What next with the case?

We are still reeling from the shock of unexpectedly losing the case.

We feel very strongly aggrieved by this, though there is no official right of appeal.

The church describes it simply as a 'breakdown of the pastoral relationship'. This leaves my wife in tears, while her persecutor writes triumphant posts about 'defeating the enemy' on the church website.

Our intention is to allow God to provide justice in his time. But it has impossible not to compose (at least in the mind) all the angry and vindictive letters to the Bishop, the PCC, the press etc that come to mind.

At very least, if there has been a 'breakdown of the pastoral relationship' as they admit, and pastoring is what the Vicar is paid to do, then he should still be disciplined and sent for re-training.

Meanwhile, we here that one of his associates, a former curate of the church, has lost her job in the church. As curate she had to do what the vicar said to some degree, but we feel that the Vicar has probably blamed her for much of what went on. This lady was far from perfect in her behaviour towards us, but we would not want her to be his scapegoat.

So it feels as though, like some Mafia don, nothing will stick to him in the courts because he is always able to say taht it was one of his minions taht did it. He is not the Teflon Don, he is the Teflon vicar.

And my wife feels the way that women feel when they have been raped but the police drop the case because there is insufficient evidence, and blame the woman for dressing that way and having a drink. Or the way child abuse victims feel when they pluck up the courage to tell but their case is hushed up to protect people in power.

So what do we do?