UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
Patrick Foster Nicola Harley Peta Thornycroft, in Johannesburg
4 FEBRUARY 2017
A barrister accused of abusing boys at Christian summer camps told parents he planned to shower with their sons and would beat them “fairly liberally” with wooden bats.
John Smyth QC is being investigated by Hampshire Police over claims he subjected young men he met at camps attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury to savage sadomasochistic beatings.
The part-time judge moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 after the British assault allegations emerged in 1982, and founded a series of Christian camps at which it is claimed he again abused teenagers – some sent from the UK.
Mr Smyth was charged with culpable homicide in 1997 after a 16-year-old boy was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at a camp in Zimbabwe in 1992.
Several other boys came forward to claim he had beaten them and forced them to swim naked while he watched, although both cases against him collapsed.
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