Pioneer UK, a network of churches, has publicly apologised to those impacted by damaging and harmful practices perpetuated throughout its ministry by its late founder Gerald Coates.
The apology on Thursday came after the organisation’s trustees, Pioneer Trust (PT), officially accepted the findings of an independent safeguarding review into its past and present ministry practices.
The review launched last year, when a complaint was made following Coates’ death in 2022.
The investigation, undertaken by Christian Safeguarding Services, involved hearing from more than 30 individuals, many of whom reported experiencing harm due to inappropriate ministry practices.
"To those respondents, we want to thank them for their bravery in telling their stories and offer a heartfelt and sober apology. We are so sorry,” stated Ness Wilson, leader of Pioneer's National Leadership Team, and Steve Clifford, chair of the Board of Trustees.
“We hope that having your story heard, believed, and validated - together with this apology and a commitment to implementing the report’s recommendations - goes some way towards a measure of healing."
A significant part of the report focused on Coates’ actions, revealing a pattern where his ministry and pastoral practice did not meet expected standards, particularly concerning appropriate boundaries. The review highlighted instances where Coates initiated contact with young individuals under the guise of offering spiritual guidance. This behaviour was identified as a safeguarding concern that should have been reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO).
In 2013, Coates, who in the early days of his ministry was vocal about his past same-sex attraction, published a book called Sexual Healing after becoming concerned about the effects a sexualised society was having on Christians.
The report highlighted a few areas of particular concern which could have stemmed from his intense interest in the subject and his past.
One was that during public events, Coates would prophesy and pray over young men, and “it was felt that the intensity and duration of these prophesy and prayer times was not in line with expectations”.
After praying or prophesying over them, he would then try to contact them, offering spiritual mentoring.
The report added: “Once contact had been established, he would start very quickly to question them about their use of pornography, masturbation etc. He would ask detailed questions about the type of pornography and about their accompanying sexual activity. This would happen without invitation in a conversation that the young man believed related to the prophetic word that they had previously been given. On some occasions, Gerald apparently approached people indicating that he could be a father figure to them and that he believed God had called him to this”.
Another concern was Coates giving people a “holy kiss” on the cheek which the report said is “not common in UK culture; particularly so when interacting with someone previously unknown to an individual”.
It added: “Some of these felt violated by the “holy kiss” but felt unable to object.”
The report said most of the allegations involved young adults, however, there were two or three who were in their mid-teens, and one aged 12 or 13 who say they were contacted via social media.
It was noted that in 2014, some PT leaders became concerned about the way Coates related to young men. It was stressed that concern was not that he behaved in sexually inappropriate way, “but rather that his conduct did not meet the standards expected at the time, that he was not respecting personal boundaries, and that his behaviour could be misunderstood as having a sexual motivation.”
PT acknowledged that despite previous attempts to modify Coates' behaviour based on advice from external safeguarding advisors Thirtyone:eight (formerly CCPAS), these efforts were insufficient.
The report said that Coates’ death made it impossible to fully understand his motives or intentions.
The report gave 14 recommendations including PT giving itself a rigorous self-audit of its safeguarding arrangements and developing robust codes of conduct and ministry practice standards.
In response to the review's findings and recommendations, PT expressed its commitment to learning from this experience and improving its safeguarding policies and procedures.
The organisation said it aims to ensure high standards of safeguarding across all its activities and clarify the relationship between Pioneer and its member churches.
"We recognise the real challenge to all of us in leadership roles within the Church as we humbly assess our own failures and areas of brokenness," said Wilson and Clifford in a joint statement.
Click here to read the full report.
