Why people are calling for Justin Welby to resign over Church child sex abuse scandal

Two abuse survivors have backed calls for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign over a damning report into a barrister thought to have been the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England.

A petition by some members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – has gathered more than 7,000 signatures urging Justin Welby to stand down over his “failures” to alert authorities about John Smyth QC’s “abhorrent” abuse of children and young men.

An independent review published last week concluded that Smyth might have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally reported the abuse to police a decade ago.

The Makin review described the now deceased Smyth as “sadistic” and the most prolific abuser associated with the Church of England.

Lambeth Palace has said in a statement that Welby "reiterates his horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse" and said he had no plans to resign.

'I don’t believe his position is tenable'

On Monday evening, Mark Stibbe, who was abused by Smyth in the 1980s, told BBC Newsnight that Welby’s position was “untenable”.

Stibbe said: “I honestly don’t believe that Justin Welby can continue – I don’t believe that his position is tenable. I would also apply that to the bishops that knew and did nothing, and the senior clergy of the Church of England that knew and did nothing. Their positions are also untenable.”

He called for a “clean sweep” of the senior clergy, adding: “There needs to be a clean sweep of the hierarchy, and new people need to be put in position – people like the bishop of Newcastle who has spoken out so courageously today. Those people who clearly have integrity and intentionality when it comes to protecting the vulnerable need to be the people in positions of authority."

Abuse survivor Andrew Morse told the Telegraph that Welby's failure to take action in 2013 was a “dereliction of duty” and also called for him to resign.

“I think it feels like he prioritised his position and the reputation of his church above the plight of the victims and, because Smyth was still alive at that time, above other potential victims as well," he said.

Who was John Smyth?

John Smyth is believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England, the independent review commissioned by the church found.

Born in Canada in 1941, Smyth's family later moved to England, where he went on to study at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Trinity College Bristol before qualifying as a lawyer.

At the peak of his career, Smyth worked as a barrister for Christian morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, who in 1977 successfully led a private prosecutions for blasphemous libel against Gay News for sharing a poem in which a centurion graphically describes his love and lust for Jesus Christ.

During the 1970s and 80s, Smyth groomed, abused and beat a number of public schoolboys who attended Christian summer camps in England, including in Winchester College.

Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where he set up a Christian mission and ran summer camps for boys, and to South Africa in 2001, where he ran the Justice Alliance of South Africa group and was removed as leader of his local church in 2018 over claims of inappropriate behaviour, according to the Guardian.

Smyth died in Cape Town in 2018, aged 77, while under investigation by Hampshire Police, meaning he never faced justice for his crimes. Across five decades in three different countries and involving as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa, Smyth is said to have subjected his victims to "traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks".

Who is Justin Welby?

As well as being a church leader in England, Justin Welby, 68, is a spiritual leader to around 85 million people across the globe in what is known as the Anglican Communion.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury, he sits in the House of Lords and has been outspoken on political issues including child poverty – condemning the “cruel” two-child benefit policy – and the "slippery slope" of assisted dying legislation.

Welby knew Smyth because of his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence that he had “maintained any significant contact” with the barrister in later years.

He said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013, when a victim reported Smyth's abuse to the Church of England, but Welby acknowledged that after its wider exposure that year, he had “personally failed to ensure” it was investigated.

What happened?

An independent review, commissioned a year after Smyth’s death, found that the barrister's “abhorrent” abuse of more than 100 children and young men was covered up within the Church of England for years.

Despite his “appalling” actions having been identified in the 1980s, the report concluded he was never fully exposed and was therefore able to continue his "prolific, brutal and horrific" abuse.

Smyth was found to have carried out physical violence, sexual abuse, coercive control, psychological abuse against children, while also using parts of the Bible and his religious authority to assist his abuse.

"When I was beaten more than 30, or even as much as 100 times, there was no sense of any individual stroke marks on my buttocks, they were just a bloody mess," one of his victims said.

Reports of Smyth's physical abuse were uncovered in an investigation by Channel 4 news in 2017. This followed a 1982 report by the Iwerne Trust, which ran evangelical Christian holiday camps in Britain, which was not made public until 2016.

While some 30 boys and young men are known to have been directly physically and psychologically abused in the UK, and about 85 boys and young men physically abused in African countries, including Zimbabwe, the total “likely runs much higher”, the new independent report said.

“Further abuse could and should have been prevented. John Smyth’s victims were not sufficiently supported by the church and their views on escalating his abuse to the police and other authorities were not sought," according to the review led by Keith Makin.

It adds that 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 described the failure to report Smyth in 2013 as having “represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice and may have resulted in an ongoing and avoidable safeguarding threat” in the years before his death in 2018.

Who is calling on Welby to resign?

A petition by some members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – has gathered more than 7,000 signatures urging Welby to stand down over his “failures” to alert authorities about Smyth's abuse.

On Monday, the bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, called on Welby to quit, describing his position as "untenable".

She told the BBC: “I think that it’s very hard for the church as the national, the established church, to continue to have a moral voice in any way, shape or form in our nation when we cannot get our own house in order with regard to something as critically important, something that would be asked of any institution.

"We are in danger of losing complete credibility on that front... I think, sadly, his position is untenable, so I think he should resign."

Radio presenter and reverend Richard Coles wrote: “Anyone in authority who knew about an abuser and did not act properly so that abuse continued should resign. Then [we need] a reset that begins with making safeguarding in the CofE independent of the CofE.”

On Tuesday, Keir Starmer would not comment directly on Welby’s position, saying it was a “matter, in the end, for the church”, but he made clear that Smyth’s victims had been let down.

He said: “Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific in relation to this particular case, both in their scale and their content."

What has Welby said in response?

In response to Channel 4's investigation, Welby said: “I genuinely had no idea that there was anything as horrific as this going on. If I’d known that I’d have been very active but I had no suspicions at all.”

Speaking to the broadcaster when the Makin report was published, he said he'd been giving resignation "a lot of thought for actually quite a long time".

However, he went on: “I have given it a lot of thought and have taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues, and, no, I am not going to resign.”

Following the petition’s launch, Welby said he “reiterates his horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse, as reflected in his public apology”.

He repeated that he does not intend to resign and said he “hopes the Makin Review supports the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world”.

Read more

• Welby put reputation above victims, now he must quit, says abuse survivor (The Telegraph)

• Who is the Archbishop of Canterbury and why are there calls for him to resign? (Evening Standard)

• Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby considered resigning over 'appalling' barrister abuse scandal (Sky News)