Another first, for the Yanks to copy.
Jimbert
Swinging biker vicar punished after parishioners complain about her wild ways
By Martin Beckford and Nick Britten
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 12/11/2008
Her fellow clergy may have turned the other cheek when they saw their new female vicar wore leather jackets and rode a motorbike.
But when the Rev Teresa Davies admitted after a Christmas lunch that she and her husband had an open relationship and enjoyed wife-swapping holidays in the south of France, her colleagues' Christian ideals of tolerance and forgiveness were tested to the limit.
Her parish also took objection when the 37-year-old mother-of-two also held three church services while drunk, smelling of alcohol and swaying from side to side, with the result that the choir "fell apart under her direction".
At a tribunal yesterday, Oxford-educated Mrs Davies was found to have "acted in a manner that is unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in holy orders" and was barred from ministry for 12 years.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Peterborough said: "It is always a matter of regret when any clergy fail to set an example of Christian behaviour in word and deed. We are very sorry that Teresa Davies has failed to set such an example."
Mrs Davies, who studied theology at St Stephen's House, part of the Oxford University, was ordained as a Church of England priest in 2002 and first worked as a curate at a church in Worcester.
She was appointed Team Vicar in Daventry, Northants, in 2006 and was given "special responsibility for children's work", becoming a governor at a local primary school. But at a Christmas lunch that year she told two fellow priests that she and her husband Mick, an IT consultant, had been on trips without their children in an area of the south of France "noted for the casual exchange of sexual partners".
"The witnesses claimed [she] had explained that she and her husband sought sexual gratification this way, and felt no guilt because both partners had agreed to taking part," the tribunal heard.
Mrs Davies later claimed she was just trying to be "laddish" and "shocking" but rumours spread in the parish about her open marriage. Further investigation uncovered 12 pages of comments on websites "for sexual contact", involving a couple called "Tess and Mick, Daventry".
She admitted she and her husband were swingers who met strangers for sex, with the tribunal concluding her behaviour was "scandalous and a serious breach of the guidelines".
In addition, at an evensong service in September 2006 a clergyman noticed Mrs Davies "smelled heavily of alcohol and her appearance was dishevelled", and could not lead the choir as required.
Canon Owen Page said: "Musically, it was chaotic, and deeply embarrassing." At evensong later that year, another vicar said she did not appear to know the order of service and had to keep asking for help.
During an Advent service, three people noticed she smelled of drink. "She was unsteady on her feet sitting in the congregation, at times with her head in her hands, clearly unwell (with a hangover as she admitted after the service)," the tribunal heard.
After the complaints were made against her, Mrs Davies fled the parish with her husband to a new home in Birmingham where she is now training to become an RE teacher. She turned up to a disciplinary hearing late, and without any other relevant papers, but admitted the allegations against her very serious and regretted her actions and the fact that she had not sought help for her drinking problem.
Mrs Davies married her husband Mick, a 39-year-old former RAF engineer, in 1989. He runs an IT firm called Mad Computer Solutions from their home and the couple are fanatical motorcyclists.
Last year they completed the 8,000-mile Round Britain Rally, while messages on internet chatrooms show they regularly spend weekends riding around the countryside on their Honda Blackbird, staying at campsites.
One friend wrote: "I was perfectly alright until Mick and Teresa forced me to drink beer all morning, (night had already finished by the time we got back)."
Steve Nightingale, a neighbour of the Davies' in Daventry, said: "They were a very nice couple, we were invited to their housewarming and they were very friendly.
"It made everyone laugh that we had a vicar who rode around on a Harley Davidson. "I can't think that she would be involved in any kind of scandal, she was a lovely lady."
Last night Mrs Davies, clad in full leathers, refused to comment as she returned home on her motorbike.
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