by ‘Graham’
It is almost exactly ten years since I first disclosed the abuse by John Smyth QC in the 1970s and 1980s. It is also coming up to five years since the Channel 4 programmes that first brought this to the public’s attention. A Review was announced by the Lead Bishop for Safeguarding on 13 August 2018, the day after John Smyth died. It is now 28 months after that Lessons Learned Review was announced as starting.
And I am tired. I cannot put this episode behind me until the story is told, and someone is held to account. I long for it to “be over”, if that can ever be the case. I have given evidence to six investigations/Reviews. I am exhausted.
Enough is in the public domain, is known. There have now been four published Reviews (if you include Scripture Union, the Titus Timeline, the Titus Cultural Review and the Advance Report). There have been television programmes, many, many articles and now a book. The book is extraordinary in its detail and research (those who pick up on grammar or apostrophes deflect from the full horror of its story). Complaints have been made, investigations launched and Keith Makin has a mechanism for passing concerning behaviour to The National Safeguarding Team (NST) under Clause 3.1.6 of his Terms of Reference. Yet, silence. Nothing has happened to anyone (bar, briefly, George Carey) in five years.
Let us start with NST. I was staggered and depressed in 2018 to discover that there was no Core Group on John Smyth. It was disbanded the day he died. There was no continuing investigation, no Case Officer with a file on John Smyth. I will put on record: I have never been formally interviewed by the Diocese of Ely (where I went first) or by the NST. No one from the Church of England has asked me to tell my story. There is little knowledge within NST of the full horror of the abuse.
So, what of referrals under Clause 3.1.6 which refers to “allegations or failures to respond properly” which must be “brought to the immediate attention of the ……Director of Safeguarding..”? We are told referrals have been made. George Carey, probably a very peripheral figure, was immediately suspended, though this was quickly reversed. No other person referred under 3.1.6 has, to the best of my knowledge, been subject to any kind of censure or sanction.
This was brought to the attention of Archbishop Justin in the one, short, meeting that he has deigned to give the victims of John Smyth in the last five years. His statement, in May 2021, immediately afterwards was very clear: “These victims are rightly concerned that no one appears to have faced any sanction yet, when it made clear that a number of Christians, clergy and lay, were made aware of the abuse in the 1980s and many learned in subsequent years….I have made it clear that the National Safeguarding Team will investigate every clergy person or others within its scope of whom they have been informed who knew and failed to disclose the abuse”. While this has apparently now got two case workers investigating, after seven months, I have still not been asked for the list I showed the Archbishop briefly on the screen. And no one has faced any sanction that we are aware.
Then, other opportunities. A vast amount of new information was provided in the Andrew Graystone’s book, Bleeding for Jesus. For those suspicious of a journalist, who want other sources, there has been a vast amount of detail published in the four reviews/reports mentioned above. Any one of those might have triggered further investigation and action. Yet, they pass by, soon forgotten and the victims see no response. I question whether NST have even read those reports in forensic detail?
What about the Makin Review? First, we may not see this until the end of 2022, nearly six years after the Channel 4 broadcast. But I have asked repeatedly of the Director of Safeguarding whether these are not two different processes. Keith Makin has no powers under the Church of England disciplinary processes. He can make discoveries, and pass them to NST, but he remains an independent reviewer, with no powers. It is for NST and the Church of England to initiate the necessary processes, investigate, and apply the appropriate sanctions. So, whenever I am told “wait for the Makin Review”, I ask whether there is not ample already in the public domain to initiate proceedings?
Where do I see blame? Who do victims want held to account? We must not forget, our abuser is dead. He alone is responsible for the abuse we suffered. However, he could and should have been stopped at many points in this story. And all who had some degree of knowledge, but stood by as “Observers”, in the language of abuse, sit on the spectrum of fault.
Most culpable are those who had full knowledge of the abuse after the Ruston Report in 1982. They knew the horror. Anyone reading the Ruston Report knew of blood, nappies and criminality. Some of this group are alive. And untouched. David and Jonathan Fletcher. Roger Combes. They are the most culpable for failing to stop John Smyth’s abuse of African kids for the next thirty five years.
There are then those who had some degree of knowledge in the 1980s, even if it is not claimed they saw the Ruston Report. Dean David Connor, Archbishop Justin Welby, who has only recently admitted he was tipped off about Smyth in 1983. Did they have any responsibility to check what Smyth was doing next? To keep an eye on him ? Did any of this group, in the subsequent years ask themselves what Smyth was up to, or hear that he was running camps again? A child died. Repeat that: Guide Nyachuru died, when many knew what Smyth was capable of, and was in fact doing.
In the mid 1990s, there was an enormous, missed opportunity. The activities of Smyth were again brought to many people’s attention. It was not just the Bulawayo Pastors and lawyer David Coltart who doggedly tried to shut down Smyth, and then to prosecute him. They referred to the UK for details of the Ruston Report and were told, by David Fletcher, and victims such as Alasdair Paine, exactly what had happened around the Ruston Report. The UK fundraising trust, the Zambesi Trust, imploded, but quickly found new Trustees and financial backers. Even after meetings in Zimbabwe with those concerned, Jamie Colman continued to support John Smyth. And still, no one in the UK was willing to name Smyth, “out” him and stop his practices using the media. The Work was too valuable.
In 2012, I came forward. Yet, rather than investigate, and stop John Smyth, I was met by denial and distancing by Titus Trust. They refused any offer of counselling, and the two Titus reports lay out how they denied responsibility. But it was not just Titus. In 2013, my disclosure in the Diocese of Ely was passed to NST and Lambeth. By autumn 2013, five Bishops and one Archbishop had notice, and significant detail about the beatings. Yet still Smyth was not stopped. Are they not culpable ? Do they not have some moral and legal responsibility towards those abused in Cape Town after 2013?
Then, subsequent to the Channel 4 programme? What of those who have lied? Or told untruths? What of those who in media interviews have laid a smokescreen of “he wasn’t Anglican”: he patently was. What of those now claiming amnesia, or claiming that they “knew about beatings, but did not realise how bad it was”. In the ConEvo world of Iwerne and Titus I have had only two people offer full, open, heart-rending sorrow and lament. I am blanked by the rest.
So, in the spectrum of knowledge and fault, there are many, many people. Their involvement, their roles are known. Yet, no one has been held to account.
NST, Church of England, what more do you want?
I contrast this with the prompt action taken by PJ Smyth’s Church. The son of John Smyth was undoubtedly a victim of his fathers brutality and warped theology, yet he has been stood down from ministry following a comprehensive review
Undertaken by Wade Mullen and concluded within 3 months.
As a responsible Evangelical PJ has acknowledged that whatever the mitigating factors derived from victim status, he accepted the role and duties of leadership; he failed in that and has submitted to judgment a d works through contrition towards restoration. I understand victims respect that and wish him well.
This contrasts with the CofE approach to offer blanket immunity to anyone able to lay claim to victim status. That seems to me to be inherently wrong in principle and contrary to the declared theology of the leaders involved.
In secular society, when people attain adulthood we impose clear expectations upon them to protect the you g. Many parents had disadvantaged and abusive backgrounds. Nevertheless we imprison and remove their children if they fail in their duty of care. We may take into account the circumstances as mitigating factors but that is a different part of the process: there is no blanket immunity.
Those who knew and did nothing are highly intelligent people: they confidently pronounce on moral issues, plainly unaware of the beam of complicity in cover up in their own eye. Many have had every advantage of wealth and professional status – far more than the learning disabled parents I used to represent who were never afforded a “ get out of jail free card” before the facts have even been adjudicated.
The NST stance on this is legally and morally unsupportable: it raises every cloud of suspicion around it, that power, fear of political consequence and reputation also management is the first priority. So business as usual at Lambeth Palace and Church House.
Thanks so much to Graham for his truthful and gracious words despite the awfulness of the abuse he’s suffered.
I agree Martin, we as the CofE need to learn from Mullens report, Advance’s response and PJ Smyth as he walks a journey of restoration as a person both a survivor and a morally culpable Christian leader.
Martin, respectfully, the response by PJ Smyth’s church was too late. Same for the the Advance network that he led and the church was part of. Concerns were raised in early 2017, but it was mid-2021 before the the independent review was commissioned. Advance has admitted they failed.
When you report abuse, and the person with the authority to take action does nothing, or next to nothing, they are essentially permitting abuse to take place. In practice they are telling the abuser that they can carry on. I think this must be taken more seriously as collusion in abuse whether they were present or not. When clergy and other persons who hold a responsible role know or suspect abuse is, or has taken place and they do nothing, they too are essentially permitting abuse to take place. Again this must be taken very seriously. Graham and many others are worn out, yet are forced to carry on hoping the Church of England fulfils its legal and moral responsibilities. So far it has been a forlorn hope. General Synod knows the situation, NST know the situation, Archbishops and Bishops know the situation. And still survivors battle on, weary but determined that abusers and those permitting the abuse will be dealt with, and that this toxic culture of permitting abuse, even current abuse to continue, whilst hypocritically pointing to revised safeguarding guidelines and cdm processes will be ended one day. It has become clear that those with the power and authority to put an end to the toxic culture do not wish to do so. I am afraid that Graham and other survivors will grow more weary yet. We battle on knowing the church wants to wear us down. We are making it clear we will not stop. We have drawn a line in the sand and are saying no more. The church may think that by doing nothing for long periods it will get away with it and continue to protect the abusers they know are in their ranks. But our line is firmly drawn, weary or not we will not stay quiet. We, like Martin Luther king, have a dream.
Thank you Graham for writing this. “The work was too valuable” is something that has been used far too many times in recent and past abuse cases.
I think in CofE and Advance you have two movements at opposite ends of the scale in bureaucracy and both have problems. CofE’s are outlined by Graham. With Advance the lack of any formal processes led to the swift dismissal of the accusations in 2017 – which they have apologised and a swift and decisive reaction in 2021 for which they have been praised.
My interactions with Newfrontiers (Advance’s parent body) showed a willingness for swift and decisive action (“to protect the church”), but with a lack of process, listening and means of appeal. We left the church after questioning an overseer’s snap decision – one that led to about half the church leaving.
Graham, I am so sorry that you need to write this, and that nearly 10 years after you came forward, you are still waiting for justice and accountability. It really is inexcusable that an institution takes so long to act.
I wish there was something I could say or do that would bring this about. I wish you could have some closure and rest. I know how impossibly hard that is when nothing is resolved.
Sadly I fear that nothing will change until the CDM and core group processes have been completely reformed. They make accountability virtually impossible in most situations.
I believe the NST is ultimately funded by churchgoers. We want and need an NST that proactively engages with survivors, so that they don’t feel unheard and therefore re-abused. How many people are currently employed as part of NST to do survivor engagement? So much of this need not have happened if the CofE centrally had managed some modern thinking, and even humane thinking, in the area of survivor engagement.
Why is the CofE always behind the rest of society in its thinking and behaviours? With the right attitude, we can make it a policy to get in front of problems and stop things going even more badly wrong.
We *can* change.
Thank you Graham for sharing your struggle to get people held to account. Over the past few weeks as we have all watched the most horrific abuse cases of parents torturing and murdering young children I have thought a lot about what it means to hold people to account. The parents are arrested, sentenced and vilified yet somehow, at least for me, that does not feel enough, I want them castrated, sterilized, treated badly by other inmates, to suffer the agony they put their children through but that is revenge not being held to account.
In the case of Smyth at best there will be a few lame apologies maybe a bit of redress but on the whole nothing to make survivors feel profoundly different. As survivors it is understandable to want revenge, we may dress it up and call it accountability but that does not validate the very deeply wounded place where all that hurt came from.
For our own psychological well being it is important to find a place where we can simply say ‘I want revenge’ and not fear judgement. Wanting something and acting on it comes from very different places inside us and acknowledging our most difficult and taboo feelings is important in caring for ourselves.
Thank you for your honesty in writing this, Trish. I’ve not met many survivors who haven’t at some point wanted their abuser to experience something like their own distress and pain, understandably. As you say, no shame in that.
That recognition, of personal revenge not being justice, is one principle behind our system of justice decided by 12 fellow citizens, not us alone as victims, of course.
The core group and CDM processes should rightly therefore not be about punishment or revenge. We know that punishment is a poor deterrent or ‘cure’. What does work is consequences and restoration.
These are what are missing from both processes currently. There is no accountability, or consequence. And therefore no restoration.
Thank you very much for this, Graham. I’m sure all of us are very sorry for what you have been through and are still going through.
Of the recipients of the Ruston report, two are still alive: David Fletcher and Roger Combes. You reasonably infer that David’s brother will have known a certain amount too. To call either of these to account would be problematic. The former thought he was doing a good thing by separating JS from his abusees and putting him under the auspices of a solid ministry; he also proactively cooperated with the legal pursuit of JS in Africa. He is shortly to turn 90 and his mental powers are fading. The latter says he never read the report. One possibility is that he forgot it, another is that he was never shown it.
I have certainly never come across anyone who is exercised by grammar or apostrophes in Bleeding For Jesus. It is possible to be exercised by the factual errors, a few of which I listed on Amazon. Thanks.
I am at the moment reading the book ‘Bleeding for Jesus’. The background to Iwerne, and the public schools from where these young men were recruited, has been left out.
Clayesmore school was founded by a mad who birched and cane young men all his life, Alexander Devine. He brought a birching bench to the school which was in use most nights, but there were never any sexual activities in those beatings.
Most of the schools where Symth recruited young men from were ‘thrashing schools’, where mater were used to canings taking place. And what of ‘Bash’, had he not been beating lads at this camp for many years?
The ‘Clergy’ who knew at the time seemed to be more concerned about whether Smyth was conducting Popism, with confession and penance rather than any brutality! Masters at these public schools had been caning lads for decades, fully clothed of course so no possibility of knowing if they gained any pleasure from those canings.
The Church will not respond mostly due to guilt about their own proclivities, totally repressed of course.
Was corporal punishment still widespread at schools like Winchester in the late 1970s?
I think I’m right in saying it still happened in Scotland.
It was prohibited in State schools from 1987 but not in Public schools until 1999. So I should think highly likely it went on at Winchester in the late 70s…..
One of the very troubling aspects is that a number of ‘Christian’ schools argued in favour of corporal punishment as recently as 2005 (I think). See the HofL document here
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldjudgmt/jd050224/will-1.htm
but here is the flavour from that document of what some will argue from a supposedly biblical perspective:
8. The claimants in these proceedings are head teachers, teachers and parents of children at four independent schools. The schools are the Christian Fellowship School at Edge Hill, Liverpool, Bradford Christian School at Idle, Bradford, Cornerstone School at Epsom, Surrey, and King’s School at Eastleigh, Hampshire. The claimants’ principal claim is that the extended statutory ban is incompatible with their Convention right to freedom of religion and freedom to manifest their religion in practice, a right guaranteed under article 9 of the Convention on Human Rights.
9. The claimants claim to speak on behalf of a ‘large body of the Christian community’ in this country whose ‘fundamental beliefs’ include a belief that ‘part of the duty of education in the Christian context is that teachers should be able to stand in the place of parents and administer physical punishment to children who are guilty of indiscipline’. They reject the general standards of state education available in this country as not fitting their religious and moral beliefs.
10. The claimants’ beliefs regarding the use of corporal punishment by both parents and teachers are based on their interpretation of certain passages in the Bible. For instance, ‘He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him’: Proverbs 13:24. They say the use of ‘loving corporal correction’ in the upbringing of children is an essential of their faith.
This surely shows how dangerous a literal reading of the bible can be.
Good grief. Do they also consider that Saturday worship and the exclusion of bald men and anyone with a skin disease from church are ‘essentials of their faith’? They’re certainly biblical.
It can scarcely be the Christian’s job to be ‘biblical’ when the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus marks a decisive advance over what came before. Being ‘New Testament’ is therefore the thing. But as to Andrew’s idea that this is down to ‘literal’ readings, I found 18 separate incoherences in that in What Are They Teaching The Children? (pp277-9). After all, how does one metaphorically exclude people with skin diseases or metaphorically exclude bald people? This is not a literal/metaphorical issue at all, as is decisively shown by the fact that those who claim that it is never seem to be able to do one or both of the following: (a) show what their non-literal interpretation would look like in practice, (b) show how it is an interpretation at all, i.e. has any connection to the text.
Christopher: I’m with you that we need to be ‘New Testament’ rather than simply biblical. But of course that isn’t what is being said by the Titus Trust/Iwerne types who believe that the bible mandates corporal punishment. They use the kind of lawyers one finds in Christian Concern to fight the current legislation – please see the link I posted. What those who believe that kind of thing are teaching the children is that using the rod or birch is necessary for discipline.
You ask what a non literal reading would be like. That’s quite simple. It would recognise that those who supposed that it was right to use such methods to impose discipline were mistaken, and that other ways are now appropriate. That was not something John Smyth or the Titus Trust were prepared to countenance because it is not considered ‘sound’.
That does not even remotely resemble a non literal reading of the text. It is just a rejection of the text – so why call it by a different name? It gives it a superficial sophistication.
With Mary I agree totally. When a disease is understood and under control then that changes circumstances. But how you call that a ‘non literal reading’ rather than a rejection of the text, I have no idea. A non literal reading would be to say that the text all along was intending to say something different from what it appears to say.
A non-literal reading of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ would be that it was a metaphor, indicating the necessity of discipline but not meaning that children should actually be beaten with a rod. Most of us would interpret Jesus dictum, ‘if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out’ in the same non-literal way. Though the literally-minded Origen is said to have castrated himself; we can infer what his temptation was!
Also, clarification is needed on one of Andrew’s sentences. ‘…were mistaken, and that other ways are now appropriate’ – does not the first half of this sentence suppose that other ways *always were* appropriate not that they have suddenly become so now? Else, how could the people have been ‘mistaken’?
I think you will find the word supposed takes care of that.
The issue is that the Titus Trust and Iwerne types *still* support corporal punishment and think that is a good thing to be teaching the children.
Exactly. If we accept the word ‘supposed’ then we have to reject the word ‘now’ in the phrase ‘now appropriate’. Because we shall have been talking about things that never were appropriate.
All talk of ‘types’ is an own goal, because it admits that specific knowledge is at such a low level that one is reduced to thinking in terms of stereotypes (in a tabloid or Spitting Image fashion). The human beings I know are not stereotypes but individuals. And to treat people as stereotypes is to fail to value them, which is also wrong.
“The human beings I know are not stereotypes but individuals. And to treat people as stereotypes is to fail to value them, which is also wrong.”
Excellent point. Exactly the point being avoided by the ‘biblical’ lobby in favour of corporal punishment and, incidentally, opposed to any reasonable exploration of same sex marriage.
But the only person treating people as ‘types’ on this thread was you, explicitly.
Read the document I linked to Christopher. It describes a ‘type’, sadly.
How do you know I have not already read it?
If there are types, then of the 2 of us, I would be better able to judge that.
However, you will indeed find distinctive characteristics in any group, on average, which is why the members are in that group and not in any other. Birds of a feather. That does not justify dismissing them as ‘types’. To do so suggests their individuality is zero, which is highly unlikely to be the case; secondly it is a comfortable form of ‘othering’, something we are rightly warned against. Just because there are distinctive characteristics that are found in particular groups (and how could there not be), it scarcely follows that the members are entirely types and devoid of individuality. This would be demeaning even towards people one knew; towards people one does not know it is more wilful.
Christopher, Andrew has never said that Iwerne/Titus people (or anyone else) are ‘entirely types and devoid of individuality’, as you assert below. You yourself admit that members of any group share certain characteristics; several reviews have concluded that that is more than usually so of members of the Iwerne movement.
It might be said that psychology, psychiatry, and sociology rely on classifying ‘types’ of people, though they would generally use more specialise language.
Christopher: I think the word type simply describes a category of people or things having common characteristics. Read the authors post about the culture of the Titus Trust. Because you are such an apologist/defender of Titus/Iwerne I think it rather less likely that you would see a type, being too close to it all.
Do you yourself approve of corporal punishment? Are yo7 one of those who is identified in the HofL document as defending the right of Christian schools to beat children as a way of instilling discipline?
No. (A short answer to a long question.) So you are indeed arguing that people who have never met those involved – and who secondly have formed well-known predictable stereotypes about them – are certainly better sources than those who have. That means I am (in my ignorance; sorry, because of my ignorance) a better source on South Norwegian ice-hockey players than their fellow players are.
Ah no. You confuse dispassionate observation of culture and characteristics with inside knowledge of what kind of jokes the team shares.
Enough I think. Have a super run up to Christmas.
Well I have two skin diseases. Modern medicine can confirm that it is not leprosy and not contagious. Surely that is the point? We have moved on from excluding people like myself unnecessarily in a way which was not possible previously. Leprosy is now treatable too. Are we not to use common sense and the findings of modern medicine to ignore former strictures made when such findings were unavailable?
Some years ago I led a top junior’s club in a Baptist church, some of whose members were followers of ‘Restoration’ and similar literalist theology. They tended to be very pushy about getting their own way, shall I say? One particularly pushy father came to me and said, quite openly, “Tell me if my son misbehaves in your club, and I’ll beat him.”
Strangely, I never did report him to his father for some reason – and the lad was not at all badly behaved. (I had problems with the church secretary’s children, though! “My parents own this place, I can do what I like” sort of attitude…)
Like it or not, I have to live in the 21st century and interpret my faith in the light of current understanding on a great many issues. I can’t live in the 1st century world – or swap from one era during the week to another one on Sundays. Such sanctified schizophrenia is not, as far as I’m aware, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The tone of discussion on parts of this blog has become discourteous. I am closing down further discussion on this thread.