While the English Church shared in celebrating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, not least its own part in gaining those rights for everyone, the Church of England was reversing the principle that people are innocent until proved guilty. Such is the pressure of today's concern about child abuse, historic and present. As evidence mounts of the injustices done by false accusations against some high-profile public figures, we are less aware of the toll on other individuals whose turmoil does not hit the headlines. Those teaching and caring are often targeted for claims, and the Church of England has been toughening its procedures.

The spat at the 2011 Conservative Party conference between the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor showed how contentious human rights legislation remains. Although Theresa May portrayed the claimant as having won the Article 8 right to remain in Britain because of his relationship with his cat, the judge had simply accepted the cat as one piece of evidence that the claimant had a genuine family life with his partner. The Home Secretary's principal point was that the right to respect for private and family life under section 8.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) should be read in conjunction with section 8.2, which adds that such rights should not be overridden except where it is

I first came to know asylum seekers in 2000 when working at Newcastle Cathedral. First a Rwandan joined our worship, and later an Iranian. I never asked if the Rwandan was Hutu or Tutsi since the massacres there were too complex for labelling. We knew his family were prominent French-speaking Anglicans, and that in the camps he had become separated from his wife and children. A year or so later my wife recognised his wife's name in an account by a senior Mothers' Union lady of her visit to Africa and to a refugee camp in which his wife had formed an MU branch. Eventually his wife and children were able to join him on Tyneside.