WHEN a parishioner pulled a knife on Father Alex Hill, the 34-year-old vicar drew on his own weapon of choice — the Book of Gospels. Wielding the book like a gladiator’s shield, he pushed his attacker down the aisle and out of the church.

Father Hill, who has also been shot at with a sub- machinegun, probably has no need of self-defence lessons; but like all other clergy, priests and ministers he is to be offered special training to fend off attackers after a survey showed that nearly half had suffered some sort of violence in the past 12 months.

In the new Clergy Safe project, clergy of every religious denomination are to be offered training in personal safety through seminars, booklets and personal attack alarms. Advice includes giving cash to an attacker or bending over and pretending to be sick. Clergy will also be shown how to use the defensive locked-elbow “stop sign” used by police.

They will also be advised that, under the law, they are entitled to use “reasonable force” when under attack and that the break-away holds, control and restraint techniques taught in self-defence classes might sometimes be necessary.

The three-year project is being run by Nick Tolson, a former police officer, who six years ago set up National Churchwatch, a church safety scheme similar to Neighbourhood Watch.

It comes after a survey by researchers at Royal Holloway College, London University, found that 12 per cent of clergy had suffered violence.

At a recent seminar Mr Tolson, a former verger at Wells Cathedral, Somerset, surveyed 80 clergy from the London diocese and found that 48 per cent had experienced some form of abuse or attack in the previous 12 months. The most common assault consisted of swearing at clergy. Seven had been injured by a kick or punch, one had been bitten, one cut with a knife and one — Father Hill — shot.

Mr Tolson said: “The aim is to provide personal safety training to clergy of all faiths to enable them to follow their vocation in a safe manner, free from violence and intimidation.”

Father Hill was at home with his pregnant wife in Willesden, northwest London, when his 1940s vicarage and car were sprayed with bullets.

He said: “There was a gun battle going on down the road. One of the men ran out of ammunition and legged it down the road, jumped over our gate and into our garden. He was followed by another man in a 4x4 who let off his sub-machinegun down the drive.” Providentially, it was Good Friday, 2003. Had it been any other day, he would have been coming home from Evening Prayer and been caught in the crossfire. He found out later that the man who had jumped into his garden went back and shot dead the man with the sub-machinegun. He has been convicted and is now in prison. Father Hill said he had also suffered two knife attacks. “They took place in church, when I was a curate in Notting Hill,” he said. “We were having building work done. The church was full of burly builders. A man came in waving a knife and all the builders ran up the scaffolding and left me to it. I walked him to the door, pushed him through the door and shut it. The other incident was to do with one of the local oddballs. I was saying Evening Prayer and he decided to spit at me. So I blessed him. He then went and turned all the tables over at the back of the church in a very Jesus-like manner. He came back a few Sundays later and pulled a knife on me, but I had a book of the Gospels and I pushed him back with the Gospels.”

At least seven priests have been murdered since 1996. Mr Tolson, in his book on clergy safety to be published next week, tells of an elderly minister who was drowned in his bath and chopped into pieces by the 17-year-old lodger he was trying to help. The minister was not reported missing for seven days until he failed to arrive for a Sunday service.

A Home Office survey in 2001 found that clergy faced similar levels of violence as the police.

www.timesonline.co.uk/weblogs Ruth Gledhill's faith weblog

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