The Archbishop of Canterbury admitted last night to having ‘personally failed’ as he apologised to victims of ‘the most prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England’.
An independent review published yesterday said John Smyth’s ‘abhorrent’ abuse of more than 100 children and young men was covered up in the Church for years.
The CofE knew ‘at the highest level’ from July 2013 about the abuse the barrister and lay reader had carried out in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it concluded.
Archbishop Justin Welby ‘apologised profoundly’ last night ‘not only for my own failures and omissions but for the wickedness, concealment and abuse by the Church more widely’. He also considered resigning.
The review, headed by former social services director Keith Makin, also singled out the Archbishop for failing to report Smyth’s abuse to police, finding that he and other CofE leaders ‘could and should’ have in 2013.
Mr Makin said: ‘Responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover-up.’
Smyth abused as many as 130 boys across five decades in three different countries, subjecting victims to physical, sexual and psychological attacks that permanently marked their lives.
He died at 77 in Cape Town in 2018 while being investigated by Hampshire Police and so was ‘never bought to justice’, the review said.
Smyth’s victims want Archbishop Welby to resign following the report, Channel 4 reported last night.
One child, Guide Nyachuru, died ‘in suspicious circumstances’ at one of Smyth’s camps in Zimbabwe.
The Archbishop apologised on behalf of the Church in 2017 when the allegations became public and, made a personal apology in 2021 to Smyth’s victims after meeting them.
He knew Smyth from a Christian camp in Dorset in the late 1970s, but said last night he had ‘no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013’.
The review said: ‘He did know of John Smyth and, on balance, did have reason to have some concern about him, but that is not the same as suspecting that John Smyth had committed severe abuses.’
It concluded that Smyth should have been formally reported to the police in the UK and to authorities in South Africa by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Archbishop Welby in 2013.
It said: ‘Had that been done, on the balance of probabilities, John Smyth could have been brought to justice at a much earlier point than the subsequent… investigation by Hampshire Police in February 2017.
‘Opportunities to establish whether he continued to pose an abusive threat in South Africa were missed because of these inactions by senior church officers.’
While some 30 boys and young men are known to have been abused in the UK, and around 85 in African countries, the total ‘likely runs much higher’, the report said.
Smyth was able to move to Zimbabwe and South Africa while ‘church officers knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring’.
The report states: ‘John Smyth is, arguably, the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England.’
Speaking to Channel 4 News on Thursday, Mr Welby said: ‘I have been giving that (resigning) a lot of thought for actually quite a long time, there is nothing over the last ten years that has been as horrible as dealing with numerous abuse cases.
‘I have given it (resigning) a lot of thought and have taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues, and, no, I am not going to resign.’
Asked if he considered resigning on Thursday morning, Mr Welby said ‘yes’.
Mr Welby told Channel 4 News: ‘Lots of people funded his mission out there (in Zimbabwe). I think on two separate occasions I gave £40 or £50.’
Mark Stibbe, a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, told Channel 4 some boys were beaten so hard they bled and had to wear nappies.
He said the abuse had been covered up by people ‘at the highest level of the Church of England’.
‘It is very distressing,’ he said.