The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is under pressure to resign over a damning report into John Smyth – believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England.
A petition by members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – calling on Mr Welby to resign has gathered more than 5,700 signatures as of 5.30pm on Monday.
The call has been strengthened by a bishop’s statement saying Mr Welby should quit, describing the church as being “in danger of losing complete credibility” on safeguarding.
But who was John Smyth, the barrister at the centre of the controversy?
John Smyth was a barrister and an evangelical Christian, who held several leadership roles in the Iwerne Trust in the 1970s and 1980s. The trust was a charity that organised summer camps for young Christians.
Born in Canada, Smyth became a QC in 1979 and was the barrister for morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who took cases against Gay News and the National Theatre as part of her campaigns opposing homosexuality in the 1970s and 1980s.
The barrister moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 – two years after allegations were first made – and set up similar evangelical camps there.
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In 1997, Smyth was arrested after the death of a 16-year-old boy at one camp. The case was dropped before trial and the barrister moved to South Africa.
He died in Cape Town in 2018 aged 75.
After a Channel 4 documentary broadcast in 2017, Hampshire Police opened an investigation into Smyth’s abuse. At the time of his death, he was wanted for police questioning and was being considered for a request for extradition to the UK.
What was he accused of?
Smyth is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser associated with the Church of England.
He is accused of sexually, psychologically and physically abusing about 30 boys and young men in the United Kingdom and 85 in Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades.
The first allegations were made against Mr Smyth in 1982 when an internal report by the Iwerne Trust referenced “horrific” beatings of boys and young men that left some of them bleeding.
Church officials were first made aware of the abuse at that stage when they received the results of the internal report. The most recent Makin Review found that the report’s recipients “participated in an active cover-up” to prevent its findings from coming to light.
Smyth’s abuse wasn’t made public until the Channel 4 documentary. When confronted by the channel, he said he was “not talking about what we did at all” and said some claims were “nonsense”.
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The Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson, said in 2017 that he had been a victim of Smyth’s abuse and that a friend who had also been abused had previously attempted suicide.
Winchester College, an independent boarding school in Hampshire, found in a 2022 report that at least 13 former pupils were abused by Smyth. The school had been informed of the beatings in the 1980s. The headmaster had asked at that stage for Smyth to keep away from Winchester College but did not contact police.
The Makin Review found that if Smyth had been reported to police earlier, it could have helped to uncover the truth, prevented further abuse and led to a possible criminal conviction.
How is the Archbishop of Canterbury involved?
Smyth knew the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby because he attended the Iwerne camps in the 1970s.
The independent review said there was no evidence Mr Welby “maintained any significant contact” with the barrister.
But the Makin Report found that Justin Welby failed to inform police about the abuse as soon as he became aware of it in August 2013, soon after he became Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mr Welby said he had “no idea or suspicion” of the allegations before 2013, but the independent report concluded that it was unlikely he would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding Smyth in the 1980s.
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The archbishop has apologised for “failures and omissions” in not properly investigating the claims, especially after the Channel 4 documentary.
There are now growing calls for the archbishop to resign.
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On Monday, Helen-Ann Hartley, one of 108 bishops within the Church of England, said Mr Welby’s position was now untenable.
“It’s very hard for the church… to continue to have a moral voice in any way, shape, or form in our nation when we cannot get our own house in order with regard to something that’s critically important,” she said.
