans or some form of disciplinary restriction.
The Charity Commission says the Ampleforth Abbey Trust’s handling of the allegations during and in the lead-up to the inquiry contributed to the length of the investigation. However, it says that both the Ampleforth Abbey Trust and the St Laurence Educational Trust have now made “positive strides” to improve.
Amy Spiller, head of investigations at the commission, said: “We recognise the progress made by both charities during the inquiry, including recent compliance with regulatory standards, but the findings of our inquiry underscored the importance of maintaining high safeguarding standards and rebuilding public trust.”
This story was updated on 12 July to make clear the inquiry began in 2016 and the report has only just been published.
