UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
Patrick Foster Peter Robertson
6 FEBRUARY 2017
Victims of a barrister facing child abuse claims say the Archbishop of Canterbury failed to expose the scandal, as a Bishop said that he had also been assaulted.
An open letter to the Most Rev Justin Welby, endorsed by eight alleged victims of John Smyth QC, calls on the Archbishop, a former colleague of the barrister, to come clean about the extent of his knowledge of the abuse claims.
The development came as the Bishop of Guildford revealed that he was one of 22 young men abused by Mr Smyth, who is accused of savagely beating beatings boys he met at Christian holiday camps in the late Seventies.
The Right Rev Andrew Watson said: “The beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking; but it was thankfully a one-off experience never to be repeated.”
Hampshire Police last week announced an investigation into the abuse claims, which were reported to senior figures in the Church in 1982, and police sources said eight men have come forward to say that they were attacked by the barrister.
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