Thursday 20 August 2026

This is a very personal post, but one that I feel really cannot be left unsaid. It is 23 years ago exactly that one of the most traumatic events took place in my life. I was 30 years old at the time and it is the reason my then wife and I left Wales for Kent. We were told not to talk about what happened and for over 20 years we kept silent, at enormous emotional and psychological cost.

After I left the University of Kent in 2024, the events of 2003-4 came flooding back, and I have just sent the following letter to the Vice Chancellor of University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and copied in various figures from the media, church and Welsh government, and am in the process of finishing off a memoir that talks about what happened. The other person at the heart of this chooses to remain anonymous, so please can I ask that even if you know, or think you know, who that person is, you don’t use their name in any comments. Their vulnerability and wish to remain anonymous is quite understandable in the light of all they have gone through in the last two decades.

This is a long letter and I don’t expect everyone to read this, but it may help explain what happened all those years ago and why I was never able to tell people the real reason we left Trinity College Carmarthen in 2004. The recipient is the current Vice-Chancellor who was not at the institution when the allegations arose 23 years ago yesterday.

Dear Professor Evans,

I hope this finds you well. I am writing again in the week that marks twenty-three years since false allegations were brought against my then-wife (referred to here as X, as she wishes to remain anonymous) at Trinity College Carmarthen.

I do so with regret, but also with a continued hope that the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, under new leadership, might yet be willing to engage with the human and institutional consequences of what happened in 2003-04. When I wrote to you last December, I did so because I regarded the change in leadership as an opportunity: a chance for UWTSD to look again at events that occurred under the previous administration, and to do so with a measure of independence, fairness and humanity. I was therefore disappointed that my request for a meeting was rejected. It took considerable nerve to write in the first place.

X and I have never recovered from what happened. In X’s case, the consequences have been life-changing. She has not worked since leaving Trinity; her physical and mental health and confidence collapsed; she has never regained the ability to trust people as she did before; and she remains unable to talk about the events without distress. This was not a passing employment dispute. It was an allegation of criminality, made against a woman who maintained her innocence throughout and whose life was then permanently altered by the manner in which that allegation was handled.

I ask you to consider this in human terms. If a member of your own family had been falsely accused of a crime, if the police had been brought in, if their mental health and wellbeing had then deteriorated dramatically, and if they had been warned that speaking about what had happened could damage future employment, would you regard silence as an acceptable outcome? And if silence is deemed the best approach, whom has that silence really served: the person harmed, or those whose actions brought the allegation into being?

I appreciate that these events took place before your tenure. That is precisely why I had hoped you might be able to look at them differently. The previous administration was in place when the allegations were made. New leadership has the opportunity to ask what happened, why it happened, and why two people were left to carry the consequences for more than two decades while those at the heart of the matter were never required to account for their actions.

There are serious unresolved questions. Contemporary records indicate that the College had already engaged with the police before X was led to believe that matters were still at an internal, fact-finding stage. Statements and minutes appear to contain significant discrepancies, and the sum of money allegedly stolen appears to have changed on at least two occasions. One set of minutes, written by a member of staff who still appears to be working at the institution, records the fictitious claim that X admitted amending slips. X made no such admission. That claim matters because it appears to have created a paper trail consistent with what had already been said to the police. This is not a minor clerical issue. It goes to the heart of how an allegation became criminalised.

A record was created. Claims were made. Statements were supplied. The matter was escalated to the police. Then, when the case did not unfold as expected, your predecessor wrote to the police to ask for the case to be dropped, and refused to cooperate with the police investigation. Responsibility was then shifted to the police, and the subsequent apology from the police to the then Personnel Officer for “misrepresenting” her position has never made sense to us, given the role the College played in setting the process in motion.

I have tried other routes. I have contacted the police. Last year I established contact with the officer who investigated the case in 2003. I have pursued subject access routes. I have also raised the matter with the Archbishop of Wales. I have reached a point where I feel profoundly let down by every formal channel that ought to have been capable of taking this seriously.

I hold some of the original witness statements, the police interview tapes, your predecessor’s letter refusing to cooperate further with the police, and the police apology to the then Personnel Officer. One of the former members of staff who gave a statement also believes that we are right to pursue this matter all these years later. There are discrepancies that deserve to be examined. There is enough material here, in my view, to justify at least an independent conversation, if not a formal review.

What I am seeking is closure, accountability and an explanation. I want those at the heart of this case to come forward and explain what they did and why they did it. I want to understand how X came to be accused, how particular statements were produced, why the narrative shifted, and why no one has ever reached out to us in twenty-three years to acknowledge the damage done.

I am also bound to say that I cannot understand why UWTSD would refuse even to meet while one of its current employees was involved in producing material, twenty-three years ago, that I believe gave false evidence to the police. I recognise that the University may wish to rely on time limits, missing records, or changes in personnel. But time limits do not settle the moral question. Missing records do not erase lived consequences. New leadership cannot be responsible for having caused the original harm, but it can decide whether to continue avoiding it.

For that reason, and with regret, I am copying this letter to members of the media and political representatives, as well as those in the police and the Church with whom I have already been in contact. I do so not because I wish to inflame matters, but because every private route I have attempted has led either to refusal, procedural deflection, or silence. If the University is unwilling to investigate or meet, then I believe there is a legitimate public interest in asking whether others will take this forward.

I would still welcome a meeting with you, or with an appropriate senior representative of the University, together with X if she feels able to attend. At the very least, I ask that UWTSD commission an independent review of the surviving material and provide a clear account of the institution’s role in the allegations made against X in 2003-04.

After twenty-three years, this is not an unreasonable request. X lost her work, her confidence, her trust in people, and much of her life to the aftermath of this allegation. We were the ones who left Wales, something which in retrospect we should not have needed to do, leaving behind family and friends at a time when we needed them most. We were the ones who kept silent. We were the ones who carried the consequences. I am asking now, plainly and firmly, for those who remain protected by institutional distance to do what should have been done a long ago: meet us, listen, explain, and acknowledge what happened.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Chris Deacy

Honorary Reader in Theology and Religious Studies, University of Kent

(Religious Studies Lecturer at Trinity College Carmarthen, 2001-4)