Voyeur rector’s seven-year ban

A clergyman who was convicted of filming men using a public toilet in a shopping centre has been barred from ministry as a priest in the Church of England for seven years.

The Very Rev Martin Thrower, 56, who was rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, admitted at Norwich Crown Court to two counts of voyeurism and was sentenced to a suspended fourmonth jail term in August 2017.

The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich conducted an internal disciplinary procedure afterwards, but the outcome was not published at the time.

Thrower was removed from his post as rector of Hadleigh and barred from ministry as a priest in the Church of England for seven years in October.

John Howard, spokesman for the diocese, said Thrower could apply to return to ministry after the seven-year ban but that an independent risk assessment would need to be carried out.