Spiritual abuse is enough on its own. It is one of the six named categories of abuse in Section 4(2) of the Abuse Redress Measure 2025, in its own right, and you do not need any other category of abuse to have happened for your application to be considered. The full list, and the eligibility test that sits alongside it, is on our who can claim page.

For now, yes, but it is expected to close to new applications on 1 October 2026, with a successor survivor support fund being developed. If the interim scheme may be relevant to you, the timing matters. See our Interim Support Scheme page for the current detail.

No. As of 17 July 2026 the scheme is not open. The Abuse Redress Rules 2026 were approved by the General Synod on 14 July 2026 and await final parliamentary approval before the scheme can begin accepting applications.

Yes. Section 23(1) covers the cost of legal advice and assistance for the purposes of the Measure, and Section 23(3) covers the lawyer acting on an application or an appeal. The decision on whether to accept an award matters, because accepting gives up your civil rights under Section 11, and the cost of that advice is inside the scheme’s funding.

Yes. A civil court claim runs through litigation, with formal disclosure, expert evidence, and the possibility of a trial, and it faces limitation rules the scheme does not have. Winston Solicitors advises on the scheme route only, not on civil claims; for civil advice you should speak to an independent specialist civil claims solicitor in England and Wales. Our scheme versus civil claim page compares the two routes.

No. The Church of England Redress Scheme is a separate route from a civil claim through the courts, with its own rules and its own standard of proof. If you want to understand the court route as well, that is a matter for an independent specialist civil claims solicitor, as Winston Solicitors focus specifically on the redress scheme.

There is no limit on how long ago the abuse happened. The scheme, which covers abuse connected to the Church of England across England and Wales, has an application window once it opens, and that window applies to every application, including dependant applications. Our time limits page sets out how the window works and where the real deadline sits.

No. The date of the abuse does not matter. Survivors of abuse from any decade can apply on the same basis. Under Section 3 of the Abuse Redress Measure 2025, the conditions for applying do not include the date the abuse happened.

No. The scheme asks about the abuser’s role in the Church and whether the abuse was connected to that role. It does not ask when the abuse happened. Survivors from any decade can apply on the same basis under the Church of England Redress Scheme. This comes from the conditions for entitlement in the Abuse Redress Measure 2025. The full eligibility test lives at who can claim.

No. The date of the abuse does not matter. Survivors of abuse from any decade can apply on the same basis. Under Section 3 of the Abuse Redress Measure 2025, the conditions for applying do not include the date the abuse happened.

Yes.

You will not get a bill from Winston Solicitors at any point in your Church of England redress claim. Your solicitor’s fees are paid separately by the Archbishops’ Council under the scheme rules, and your award reaches you in full. Full detail on how this works.

Yes. The right to continue an application belongs first to the surviving partner or a surviving child, and it does not depend on a will existing. Where it is the estate’s personal representatives who take the application forward, the Rules allow for a grant of probate or of administration, and administration is the route where there is no will. Winston Solicitors can tell you which route fits your circumstances, wherever you are in England and Wales.

No. Your first conversation with a scheme specialist can happen at any time, and gathering the evidence behind an older claim often takes weeks or months. The survivors who walk in with a prepared application on day one of the scheme have a smoother path than those who wait. Your first conversation with Winston Solicitors is always free.

Reading about this choice can be hard, especially the parts that ask you to think about evidence, severity, and how the Church responded. If you would like to talk to someone right now, independently of any claim, these organisations are there for you:

Samaritans. Free, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Call 116 123 from any phone in the UK, or email jo@samaritans.org.
NAPAC, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. Free support line for adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse. Call 0808 801 0331 or visit napac.org.uk.
Safe Spaces. The Church of England and Catholic Church’s joint support service for survivors of church-related abuse. Confidential, independent of the Church’s own processes. Call 0300 303 1056 or visit safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk.

These services are independent of Winston Solicitors and of the Church of England Redress Scheme. You do not need to be considering a claim to use them.

No. The scheme does not require the person responsible to be alive, charged, or convicted. Your application is about what happened to you and the Church’s responsibility, not about pursuing an individual through the courts.

Yes, a claim can still be made if the perpetrator has since died.

Yes. A not guilty verdict means a criminal court was not sure beyond reasonable doubt. The redress scheme decides on the balance of probabilities, a lower standard, so an acquittal does not prevent a successful redress application.

Discovering the abuse after the death does not rule you out. The dependant route does not require the abuse to have been reported, disclosed, or acted on during your relative’s lifetime. What matters is whether they would have been entitled to claim, whether you fit the dependant definition, and the injury or loss the abuse has caused you, including harm that only surfaced when you learned of it.

In a civil claim, these costs can come out of your settlement. Under the Church of England Redress Scheme there is no court hearing in the usual sense, and the costs that would normally count as disbursements in civil cases either do not arise or are covered by the scheme’s own funding under Section 23(2) and (4). If anything specific to your case falls outside the standard scope, Winston Solicitors will tell you in writing before any cost is incurred.

Nobody can give you a reliable list yet. The Measure requires exceptional circumstances for a dependant application to be granted but does not define them, and the Archbishops’ Council has the power to publish guidance on what qualifies. A specialist solicitor can give you a clear early view of how your family’s situation is likely to sit once that guidance is available.

The Synod approved the Abuse Redress Rules 2026, the detailed rules that govern how the scheme operates: how to apply, how awards are assessed, how appeals are handled, and how information is protected. Approval by Synod is a milestone, but the Rules still need final parliamentary approval to take effect.

It means the role is what made the abuse possible: the position gave the person access to you, authority over you, or a standing in your life that they then misused. Where the person also held a role outside the Church of England, the Measure asks which role the conduct was more closely connected to, and if the outside role was the closer connection, the test is not met. The redress body decides that on the facts of each case, so an unusual set-up is a reason to ask, not to assume the answer is no.