But both the Iwerne Trust, the Christian group that Mr Smyth chaired, and Winchester College, the school attended by some of his alleged victims, did not report the claims to police.

The part-time judge then moved to Zimbabwe, where he founded a series of summer camps at which it is alleged he again abused young men.

In 1997 he was charged with culpable homicide after a boy was found naked in the swimming pool of one of his camps, but the prosecution later collapsed.

It has now emerged that a number of senior figures at high-profile evangelical organisations were told of the claims but did not alert the authorities.

David Fletcher, a Iwerne trustee who oversaw an investigation into the alleged assaults, said he told the Church Society, a powerful voice on the evangelical wing of the Church of England, about the claims in 1982.

David Jackman, then a senior minister at a leading evangelical church also admitted he was told about the allegations at the same time. Mr Jackman went on to become head of the Proclamation Trust, which helps train evangelical preachers,

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, the legal charity of which Mr Smyth was a member, is also named in Iwerne documents as having been informed.

Separately, the Charity Commission has announced that it has launched an investigation into  a charity established by Reverend Sue Colman, a trustee of the Holy Trinity Brompton, which oversees the Alpha Course, the evangelical movement backed by celebrities such as Bear Grylls, after she admitted sending thousands of pounds to Mr Smyth via her personal charity.

Mrs Colman’s husband Jamie, the heir to the Colman’s Mustard dynasty, is already under investigation  by the Charity Commission  after funneling hundreds of thousands of pounds to Mr Smyth over a thirty-year period, despite knowing about the abuse claims in Britain and Zimbabwe.

Mrs Colman apologised for the donations but said her husband had not told her about the claims  against Mr Smyth.

Dr Lee Gatiss, the director of the Church Society, said the group had examined its records but had “no reason to believe that Church Society was aware of any abuse allegations of the kind referred to, or indeed that Mr Smyth had any involvement with Church Society”.

Mr Jackman, who is a director of Keep Marriage Special, a group launched by the Church Society that claimed that letting same sex couples marry would lead to the legalisation of incest, said he believed he had acted correctly in not notifying police.

He said: “I assumed that the matter was being dealt with by the authorities concerned.”

Mark Barrell, executive director of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, said the group’s records suggested that, contrary to the Iwerne Trust documents, it had not been notified of the allegations involving Mr Smyth until 2003.

A spokesman for the Charity Commission said that as a matter of best practice the group should have made an incident report to the regulator once it was informed, but Mr Barrell refused to reveal whether the organisation had notified authorities.

He said: “His membership was terminated that year and he had no further involvement with the LCF.”