48 The Times Magazinen the last Tuesday of April the
Very Reverend Professor Martyn
Percy left Christ Church for the
last time. Dean Percy would have
been entitled to remain head of
the historic Oxford college and
cathedral until the day before his
71st birthday, which was still more
than a decade away. Instead, he
was departing early with a seven-
figure sum deposited in his bank account by
his former employers, with whom he had been
in an extraordinary feud for four hellish years.
On one side was Christ Church’s governing
body, led by its senior dons or “censors” and
a clandestine group of their predecessors in
the role, “the ex-censors”. Together they had
persuaded academic and cathedral colleagues
that Percy must go. Twice they hit him
with the would-be killer charge of “immoral,
scandalous and disgraceful” conduct, which
if upheld would have had him fired. In total,
Percy would be accused of 41 offences, all
dismissed by independent bodies.
The allegation that gained most public
notoriety came in October 2020. Percy was
accused of briefly stroking a woman’s hair in
Christ Church Cathedral. Although both the
church and the police declined to pursue her
claim, Christ Church found it believable. It still
hung in the air on February 4 this year, the
afternoon Christ Church and Percy agreed to
settle. By the terms of the deal, Percy would
not face an internal tribunal into the hair-
stroking claim, nor would he need to prove
his sanity before a medical board. In return he
dropped his employment tribunal cases – for
his treatment as a “whistleblower” and for
the repayment of his legal fees – against the
college. The female complainant received a
sum from Christ Church and, while conceding
nothing, settled her claim against Percy.
Still just about standing at the end of
all this was Percy, his wife, Emma, who is a
chaplain at another Oxford college, and a small
group of supporters who had come to believe
Percy was the victim of a puzzling vendetta- puzzling because no one seemed quite able
to explain what terrible offence Percy had
committed in his eight years as dean.
“The coup to remove me began in earnest,
I think, probably in 2017 and early 2018,” says
Percy, “and that coup was absolutely relentless
in terms of levelling false accusations, bogus
charges – absurd things – using the statutes
and other levers to try to destroy me
financially, reputationally and psychologically.”
Percy could not give interviews while at
the college; now that he has left, at last he can.
Since he is still in Oxford, which is where I live,
I invite him round to my place. He looks like a
man who has been through the wringer. He is,
he says, 5ft 6in on a good day, but whereas the
short beard that half-conceals a childhood scar
once covered a full face, these days Percy
is very thin. In the depths of the dispute he
struggled to eat enough to reach 8½st.
“Hairgate”, as people call it, crashed into
the story in October 2020, two years into the
row: a concrete, understandable complaint of
misconduct. The woman claimed that after
a service in a semi-enclosed area in Christ
Church Cathedral, Percy had complimented
her on her hair and then stroked it for ten
seconds without permission. He admitted
the compliment (her hair was being cut
for charity), but denied the touching. The
police interviewed Percy under caution. They
decided not to press charges, placing the
matter “on file” for lack of evidence. The
following May, Dame Sarah Asplin, the
president of Church of England tribunals,
effectively reached the same conclusion. “The
incident itself was extremely short, the alleged
hair stroking even shorter and the language
and conduct as a whole was not overtly sexual.”
On settlement day in February, the
complainant issued a statement via Christ
Church, acknowledging it was her word against
his. “I am acutely aware that this is a situation
faced by many women who bring complaints
of a sexual nature,” she said. “I know what
I experienced on that day and I want to
ensure that no other student or member of
staff has to go through the ordeal that I have.”
I ask Percy what happened. He starts by
saying that on September 8, 2020, the Church
of England’s national safeguarding team had
cleared him of allegations brought by Christ
Church of supposed misconduct. These were
not complaints of sexual misbehaviour, but
concerned his dealings with students who had
in previous years come to him, as dean, in
confidence to discuss incidents that had
happened to them. The church safeguarding
team had dismissed all four allegations.
A month later, at ten on a Tuesdaymorning, the cathedral sub-dean knocked
on the deanery door. He told Percy there
had been an allegation of a sexual nature.
“I asked what that was and he refused to
say. He told me it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Percy only discovered what the complaint
was when he was interviewed by Kate Wood,
a former police officer who specialised in
sexual abuse cases and had been hired by
Christ Church. In her final report she called
the complainant’s account “credible, detailed
and consistent”. Percy thinks Wood’s report
deeply flawed: parts of his statement had
been removed and she had not spoken to
the witnesses he had suggested.
Did he touch the woman’s hair?
“No, not at all. I was concentrating
on putting eyedrops in, which is a
two-handed job.”
How long was he in that semi-private
space with her?
“Oh, I don’t know. Less than
a minute.”
Women, I tell him, say they suffer such
microaggressions against their sex all the
time: it may just be a pat on the head to him;
to me, it was a deeply offensive intrusion into
my privacy. He can see that, can’t he?
“I can, absolutely, and I was quite prepared
to apologise to this individual if there was
anything I had said, which of course would
have been unintended, that had caused her any
upset or distress. But it was all taken out of her
hands, heavily weaponised, and then talked up
as a full-blown sexual assault.”
But did he touch her hair?
“No.”
“Safeguarding” – defined by NHS England
as “protecting a citizen’s health, wellbeing
and human rights; enabling them to live free
from harm, abuse and neglect” – runs through
this story like a treacherous river. It is also
its source, back in 2016.O
Percy in Christ Church Cathedral, 2017.
Right, from top: Christ Church college;
Professor David Hine, one of Percy’s opponentsSHUTTERSTOCK, GETTY, ADRIAN SHERRATT