There is something deeply unsettling about the pattern we keep witnessing.

Within days of renewed public and political pressure around the Epstein papers, police move to arrest Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Yet testimony from women and girls alleging sexual abuse connected to Jeffrey Epstein has been in the public domain for years. Depositions. Court documents. Detailed accounts.

Why does accountability appear to move faster when the allegation concerns public office than when it concerns violence against women and girls?

This is not about trial by social media. Due process matters. Evidence matters. The presumption of innocence matters.

But so does pattern. So does priority. So does what a society appears to treat as urgent.

In Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Roberts Giuffre writes with devastating clarity about grooming, coercion, and the way power structures protect themselves. She reflects on how the powerful “close ranks,” and how victims are often treated as disposable — credible enough to generate headlines, but not credible enough to generate justice.

She describes feeling like “nobody’s girl” — belonging to no one, protected by no one, believed by few.

That phrase lingers.

Because when arrests seem to hinge more readily on constitutional propriety than on alleged sexual exploitation, it sends a message — intended or not — about hierarchy.

It suggests that the integrity of office provokes urgency. The integrity of women and girls, less so.

And before those of us in the Church nod along too quickly — we should pause.

We are not immune to the same pattern.

There are countless stories — some public, many quieter — of Christian leaders acting inappropriately, exploiting trust, manipulating spiritual language to control, or using their platform to access those who were vulnerable. In too many cases, concerns are minimised. Whispers are dismissed. Complainants are urged toward “grace” and “forgiveness” before truth has even been established.

Sometimes the leader steps down. Sometimes there is an internal review. Rarely is there criminal accountability.

Too often the instinct is institutional protection rather than survivor protection.

And the message that sends is painfully familiar: Reputation matters more than harm. Continuity matters more than courage. Power closes ranks.

As a Pastor, that troubles me deeply. Because when the Church mirrors the world’s power dynamics rather than confronting them, we undermine our own gospel.

Theologically, this is not peripheral.

Throughout Scripture, God’s judgement falls most sharply on those who exploit the vulnerable while performing public righteousness. The prophets are relentless about it. Jesus reserves his fiercest language not for the openly immoral, but for religious leaders who “tie up heavy burdens” and protect their own status.

If we proclaim a God who sides with the oppressed, but our structures instinctively shield the influential, then something has gone wrong at a foundational level.

For me justice is integral to salvation — not an optional social add-on, but woven into what redemption actually means. Salvation is not merely private forgiveness; it is the restoration of right relationship, the dismantling of domination, the reordering of power.

If that is true, then how we respond to abuse is not a PR issue. It is a theological test.

Survivors are watching (as are perpetrators).

Women in our pews are watching. Young girls in our youth groups are watching. Those already unsure whether they will be believed are watching.

When arrests move swiftly for institutional misconduct but stall around alleged sexual exploitation, it raises a hard question:

What do we truly consider intolerable?

If we want survivors to come forward, to trust systems, to speak — then our public actions must demonstrate that their dignity carries weight equal to any office, title, or pedigree.

Anything less reinforces the silence that abusers rely on.

Justice cannot be more animated by threats to institutions than by violence against bodies.

If it is, then we must ask — as a society, and as a Church — what story our priorities are telling.