It has been brought to the attention of the Trustees of the John Metcalfe Publishing Trust and their Advisors that false and malicious postings designed to defame Mr. Metcalfe have continued to appear on several websites from various anonymous contributors or from the same source posturing under assumed identities.

The Trustees observe that it has often been the case that those like Mr. Metcalfe who have achieved distinction as teachers, reformers and preachers have become a target for libel and slander from those whose sole intention is to attempt maliciously to do damage to them, motivated by envy and jealousy. The Trustees consider it to be instructive to note that John Bunyan, William Huntington and John Knox (among many others) were all victims of such defamatory attacks.

What was said about John Bunyan:
‘That he was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like.’
‘That he had his misses, his whores, his bastards, yea, two wives at once.’

What was said about William Huntington:
‘He formed an illegitimate connection with a young woman named Mary Short.’
‘Mrs. Huntington’s end was hastened by the scandalous intimacy of her husband with Lady Sanderson.’

What was said about John Knox:
‘That John Knox had been a common whoremonger all his days, and that he had been apprehended and taken forth along with a common whore.’
‘He was a man, or rather a monster of the most profligate character, who gloried in depravity and indulged in the most vicious practices.’

The Trustees and their Advisors take note of the fact that (beyond the addition to their original statement ‘About JM’) up to this point no action has been taken save to follow the words of the Lord Jesus, that is, ‘...Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;’ hence they have refrained from taking action against those responsible for the defamatory postings, despite being well within legal advice and right to do so.

However, the Trustees feel that it is important to make it clear that in light of the increase of the seriousness of the attacks under the cloak of anonymity that have been levelled at Mr. Metcalfe in the deliberately malicious postings from sites in the U.S.A. (thereby hoping for immunity from U.K. legal jurisdiction) legal advice has been taken from Mr. Robert Paydon, a litigation partner and a defamation specialist at the London office of the international law firm Fasken Martineau LLP.

All options are presently being considered, including making applications to the High Court to establish to the legal standard required the identities of those responsible for the defamatory postings, as a preliminary to further action.

In the interim the Trustees and their Advisors feel obliged to respond specifically to some of the false and spiteful allegations concerning Mr. Metcalfe in order to expose this wickedness, although in doing so they acknowledge the further distress and embarrassment that is likely to be caused to those involved by raising these issues in a public forum (and indeed in court) and they do so strictly on the basis that this has been necessitated by the prolonged attacks on Mr. Metcalfe and is without prejudice to any legal action that may be taken in due course:

  • Mr. Metcalfe has never had a Singaporean house-keeper. He has an elderly Dutch house-keeper, who has worked for his wife and family since 1971.She continues to work for Mr. Metcalfe to this day.In one posting the false witnesses affirm her to be the above. In another, the house-keeper is definitely a Singaporean national! ‘Neither yet did their witness agree.’
  • There has never been any sort of improper relationship (as alleged by these anonymous evil-speakers) let alone an ‘affair’ between Mr. Metcalfe and this house-keeper. This has been established by impeccable legal evidence.
  • While it is true that in 1985 Mr. Metcalfe left all to obey the call of the Lord indefinitely to preach and teach the evangel of Christ in the Far East in a fruitful ministry lasting fifteen years, he now lives alone.
  • Furthermore Mr. Metcalfe’s wife confirmed without reservation in a signed statement that there was never anything improper in the relationship between their house-keeper and Mr. Metcalfe. As such, it is nothing but malicious ‘poison pen’ falsehood to state that some so-called ‘relationship’ between Mr. Metcalfe and this house-keeper caused any alleged ‘breakdown’ of Mr. Metcalfe’s marriage. He was the other side of the world, having long departed to the Far East to labour for Christ in three different countries under adverse and arduous conditions over 7000 miles away.
  • This attempt to defame Mr. Metcalfe is in fact a virulent anonymous repetition of a failed previous campaign of some decades ago. That came to an abrupt end when our solicitors of that time instructed counsel, providing irrefutable witnesses, medical and psychiatric testimony, and extensive documentation. This action presaged draconian libel penalties and damages. And so they do now, for all the ‘anonymity’ and cunning devices on the internet, and by e-mail, revived decades later. But we do not suffer exchanges on the internet: let us come straight to court.
  • We feel we must state our sense of outrage that, for no reason other than to defame a godly and immensely fruitful minister, the anonymous revilers stoop to a base artifice beneath contempt. That is, by deliberate public vilification they set about scandalizing the irreproachable virtue of a devout sister who has given up her whole life to the service of Christ.
  • Further to the postings ‘John Metcalfe’; ‘Tylers Green Cult’; and ‘Bethlehem Meeting Hall’, the anonymous authors did not change both their domicile and occupation in order to attend a ‘Cult’ for a decade and a half, but because they found a ministry declaring ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’ more clearly and purely than they had ever heard before. That was their fervent testimony over many years. They were not ‘duped’: they knew in heart and conscience that this was ‘the word of truth, the evangel of your salvation.’
  • No, not a ‘Cult’, but a people with humility and penitence whole-heartedly seeking the unity of the one body of Christ. But from their midst, these, so sadly, exemplified ‘the seed sown among thorns’, which finally ‘grew up and choked the seed’. So that now, obsessed if not possessed with enmity, they turn on the pastor and ravage the sheep and the lambs with a spiteful false witness beyond belief. But ‘neither yet did their witness agree.’ If not, if they believe what they broadcast, Let them come out of the darkness into the light and put their name to it.

The Trustees and their Advisors,
The John Metcalfe Publishing Trust.