by Hatty Calbus
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Something common to the recent abuse scandals in the Church of England has been a connection with HTB. The latest is with Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor, whose evangelising success and closeness used to be hymned by Nicky Gumbel. https://x.com/god_loves_women/status/1658531348347342848?s=61&t=Ao5_W_2mTy-7Nu6qyWc4Mw Much of this is well known, but drawing out connections needs the background. The network is so dense I’m likely to have missed links. (And it might be better represented diagrammatically, if anyone would like to have a go.)
The Iwerne Evangelical summer camps were founded for boys and youths from the best public schools by EJ Nash (‘Bash’ – 1898-1982, Trinity College, Cambridge, curate at Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon). Nash was succeeded by Revd David Fletcher (1932), whose brother Jonathan Fletcher (1942, curate at St Sepulchre’s/the Round Church, Cambridge 1972-76), like Pilavachi, was granted a longterm abuser’s fiefdom, in his case at Emmanuel Church. Jonathan Fletcher attended Iwerne from 1955-2017 (many facts here come from Andrew Graystone’s book Bleeding for Jesus). John Smyth (1941, Jesus College, Cambridge, lawyer) was chairman of the Iwerne Trust from 1974-81. He and Jonathan Fletcher both felt entitled to indulge a taste for homoerotic sadism, exploiting many youths in their spiritual care, who were manipulated into massages and/or naked beatings.
Within that elite world, the existence of both groups of prey was an open secret for decades. But Smyth died in 2018 saved by other best-public-school-Christians from the justice system. An inquiry has, to say the least, lacked urgency. Fletcher was only finally investigated when victims resorted to the press. A hushed up investigation into Smyth in 1982 (by coincidence, the year Fletcher arrived in Wimbledon), was carried out by Mark Ruston (1916, Jesus College, Cambridge, vicar at St Sepulchre’s/the Round Church, Cambridge). Justin Welby (1956, Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge) was a Iwerne ‘officer’ (it was all very military and manly) who gave talks. He lodged with Ruston in Cambridge and was mentored by him. Ruston also mentored Jonathan Fletcher. Fletcher in turn mentored both Welby and Nicky Gumbel (1955, Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge, ex-lawyer).
A pronounced Iwerne and HTB senior-clergy duplication is joined by the overlap of both with Eton and Cambridge, especially Trinity College (“filthy rich,” says The Tab), which occurs so often I’ll now abbreviate it to TCC. There are HTB’s three vicars up to 2017: John Collins (1925-2022, Clare College, Cambridge), Sandy Millar (1939, Eton, TCC, ex-lawyer), who put Welby forward for ordination, Nicky Gumbel (1955, Eton, TCC, ex-lawyer) and Gumbel’s close friend from school Nicky Lee (1954, Eton, TCC) who was associate vicar. There’s also former curate John Irvine (1949, ex-lawyer), involved in the early Alpha course who led HTB’s first ‘plant’. And Welby, having been brought to faith at TCC by Lee, was a lay leader at HTB, mentored by Collins and put forward for ordination by Millar.
Revd John Stott (1921-2011, TCC), an adjutant and camp secretary at Iwerne, was not at HTB, but is much cited by Gumbel. Millar was not at Iwerne, but was a lawyer contemporary of Smyth’s at Cambridge. Bishop Richard Chartres (1947, TCC) was not at Iwerne, but attended HTB’s Focus holiday every year, and like Millar, Welby, Gumbel and Lee was at TCC. Welby, Gumbel and Lee were Eton and TCC contemporaries and friends.
And then there are the Colmans. Sue Colman (1959) was a curate at HTB. She and her husband Jamie (1958, Eton, lawyer) donated Malsanger Park, which HTB described as its “home in the country.” Jamie Colman was at Eton with Welby, Gumbel and Lee, preceded by Millar. He was mentored by Smyth. Irvine, Millar and Gumbel were lawyers before they were HTB clergy, Jamie Colman was a lawyer married to HTB clergy. And Smyth was also a lawyer, the professional and Church connection with Jamie Colman leading him and his wife having to admit to giving Smyth hundreds of thousands of pounds over nearly thirty years till 2017, “despite knowing that the barrister had admitted beating boys and showering naked with them.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/10/colmans-mustard-heir-admits-charity-funded-child-abuse-barrister/ Gumbel appointed Sue Colman safeguarding minister at HTB. Smyth and his wife stayed in the flat of another lawyer – fellow barrister, HTB lay leader and friend of Gumbel, Jane Auld, in 2016.
I wrote previously about Timothy Storey’s abuse. He is in prison for abusing girls as young as thirteen. The vicar at his hunting ground, St Michael’s, Belgravia, was Charles Marnham (1951, Jesus College, Cambridge). Marnham was previously the HTB curate who devised the Alpha Course. I have not been able to discover if he is another Iwerne alumnus. St Michael’s is a small church, but Marnham apparently not only noticed nothing amiss with his youth worker’s behaviour with girls, but made him responsible for safeguarding training. After Storey’s convictions, he made no statement and still saw no need to put any safeguarding information on the church’s website.
One victim told Director of Ordinands Jeremy Crossley (1955) about her rape. Crossley had been a curate at St Michael’s. Like Chartres and unlike the trial judge, he missed Storey’s false religiosity. Storey was withdrawn from ordination training – and employed as administrative assistant in Crossley’s parish. When one of the victims reported her rape, he said the Church must consider Storey’s “welfare and needs.” https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2016/26-february/news/uk/diocese-admits-safeguarding-failure-over-rapist-ordinand The other senior clergyman to put Storey before his victims, Hugh Valentine (1956) was the diocesan safeguarding adviser. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/anglican-church/pen-portraits.html There was a curate at HTB, John Valentine (1963), who prior to that was at St Michael’s with Marnham. He was only at HTB two years and may be completely blameless, and unrelated to Hugh Valentine, but given how it works, relationship looks likely.
And there is one final, significant lawyer: Jonathan Coad. Like Marnham and Ruston, he is a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, former bass player in the band at HTB, bass player at an HTB plant. Described by Private Eye as a “legal bruiser,” he advertises his services as “protecting top brand and corporate reputations” and is currently helping Soul Survivor, whose “brand” has been rather damaged by Pilavachi. “A grateful Justin Welby” – in Coad’s words – has been another client. Private Eye reported that Welby “likes to point out that the church’s central safeguarding budget has grown exponentially under his leadership” – without mentioning that the criteria for giving compensation to survivors have been tightened and ten times less money has been spent on them than lawyers.
The density of the connections might distract from the wider question of why HTB has links to all four recent Anglican abuse scandals. Within the network, there are those who might be called ‘abuse adjacent’ and there is the question of complicity and collusion. Some will protest, “Guilt by association!” – but their world is tightly tribal, which has worked mostly to their advantage. Apart from the institutional bonds, there is the supper party circuit. A common feature of abuse is those nearby not knowing. But there are always people denying, avoiding, minimising, deflecting, rationalising, seeing without seeing, hearing without hearing. https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/soul-survivors-the-inside-story-of-how-mike-pilavachis-abuse-was-uncovered/17824.article And, to state the obvious, particular responsibility lies with those in positions of responsibility. There’s a sharp comment in the Meghan Markle drama Suits. When a director pleads he didn’t know about some fraud, one of the hotshot Harvard lawyers retorts, “It was his goddam job to know.”
It might be said that those who don’t see abusers as abusers won’t see their victims as victims – and recognise their devastation. This can become all too clear when the abuse finally gets exposed. The senior leader in this network is obviously Welby. Gumbel has no hierarchical role but certainly a very elevated unofficial position and, with his leadership conferences, leadership courses and leadership podcast, could surely have something expected from him. He wrote of Fletcher in 2012, “My admiration for Jonathan knows no bounds.” Graystone says Smyth and Welby exchanged Christmas cards till the mid-nineties and Private Eye has reportedthatWelby also sent Smyth money. https://x.com/frstevenhilton/status/1813710323410706754?s=61&t=Ao5_W_2mTy-7Nu6qyWc4Mw Both Gumbel and Welby were then clergy. When everything came out, Welby did speak belatedly, and, victims said, inadequately, about Smyth. His eventual comments to Premier Radio about Pilavachi seemed oddly inarticulate and again inadequate (“Here was a youth work that was remarkable on the appearance, but was abusive, deeply abusive, internally … there was abuse. We need to be honest about that. We need to be transparent. I, from all that I hear and are going on asking questions. The work on transparency is being well done.”) There seems to be no record of any comment of his about Fletcher and Storey’s protracted abuses, which also continued far into the era of safeguarding procedures.
Gumbel has made no comment about Pilavachi, despite victims being part of HTB’s ‘family’. https://x.com/drstevelewis/status/1778074172406595726?s=61&t=Ao5_W_2mTy-7Nu6qyWc4Mw Nor, despite his Iwerne involvement, did he make a statement showing concern for Smyth or Fletcher’s victims. And there is his close connection with the Colmans, who were so invested in Smyth. When a woman was raped at HTB’s Focus holiday in 2018, the police said she was receiving support from specialist officers. The church issued a cold little statement saying it was a police matter. As a former lawyer, Gumbel would have known he could express pastoral care without prejudicing the case. After the revelations comes absence.
Welby comes from HTB and has made it central to the future of the Church – despite the money and megachurch influence I previously tried to show are safeguarding red flags, despite Revitalise patron Chartres with his terrible safeguarding record and despite links to the four recent Anglican abuse scandals. The problem is not Welby and Gumbel’s vulnerability when they were very young to Iwerne, but their apparent fear, as powerful adults, of facing what abuse is and does. The robbed, beaten victim bleeds in the road while the priest looks the other way and keeps walking.