From the John Bingham, The Telegraph

It is about as far removed from the traditional image of the English vicar as it is possible to imagine.

Records collected by police forces reveal a litany of attacks on priests and church ministers and give a rare glimpse of the everyday risks taken by Britain’s clergy.

The crimes, detailed in lists disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, range from scores of low-level assaults, recorded almost routinely, to cases of clergy being stalked by obsessives, beaten in their own churches or bitten by dogs and even, on occasion, humans.

Responses from 25 police forces in England list around 200 attacks on clergy over the past five years.

But because of the way crimes are recorded they give only a snapshot of the threats and violence clergy face and could represent just the tip of an iceberg.

Read the rest at http://bit.ly/1lKG8Jk