Martin Sargeant, Archbishop Mullally and the Dioscese of London "Brain Dump" affair

Contents

Dame Sarah Mullally & King Charles III

1. Introduction
2. Characters
3. Chronology
4. Discussion
5. References

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1. Introduction

The Church of England "Brain Dump" affair of post 2019 has repercussions affecting the role of Dame Sarah Mullally, proclaimed Archbishop of Canterbury on 28 January 2026, and the future of the church itself, raising concerns over its internal operations and the lengths to which it will go to keep secret actions in dealing with difficult issues, including the treatment of its own clergy and the inappropriate revelation of aspects of their personal lives.

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2. Characters

Martin Sargeant

* Dr. Gavin Ashenden (b.1954) - former Anglican bishop and Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II. Currently a Catholic and author, podcaster and commentator.

* Reverend Allan Griffin - priest of the Diocese of London and gay man who acquired AIDS and who subsequently committed suicide as a result of the "Brain Dump" allegations.

* Martin Sargeant, Clerk of the City Church Grants Committee and Head of Operations, Anglican Diocese of London, covering the "Two Cities" of London and Westminster. Occupied the position between 2009 - 2019. Stole church funds, wrote "Brain Dump" report and was sentenced to prison for his crimes.

* Sarah Mullally (b.1962) - Bishop of London (2018 - 2026) and Archbishop of Canterbury (2026+).

* Reverend Paul Williamson - priest of the Diocese of London and heckler at the inauguration of the Archbishop of Canterbury ceremony on 28 January 2026 and who had formerly requested an investigation into the role of Sarah Mullally in the "Brain Dump" dossier's distribution to fellow Church of England clergy and administration personnel.

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3. Chronology

1990

* Martin Sargeant is convicted of theft from an employer. This was only revealed during his subsequent court appearances post 2019.

2009

* January - Martin Sargeant begins stealing from the London Diocesan Fund (LDF) and the Two Cities Churches Fund.

2019

* December - Sargeant ceases stealing from church funds. He leaves the Diocese of London.

* Sargeant creates a "Brain Dump" report containing lies and fabrications about 42 clergy members. Bishop Mullally distributes the report, and later claims never to have read it.

2021

* Sargeant is reported to police by the LDF after a parish raised concerns that it had not received funds allocated to it.

2022

* 7 July - Anugrah Kumar, Former Diocese of London chief charged with $5.9 million fraud, money laundering, The Christian Post, 17 July 2022.

* December - Sargeant is sentenced to five years in prison for a £5.2 million fraud, stealing from the London Diocesan Fund and the Two Cities Churches Fund between January 2009 - December 2019.

2024

* 28 March - Tim Wyatt, In the shadow of St. Paul's, The Fence, 28 March 2024. Refer article of 2 April 2024 for the full text.

* 2 April - Tim Wyatt, The Brain Dump - The full story told for the first time of how a corrupt church official stole millions and ruined the lives of innocent clergy across London, The Critical Friend, 2 April 2024. Text:

Hello! I hope you all had a good Easter. I know I said I would be taking a week off, but in fact a major investigative piece I have been working on for almost a year was finally published on Maundy Thursday. It’s all about a corrupt and deeply malevolent former official at the Diocese of London, in the Church of England, called Martin Sargeant. As well as swindling churches out of millions of pounds, this senior bureaucrat also compiled vicious and mostly untrue rumours about dozens of priests in the diocese, many of whom he had worked closely with for years. And when he was finally forced out, he dripped poison into the ears of his superiors prompting them to draw up a report - known infamously as the ‘Brain Dump’ - into 42 of these mostly innocent vicars based on Sargeant’s lies, innuendo and prurience. As you will see, this had devastating - and ultimately fatal - consequences for the priests involved, and has left a legacy of mistrust, hurt and toxicity which the diocese is still grappling with today. The article which has now been published by The Fence (a small investigative/satirical magazine) is in fact barely half of what I originally wrote as they had to cut lots and lots for space. So, as a special Easter bonus for my paying subscribers only, I’m posting the full-length version below so you can see the full extent of Sargeant’s malign influence and my exploration of how this utterly broken man was able to become so powerful and so destructive within the Church of England.

Martin Sargeant always had a taste for the finer things in life. The squat portly 54-year-old could often be found enjoying luxury hotels and fine dining, despite his modest salary working as a church bureaucrat. His more sober-minded colleagues scratched their heads as the corpulent official endlessly hosted meetings in lavish venues and luxuriated in fancy restaurants, sharing and greedily accumulating gossip. And the more lurid the titbits, the better. As he rose up the ranks at the Diocese of London, one of the most ancient, wealthy and powerful parts of the Church of England, he became indispensable. Not only to the bishops and archdeacons, but to the parish priests who needed the omnipresent fixer to help them repair their crumbling churches and get their balance sheets back into the black.

And so the fleshy Sargeant was courted by clergy. One of those who did so was Philip Warner, who had thought he was getting on splendidly with the self-described Head of Operations. Sargeant had wangled him some money to help patch-up the tower of his medieval church, which nestles against the River Thames in the heart of the City of London. And so the cleric decided to invite the official and his partner to a cosy dinner at the vicarage. Warner worked hard to make Sargeant comfortable, preparing a menu which navigated around his many allergies. The evening was spent merrily enough, and Warner believed he had established a friendly rapport with the diocese’s money man. “I thought he was a patriot for me and well-disposed to my parish,” he recalled, ruefully. So it came as a shock a few years later when the priest received an email from the Diocese of London informing him Sargeant had passed on unsavoury allegations about him during an exit interview. The departing Head of Ops told his bosses on his way out the door Warner was “known to make passes at members of the congregation”. The clergyman was flabbergasted at what he says is a “fantasy” concocted by Sargeant’s overactive and salacious imagination. But what hurts the genteel Warner most is the betrayal: “You’ll think I’m very old-fashioned, but hospitality is a sacred thing.” He had opened his home to the bureaucrat, wined and dined him – even gone to his party to mark his civil partnership. And so he was crestfallen to find out his avaricious colleague had stabbed him in the back. “He sat at my table in my house, enjoyed my food and wine, and then shafted me.” What Warner did not yet know was how just how far Sargeant’s web of deceit and corruption had spread throughout the Diocese of London. How many other innocent priests had been drawn into his lies. How much power and influence – and ill-gotten wealth – the fixer had accumulated over the decades. And how he had used it to such devastating and ultimately tragic effect when he was finally forced out.

Martin Sargeant’s role at the Diocese of London remains so murky there is not even agreement as to when it began; various dates between 1997 and 2003 have been floated in official documents at different times. Either way, by the mid-2000s the Bournemouth-bred administrator was being recommended to parishes by the then-Archdeacon of London Peter Delaney as a financial whizz who could take over managing their books and collecting grants. Over time his role expanded from collecting the parish rates – an archaic and now voluntary tax City churches can still request from local businesses – to becoming a contracted consultant. Sometimes parishes would question what he actually was doing or how much money he was bringing in, but Sargeant became adept at evading scrutiny and steamrollering opposition. Complaints to Delaney and others about his machinations were ignored. “I thought he’s a very helpful chap to have on side,” recalled Warner, whose own parish hired Sargeant to collect their rates back in 2005. He even looked the other way when Sargeant began to massage the boundaries of the parish so he could request the tax from businesses further afield. “Call me a crook but I wasn't going to argue with that.”

2025

* 16 December - Cathy Newman, Scandal surrounds incoming Archbishop of Canterbury over secret dossier, Channel 4 News, 16 December 2025. Text:

Ahead of Bishop Sarah Mullally’s confirmation as Archbishop of Canterbury next month, Channel 4 News has investigated a series of scandals under her leadership in the Diocese of London including a disturbing controversy involving the death of a priest, writes Cathy Newman.

The first female Archbishop of Canterbury will be confirmed in a service next month in St Paul’s Cathedral. Many have applauded Bishop Sarah Mullally’s historic appointment. But Channel 4 News has been investigating a series of scandals on her watch in the Diocese of London. One of the most disturbing controversies involves the death of a priest called Alan Griffin, five years ago.

Father Alan was the chaplain at Exeter University before becoming a rector in the City of London. Nicholas Sabine, who previously worked in compliance for the Bank of England, was a friend of Father Alan’s for half a century. Speaking publicly for the first time, he told us about his old friend. “So I knew him well at university. Although he was an authority figure, he was first and foremost a scholar and an academic. “He was gregarious, witty, amusing, a good memory for people and a great liking for people.” Mr Sabine says Father Alan kept his mental health struggles to himself. “I don’t think that he was the sort of person who wanted to bother others with any trials and tribulations,” he told Channel 4 News. “I think he was a great friend and a great listener and a great adviser. I think he had great self control.”

‘Lurid claims’

Alan Griffin took his own life after his name appeared in a dossier compiled in secret by a former head of operations in the London Diocese. The document contained an array of lurid claims about 42 Church of England clergy members: some referred to criminal convictions and some were serious safeguarding concerns. But others were simply tittle tattle. And fabricated gossip about Father Alan was to have deadly consequences. Mr Nicholas Sabine said: “Well, I think that the accusations, the lies that were spread within the Church about him would have been devastating to him. He had really high standards, he was a very moral person and he would think that other people would believe these lies, would have been devastating to him.” Father Alan had tried to take his life before, when he found out he was HIV positive. Then, just weeks after he discovered his name was in the secret dossier, Father Alan again attempted suicide. Eleven months later, still unaware of the specific allegations against him, he tried a third and final time – and, tragically, was successful.

‘No evidence’

A year after Father Alan’s suicide, Senior Coroner Mary Hassell ruled: “He killed himself because he could not cope with an investigation into his conduct, the detail of and the source for which he had never been told… He did not abuse children. He did not have sex with young people under the age of 18. He did not visit prostitutes. He did not endanger the lives of others by having sex with people whilst an HIV risk…And there was no evidence that he did any of these things.” Nevertheless, the coroner said those were the allegations that the Church of England put in an email to a Catholic diocese after Father Alan converted to Roman Catholicism in 2012. Mr Sabine believes his friend was “crushed” by the institution of the Church. “I worked for banks all my life. I don’t consider the Church of England to be any different from any other major institution. So what went through my mind was, yes, the Church of England and the senior management are no different from a bank or an oil company. People are crushed.

‘Two Cities report’

Martin Sargeant was the man who came up with the original report on the 42 clergy, despite having a guilty secret himself: a conviction for theft in the 1990s. Sargeant was a gambling addict who – it later transpired – had stolen church funds to fuel his habit. He left his post as head of operations in the London Diocese soon after Sarah Mullally became Bishop. But, on his way out, he suggested compiling what he called a “brain dump” for the Archdeacon of London. Those allegations were discussed in nine hours of meetings. The dossier that emerged from those conversations became known as ‘the Two Cities report’, covering Westminster and the City of London.

Bishop Sarah’s account

Another priest who heard he too had been smeared in the report confronted Bishop Sarah in a covertly recorded meeting. In the audio, which Channel 4 News has heard, Bishop Sarah acknowledges she personally received the report, but claims she never read it. She can be heard saying: “When the safeguarding team sorted out what was gossip and wasn’t gossip, I never went back and read that report, because why would I want to know what gossip was?” But the rector of a London church, who was led to believe he was also in the report, disputes Bishop Sarah’s account. Simon Grigg told Channel 4 News: “After the Two Cities report, this is all during lockdown, there was a Zoom meeting because people were expressing a great deal of concern. And during that Zoom meeting, the Bishop of London said she hadn’t read the report. So, I unmuted myself and I said ‘Bishop, that cannot be true’. And she said, ‘oh, yes, it is true’, and I said, ‘but you assured me that I wasn’t in the report and it’s difficult to see how you could assure me that I wasn’t in the Two Cities report if you haven’t read the Two Cities report’. To which she responded that she was ‘aware of its contents’, but I don’t quite see how that works.”

The Diocese of London tonight told Channel 4 News that Bishop Sarah did not read the report because its contents needed to be properly assessed by safeguarding professionals and the Diocesan Registrar. She confirms she was informed which members of the clergy had been named so that she could write to them and meet with them if they wished.

‘Bishop Sarah failed in her duties’

London priest and general synod member the Rev Robert Thompson says whether or not Bishop Sarah read the report, she’s failed in her duties. “The issue is did she read the report? If she didn’t read the report, that shows that she was not taking her responsibility as a Bishop properly. “If she did read the report and did nothing about it all, that also shows that she has done nothing in relation to her proper responsibility as a Bishop about the report,” Rev Robert told us. Mr Sabine said he agreed. “In my experience in banking, such a report would have been very carefully considered by the senior management,” he said. “At some stage it would have been referred up and board members, or whoever they are in the Church of England, would have got to hear about it and would have been asking questions.”

After Father Alan’s death, the coroner took the unusual step of issuing a report to prevent future deaths. In it, she criticised the Church for “systemic and individual failings”, a failure initially to engage fully in the inquest process and “a lack of…meaningful reflection”. The London Diocese, under Bishop Sarah’s leadership, commissioned an independent review recommending wholesale reform. Bishop Sarah herself apologised unreservedly. But Mr Sabine wants the Church to go further. “I think the Church should establish a truly independent investigation throughout the country into records held on individual priests where their lives may have been ruined by the records and the use of this gossip and maybe lies and those priests should be compensated or their lives should be put right,” he told us. He says he was angry after his friend’s death but now prefers to remember the happy times: the “perfect job” Father Alan found as a priest on cruise ships. “He combined his pastoral care and giving the services on board with lecturing on the classics, his area of academic expertise,” Mr Sabine said.

Sarah Mullally was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury after the unprecedented resignation of her predecessor – who admitted failing to do enough to follow up on reports of abuse. Now, before she’s even confirmed as Justin Welby’s successor, the Bishop of London is facing troubling questions about her own failure to act. Bishop Sarah told us today: “In 2022, following the publication of the independent report into Fr Alan Griffin’s death, I apologised unreservedly to his family and friends. I repeat that apology today. Ever since I became Bishop of London in 2018, and before, I have spoken publicly about the clear need for independent scrutiny of safeguarding across the Church of England. That is why I commissioned the Robson Report into Fr Alan’s death, to examine exactly what went wrong in the tragic run-up to November 2020.The public recommendations from the independent report in 2022 have been vital ever since in driving forward change across the Diocese of London. That change has been embedded in the Diocesan Safeguarding Team today, as has the need for continuous safeguarding improvement and culture change. Nevertheless, I understand why now, as I prepare to become Archbishop of Canterbury, there will be renewed scrutiny of past cases, and especially my role. As I said when announced as the next Archbishop on the 3rd October 2025, we must all be willing to have light shone on our actions, regardless of our role in the Church. I continue to be determined to improve safeguarding across the Church of England. In this Diocese, as part of an ongoing programme across all dioceses, we have recently undergone an independent safeguarding audit by INEQE. We will want to use its findings and recommendations, which will be made public, to build on the progress made to date.”

The Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop Joanne Grenfell told us: “As Bishop of Stepney, I worked alongside Bishop Sarah in the Diocese of London from 2019 to 2025. During that time, I witnessed her commitment to good safeguarding, to ensuring proper safeguarding systems and processes, and to shaping a healthier culture across the Diocese. Notable changes included increasing resourcing for the diocesan safeguarding team and creating a multi-background, skilled team with excellent oversight of casework and decision making. Governance was also strengthened, with regular oversight and scrutiny from an independently chaired Diocesan Safeguarding Advisory Panel and from the Bishop’s Council. The Diocese is a large and complex organisation, and Bishop Sarah clearly inherited a culture where, in places, light had not been shone on unacceptable behaviour. She was utterly committed and principled in setting about changing that culture and ensuring that any concerns were addressed with rigour. In her response to recent news reports, I continue to see Bishop Sarah’s commitment to honesty and transparency in safeguarding, a commitment which I am glad she will also bring to the role of Archbishop of Canterbury.”

* 17 December - Exclusive: Scandal surrounds incoming Archbishop of Canterbury over handling of secret dossier, 17 December 2025, Channel 4 News, YouTube, duration: 8.59 minutes.

2026

* 28 January - Sarah Mullally is installed as the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey. She is heckled during the ceremony by ......

* 29 January - "Heckled then pushed down stairs!" New Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally's confirmation drama, Dan Wootton Outspoken, 29 January 2026, YouTube, duration: 17.40 minutes.

* 1 February - Gavin Ashenden, The suicide, wokery and incompetence that has driven the protest against the election of the 'Archbishop of Canterbury: Can Sarah Mullally be consecrated without destroying her church?, Dr Gavin Ashenden - New English Catholic, 1 February 2026, YouTube, duration: 36.28 minutes.

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4. Discussion

The Church of England "Brain Dump" affair is merely a precursor to the current (April 2026) controversy around the realisation of the withdrawal of King Charles III as "Defender of the Church" in personal preference for an allegiance towards Islam.

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5. References

Ashenden, Gavin, The suicide, wokery and incompetence that has driven the protest against the election of the 'Archbishop of Canterbury: Can Sarah Mullally be consecrated without destroying her church?, Dr Gavin Ashenden - New English Catholic, 1 February 2026, YouTube, duration: 36.28 minutes. 

Kumar, Anugrah, Former Diocese of London chief charged with $5.9 million fraud, money laundering, The Christian Post, 17 July 2022.

Newman, Cathy, Scandal surrounds incoming Archbishop of Canterbury over secret dossier, Channel 4 News, 16 December 2025.  

-----, Exclusive: Scandal surrounds incoming Archbishop of Canterbury over handling of secret dossier, 17 December 2025, Channel 4 News, YouTube, duration: 8.59 minutes. 

Wikipedia, Gavin Ashenden, Wikipedia, accessed 31 March 2026.

-----, Sarah Mullally, Wikipedia, accessed 31 March 2026.

Wootton, Dan, "Heckled then pushed down stairs!" New Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally's confirmation drama, Dan Wootton Outspoken, 29 January 2026, YouTube, duration: 17.40 minutes.

Wyatt, Tim, In the shadow of St. Paul's, The Fence, 28 March 2024.

-----, The Brain Dump - The full story told for the first time of how a corrupt church official stole millions and ruined the lives of innocent clergy across London, The Critical Friend, 2 April 2024.

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Last updated: 31 March 2026

Michael Organ, Australia