UNITED KINGDOM
Channel 4
Police have today launched an investigation into claims that teenage boys from Britain’s leading public schools were violently beaten, in what’s been described as a “sadomasochistic cult” run by a lawyer with links to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Operation Cubic, run by Hampshire Police, will examine allegations uncovered by Channel 4 News that John Smyth QC stripped and brutally lashed 22 young men he had groomed at the Christian youth camps he ran.
Archbishop Justin Welby, who worked at the camps managed by The Iwerne Trust, and was once a colleague of Mr Smyth, issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England, admitting it had “failed terribly”.
In a six month investigation, Channel 4 News spoke to alleged victims who described years of brutal attacks, each involving up to 800 lashes with a garden cane, said to purge them of minor sins such as masturbation and pride.
Many were left wearing adult nappies to stem prolonged bleeding following the attacks which began in the late 1970s and continued for at least three years. The Iwerne Trust and Winchester College, where many of the alleged victims were pupils, were made aware of the allegations in 1982 after one attempted suicide but the Police were not informed at the time.
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