CANTERBURY (UNITED KINGDOM)
Church Times [London, England]
November 7, 2024
By Madeleine Davies and Francis Martin
THE “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, a Reader in the Church of England, was covered up by “powerful evangelical clergy”, the long-awaited Makin review has concluded.
The “Independent lessons learning review”, originally due to be published five years ago, lists the Archbishop of Canterbury as among those who failed to act. From 2013, the Church of England knew “at the highest level” about the abuse, the report says, but failed to refer it either to the police or to the relevant authorities in South Africa, where Smyth died while under investigation by the police (News, 13 August 2018).
Archbishop Welby issued a strongly worded — and highly personal — apology for his “profound failures” upon the publication of the report on Thursday afternoon.
“The review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated,” he said.
The way in which the Church of England engages with victims and survivors had changed beyond recognition, he continued. “Checks and balances introduced seek to ensure that the same could not happen today. [But] I repeat my apology contained in the review, that I did not meet quickly with victims after the full horror of the abuse was revealed by Channel 4 in 2017. As the report says, no Archbishop can meet with everyone but I promised to see them and failed until 2020. This was wrong.”
Lessons had been learned in the past 11 years, he said. “That does not reverse the terrible abuse suffered but I hope that it can be at least of some comfort to victims. I can only end by thanking them again for their courage and persistence and again by apologising profoundly, not only for my own failures and omissions but for the wickedness, concealment and abuse by the church more widely, as set out in the report.”
In an echo of earlier safeguarding reviews, the Makin report concludes that a desire to protect the reputation of an institution, and of individuals, shaped the response of those who knew of the abuse. The Revd David Fletcher, who was told of the abuse in 1981, told the review before he died: “I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public.” Canon Michael Green was, the review says, “sworn to secrecy”.
Mr Makin concludes that by 2012 a “significant number” of people knew about the abuse, and writes that the evidence “dashes” claims that only a “tight caucus of people” knew. Those with knowledge of the abuse included “many Church Officers”, including at least one bishop. “A significant number of those that were aware of the abuse at this time were very senior figures within the Church of England, or went on to very senior positions including Archbishops and Queen’s Chaplain,” along with lay people “holding influential and powerful positions within the Conservative Evangelical network”, one of whom was a General Synod member.
The abuse “should have been reported to senior figures within the Church of England and to the relevant authorities, including the police”, Mr Makin writes, and concludes that Smyth “was able to abuse boys and young men in Zimbabwe (and possibly South Africa) because of inaction of Clergy within the Church of England”. One child, Guide Nyachuru, died “in suspicious circumstances” at one of Smyth’s camps in Zimbabwe.
While details of the sadistic abuse, which included vicious beatings in a sound-proofed shed, have been in the public domain since an investigation by Channel 4 News seven years ago (News, 10 February 2017), the review sets out in detail the extent of the “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks” perpetrated by Smyth, beginning more than 50 years ago.
In the UK, there are at least 30 victims. Some were as young as 13. Smyth’s own son was abused between the ages of seven and 11. One victim told the review: “I remember thinking ‘he’s going to kill me.’ I was that scared.” One victim attempted to take his own life after Smyth advised him to self-harm as a means of fighting sexual feelings.
Smyth, a QC, was the former chair of the Iwerne Trust (whose activities were later assumed by the Titus Trust), which, with the Scripture Union, ran holiday camps for boys at English public schools. Smyth met many of his victims at Winchester College.
It is already known that many people in the Church of England were aware of Smyth’s abuse in the early 1980s. The Iwerne Trust launched an investigation after a young man grew so fearful of the beatings that he tried to take his own life in 1981. The confidential report, completed in 1982, was written by a C of E priest, the Revd Mark Ruston, when he was Vicar of Holy Sepulchre with All Saints, Cambridge, with the Revd David Fletcher (who died in 2022).
The Makin review records that six members of the clergy were among those who received a copy of the report, and concludes that they “participated in an active cover-up to prevent that report and its findings – including that crimes had been committed — coming to light”. In the years that followed, a growing number of people learned of the abuse.
The current Archbishop of Canterbury was a dormitory officer at the Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, when Smyth was one of the leaders. He has always maintained that he was unaware of any abuse until 2013 and initially denied that Smyth was Anglican (News, 18 April 2019) — one of a number of inaccuracies in his account which the review corrects.
He told the review that he had been warned in 1981 by the Revd Peter Sertin, the Chaplain at St Michael’s, Paris (where the Archbishop was a worshipper), to “stay away” from Smyth, who was “really not a nice man”. The warning was “vague”, the Archbishop told the review. An exchange of Christmas cards with Smyth and donations that he made to Smyth’s ministry in Zimbabwe were not indicators of closeness, he argued.
The review concludes that, on the balance of probabilities, it is “unlikely that Justin
Welby would have had no knowledge of the concerns regarding John Smyth in
the 1980s in the UK. He may not have known of the extreme seriousness of the
abuse, but it is most probable that he would have had at least a level of
knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern.”
A former Bishop of Chelmsford, John Trillo, who died in 1992, was informed of the abuse in 1983 while chairing a selection conference at which Smyth was assessed. The review also reports that the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey was informed of the abuse while Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, and was sent a copy of the outline of the Ruston report, which he denies seeing.
The Revd Hugh Palmer, who went on to be Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place, visited a victim who almost succeeded in taking his own life in 1982. He told the review that he did not realise the attempt was connected with abuse. In 1982, a victim discussed the abuse with Canon Andrew Cornes. There is no evidence that he took action to respond to this. He told the review that he thought the matter was being dealt with.
The review relays that several of Smyth’s victims have since become church officers and would technically have “failed to act” according to the Terms of Reference. They include the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson.
Mr Makin writes that Smyth’s abuse was known “at the highest level” of the Church of England from July 2013, by, among others, Archbishop Welby and the Rt Revd Stephen Conway, then Bishop of Ely, together with other senior church officers. There was, however, “a distinct lack of curiosity shown”, Mr Makin says, concluding that Smyth “could and should have been reported to the police in 2013”.
Police were contacted in July 2013, by the Bishop of Ely’s safeguarding adviser, Yvonne Quirk, in relation to disclosures from victims. She told Mr Makin that she had been informed that the police could not take the case any further. This process, Mr Makin says, was assumed by church leaders to amount to a “report to the police”, though no crime record or reference number was made. On Christmas Day 2013, one of Smyth’s victims attempted to take his own life.
The lack of a formal referral to the police in 2013 meant that three and half years were, in effect, “lost” — “a time within which he could have been brought to justice and any abuse he was committing in South Africa discovered and stopped”. Mr Makin says that, although there is “little concrete information” about Smyth’s actions during this time, “it is highly likely that he was continuing to abuse young men.” Mr Makin sets out in detail complaints made about Smyth’s behaviour at Bible-study groups that he was running in Cape Town: that he would shower with young men attending the sessions, “then stay naked as he discussed masturbation and pornography with them.”
A psychologist who accompanied the reviewers, Dr Ellie Hanson, concluded: “the [religious] beliefs in which John Smyth operated are critical to understanding how he manipulated his victims into it, how it went on for so long, and how he evaded justice.” Victims described how Smyth spoke of sin in the lead-up to their abuse, and how the biggest “sin” was identified as masturbation.
The review draws heavily on the harrowing testimony of victims. One recalled how in the last conversation that he had with his father, his father was still apologising to him. “If Justin Welby or the Church of England had exposed John Smyth’s abuse in 2013 publicly, it would have been a different life or a different end of life for my father,” he said.
The Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, a victim of Smyth, issued a statement, saying that reading the report had been “both an enlightening and a deeply harrowing experience”.
He continued: “There is much here that is deeply shocking, especially the abuse of so many victims in Africa, following the disastrous decision of the Iwerne and Winchester establishments to cover things up. As the Report outlines, those attempts were flawed from the start, and any idea that Smyth’s behaviour could be regulated was hopelessly naïve. Smyth’s combination of charm and menace, narcissism and manipulation, hypocrisy and violence, made him a very dangerous man indeed, and entirely uncontrollable by any normal means.”
The Report would not be easy reading for anyone involved, he said. “But it’s my hope and prayer that it might bring at least some measure of relief to Smyth’s victims — British and African, known and unknown — as well as providing salutary lessons as we redouble our efforts towards building a safer Church.”
A group of survivors gave their reactions on Thursday after publication of the report. They told the Church Times that they welcomed the review. There was good safeguarding going on “in many but not all dioceses”, they said. “We are actively encouraged by that local work, but utterly dismayed by the behaviour of the C of E hierarchy.”
The 27 recommendations in the report “reflect similar recommendations in dozens of previous safeguarding reports over 40-plus years that the C of E has previously chosen to ignore or disregard”, they said.
“Regrettably we have little confidence that the C of E will take any more notice of the recommendations of this Review than it has of all those recommendations of the many previous safeguarding reports.”
Commenting on the late delivery of the Makin report, they said: “Justice delayed is justice denied, particularly to all those John Smyth victims who have now died. We attribute the vast majority of that delay to the deliberate under-resourcing of the project by the C of E.”
The group also said that the findings “demonstrate that [the] entire Church hierarchy still has no understanding of trauma-informed approach, despite this being established many times previously, including most recently in the 2023 Wilkinson Review. . . The Church continues to engage by utterly inappropriate means with victims and survivors in 2024.”
They were particularly concerned that “some Church leaders seek to characterise John Smyth as a ‘lone wolf’. In fact he is part of a long and ongoing tradition of abusers, many of whom have targeted the C of E as a ‘soft touch’.”
Other victims of John Smyth might now come forward, they said. “The C of E needs to commit today to produce a follow-up report in 18 months time based on such future evidence, should that be necessary.”
independent-learning-lessons-review-john-smyth-qc-november-2024.pdf