A Church of England bishop has called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, calling his position “untenable” after a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church. Justin Welby is facing mounting pressure to resign after it emerged last week that he did not follow up rigorously enough on reports of John Smyth’s “abhorrent” abuse of more than 100 boys and young men.
A review of the Church’s handling of Smyth’s case said the archbishop “could and should” have reported the case to authorities when details were presented to him in 2013.
Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley is the most senior member of the Church to call on Mr Welby to stand down, after others accused him of “allowing abuse to continue” between 2013 and Smyth’s death in 2018.She told the BBC on Monday: “I think rightly people are asking the question ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ And I think the answer at the moment is ‘no’.
Bishop Hartley said Mr Welby’s resignation would not “solve the safeguarding problem,” but it would “be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.
Mr Welby acknowledged last week that the review made clear he had “personally failed” to “energetically investigate”, and said he had considered resigning, but decided to stay in his role.
Bishop calls on Welby to resign
The Makin review into Smyth’s case said he might have been brought to justice for decades of abuse before his death, in 2018, had he been formally reported to the police in 2013.Three members of the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, accused the archbishop of “allowing abuse to continue” during this five-year period. They have started a petition calling for the archbishop to resign, which has now been signed by more than 7,000 people.
Smyth, who worked as a barrister, is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England, having subjected as many as 130 victims in three countries to physical, sexual, and psychological attacks over almost five decades.
He is alleged to have identified boys at Christian camps and in sessions at leading public schools, including Winchester College, before taking them to his Winchester home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed.
He abused 26 to 30 boys and young men in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, the report found. He then relocated to Africa, where he abused a further 85 to 100 “young male children aged 13 to 17”.
The report says that from July 2013, the Church of England knew “at the highest level” about Smyth’s abuse in the UK and should have “properly and effectively” reported him to the UK police and the relevant authorities in South Africa.
Inaction from the Church represented a “missed opportunity to bring him to justice,” the report says. Hampshire Police opened an investigation into Smyth after a Channel 4 documentary brought allegations against him to light in 2017.
Shortly after it aired, Mr Welby told Channel 4: “I genuinely had no idea that there was anything as horrific as this going on and the kind of story you showed on the clip.
“If I’d known that, I would have been very active, but I had no suspicions at all.” But last week’s report said “enough was known to have raised concerns upon being informed in 2013”.
Smyth died aged 75 while under investigation by Hampshire Police.
Mark Stibbe, a former student at Winchester College, told BBC Newsnight that Smyth gained his trust before taking him to his home and subjecting him to a “terrible assault”.
“He led me… to a shed which had been especially soundproofed and built for his abuses. He basically caned me so many times that I thought I was going to die,” he said. He added that he did not believe the archbishop’s position was tenable.
Andy Morse, one of Smyth’s victims, told the Telegraph: “I don’t believe he was telling the truth. I’m not sure that he would have had knowledge of the detail, but I think he would have had knowledge of the summary.
Source: BBC
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