Letters

'Usually, they leave without trouble'

by Michael Ainsworth

ON WEDNESDAY 5 March at 7 p.m. I went out, as I often do, to investigate a disturbance in a blind alley at the side of our church, where groups of teenagers congregate.

Usually, when I ask them to leave, they move on without trouble, knowing that they have been spotted, and this helps to keep our site secure. But on this occasion they went straight for me, first pushing me around and then punching my head forcefully and repeatedly (the oldest one) and kicking me (the smallest one); there was at least one other in the group.

The attackers swore repeatedly and called me a “fucking priest”. I was wearing my collar, and make no apology for doing so. When they finally left, after six or seven minutes of assault, an Asian boy and girl came to help me.

The girl kindly retrieved my spectacles and gave them back to me when it was all over; the boy called round a few days later to see if I was OK. I went indoors and rang for an ambulance. They checked me over at the Royal London and brought me home.

This is more or less as much as I could remember, or see, without my glasses, when the police interviewed me. Because it happened on church premises and involved a priest, and the perpetrators were Asian, the rules required that it was logged as a “faith hate” incident.

This may or may not turn out to be the case: groups of white youths commit similar crimes against churches. And only if they are caught and tried, on the basis of the evidence which the police have gathered, will we know whether they are Muslims in any real sense of the term.

But it is important that church-based attacks are treated with the same seriousness as those against mosques and synagogues and other places of worship, especially in an area like Tower Hamlets.

What I can say is that details included in some of the press accounts are false. No baseball bats or weapons were involved, only fists and feet. I was not discovered on the ground; I did not fall, and I summoned help myself. I cannot say if drink or drugs were involved; it’s possible that it was a spill-over from an argument elsewhere.

I carried on working as normal for the next week, explaining the cause of my black eyes and bruises at funerals, in school, and even at engagements at Lincoln’s Inn and St Paul’s Cathedral. But then I had persistent bleeding, and my return to hospital turned into a four-day stay.

It was then that the story broke, first in the local press as the result of a priest-colleague’s article, and then nationally, and even internationally.

Some members of the congregation were enticed into making comments. My greatest sadness in all of this is the devastating effect of this incident on them, as we struggle to build good relationships. They do not deserve this.

I shall not be drawn into comment by the national media. They have their own agendas, as have the bloggers, both professional and amateur, who are using the story for their own ends and drawing bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions. It has even been claimed that I was targeted because of comments I made at an obscure Select Committee hearing about state funding of churches two years ago.

Their interest, we hope, will wane; but local people are left to pick up the pieces, and the issues remain pressing and sensitive, which is why I have agreed to give this account.

I want to emphasise that community relations in this area are, on the whole, good, and worth working at — which is what nearly everyone I have spoken to is committed to doing. This is one reason why it is important to seek out the perpetrators, who are not typical.

Across the borough, and especially now at St George’s, we shall be reviewing churchyard security. The police have been very helpful, and we hope that the Council will also play their part.

I am returning to work in Holy Week, when Christians pray that we may “follow the example of Christ’s patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection”. The belief that good can come out of suffering, and new life out of a painful engagement with truth, is not a glib response to the evil and wickedness of a broken world, but a mark of faithfulness to the love that God shows to all his children.

Canon Michael Ainsworth is Rector of St George's in the East, Tower Hamlets