Michael John Bunce (1949-2023)
The Very Rev Dr Michael John Bunce says he joined the ministry to help the poor, the elderly, and the unemployed.
Born in Cleethorpes, he was one of five sons of a fish finger packer.
He left secondary school at 15 and worked at a glass merchants for five years.
He studied alongside working in personnel management at Birds Eye Foods and then studied theology at St Andrew’s University, Edinburgh, gaining a masters degree.
In 1979 he was forced to abandon plans to take a doctorate in the Theology and Psychology of Death and Dying at Trinity College and instead went to Westcott House, Cambridge, to train for ordination.
He was licensed at St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham, in September 1980 and served as curate, later becoming senior curate.
In January 1983 he became Vicar of St John in Manthorpe and Grantham Hospital Chaplain – and was the driving force behind a new hospital chapel – as well as continuing as senior curate at St Wulfram’s.
During his time in Grantham, he also created Grantham Volunteer Bureau.
He left Grantham in September 1985 and returned to Scotland as rector of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Brechin.
Within a few months of arriving in Brechin with his wife Frances, and his two young children Naomi and Daniel, he had convinced 12 pillars of the community to become directors of a limited company which would offer courses to the unemployed.
By 1990, the association had more than 50 trainees, 10 staff, and a turnover in excess of £130,000.
He mixed in elite social circles, regularly visiting Lord South Esk and the Thomson family, owners of the DC Thomson publishing empire.
However, his Midas touch with the training company did nothing to improve his own lifestyle.
He received no salary from the businessmen’s association, because any non-clerical pay would have been deducted from his church stipend. He barely saw his children for weeks on end and he was forced to drive third-hand clapped-out cars.
So he started embezzling, starting with £7,000 of the company’s funds on a Mercedes E230 in February 1990 a court was told in 1997, he was charged with embezzling £44,000 from the training company,
By then the Provost of St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, in Dundee, he was ordered to sell his house to pay a £60,000 fine, leaving him jobless, homeless, and almost penniless.
Already suspended by the Episcopal Church, he also agreed to hand over antiques, paintings, and his ”cherished” registration plate FB16 to the court.
He was also told to pay £3,800 to the Clydesdale Bank to pay off the training company’s overdraft.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Kevin Veal said he narrowly avoided being sent to jail because he had a large asset – his house – which could be sold to pay off a fine.
Rev Bunce, who had no income following his suspension, was ordered to quit the rectory at Richmond Terrace, Dundee, within two months.
The fine paintings and antiques bought from the funds of the St Andrews Businessmen’s Association that decorated the Dundee rectory were auctioned off and the proceeds given to the Brechin community through the town’s common good fund.
And just to rub it in, a besotted mum went to the Scottish press saying she had been seduced by the Rev Bunce.
His secretary for more than four years, claimed the churchman, bit her body, leaving her black and blue, during sex sessions in the rectory.
She said he pestered her and used secret signs to summon her for sex after Sunday service.
And he even cut her wages during their relationship, while he was making thousands from the aforementioned fraud.
She claimed: “He told me we couldn’t make love like a normal loving couple because it was against his religion to have sex outside marriage. But he wanted me to do disgusting things.”
She added: “It was as if I should feel honoured that he was allowing me to do those things to him. I had to adore him while he just lay there.”
Then in March 2000, the Rev Dr Michael Bunce, was appointed to the Santa Margarita Church in Es Castell, on the Spanish holiday island of Menorca.
But less than 12 months into the job, fed-up worshippers claimed he was ripping the congregation apart.
Six long-standing members of Santa Margarita’s Church Council quit within months of his arrival on the island.
They claimed Mr Bunce is often seen wining and dining rich friends from the large British community on the island.
Even over Christmas, they said, Mr Bunce organised only two services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Christine Robson quit as secretary of the church just a few months after Mr Bunce arrived.
She said: “We’ve worked for 30 years to build up this church, and Michael Bunce has destroyed it in a year.
“He has brought so much gloom to the community that we just want rid of him.
“It’s just his whole attitude to running the church that people are fed up with.”
She added: “He just latches himself on to the rich people on the island and ignores the people who really need his help.
“It’s as if he doesn’t want to know unless you’ve got cash in the bank and a nice house.”
Michael Bunce’s tenure lasted until 2012.
He died in February 2023 at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate.
Compiled with assistance of The Herald Scotland, Free Library and others,
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