UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Kevin Rawlinson and Harriet Sherwood
Thursday 2 February 2017
The Church of England should have done more to investigate allegations that young boys were abused by a former colleague of the archbishop of Canterbury, its top safeguarding official has said.
The archbishop, Justin Welby, said he was told in 2013 about the claims made against John Smyth, with whom he had worked in the 1970s at a Christian holiday camp. Police had been notified of the allegations at the time, he said in a statement.
Channel 4 News reported that Smyth, the chairman of the Iwerne Trust, which ran the camps for public school pupils, had been accused of decades of abuse. Three people claimed they had been beaten by him.
Graham Tilby, the church’s national safeguarding adviser, said: “Clearly, more could have been done at the time to look further into the case.”
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