The recent announcement that ten members of the clergy in the C/E are facing a disciplinary process, arising out of the Keith Makin report, was not an unexpected item of news. The Makin report had named dozens of clergy said to have known of Smyth’s criminal activities, but these ten ‘represent those whose actions have been deemed to meet the threshold for instituting disciplinary proceedings’. In other words, these ten clergypersons are to be subject to the scrutiny of the NST and under the terms of the CDM accept whatever penalties that the CDM process decides.
Back in 2020, I took an interest in the case of George Carey and the way that Makin chose to publicise, mid-enquiry, some apparent misdemeanour on his part. This was followed by an immediate withdrawal of Carey’s PTO by the Bishop of Oxford. Many people were puzzled that Carey’s apparent failing was seen to be so serious that, of all the failures being uncovered by Makin, this one alone required immediate action. The removal of Carey’s PTO was reversed some months later, but much damage had been done to Carey’s peace of mind and reputation. My blog piece, that I wrote at the time, focussed on whether Smyth’s brief and tenuous attachment to Trinity College Bristol, where Carey was principal, might have been so transitory that his presence was barely noticed. An exploitation of Trinity’s name to help Smyth in his plan to flee Britain for Africa, where no scandal had yet attached to his name, might offer a plausible interpretation of the facts as we then knew them. According to this interpretation, Smyth had registered as a student, but he was just exploiting a non-residential status at the college as a way of enhancing his CV. Even a fleeting attachment to Trinity College might impress theological institutions abroad, especially in places where the British system was not well understood. A non-residential student in a British college might be regarded as having a status that was not merited. No special reason exists for Carey to have heard of this very part-time student before his arrival. Carey simply did not move in the prestigious evangelical circles occupied by Smyth and his former admirers that had worshipped him summer after summer at Iwerne. The Bash ‘project’ and its focus on evangelising the public-school elite was not something that had any interest for Carey. He would have found the focus on evangelising the privileged classes as something alien, even objectionable. If this very part-time student, Smyth, was, as we suspect, keeping his attendance down to the absolute minimum, there is no reason for Carey to have got to know him or have had reason to consult the files about him. The politics of the evangelical world at the time seem to have been well outside Carey’s concerns.
This month I have had passed on to me Carey’s own autobiographical account of the background to the disciplinary process being currently undertaken against him by the NST. This also sets out material from the work of the earlier 2020 core group. Reading this narrative with the permission of the author, I am, I believe, able to see more of the dynamics of the 2020 core group and the way it became convinced of the guilt of an individual based on what appear to be hunches rather than actual evidence. Stripped down to the bare bones, Carey was deemed guilty of having seen the original 1982 Ruston report on Smyth and having done nothing with the information. The surmise that he had seen the report was based on two passing references in letters sent by David McInnes to David Fletcher. In the second of these two letters, David MacInnes was wanting to trace a number of ‘memos’ describing Smyth’s crimes. He mentioned that a minister called David Jackman had a copy ‘and so had George Carey’. It is this single unsubstantiated and uncorroborated claim that Carey had the document, and he had not reacted by going straight to the police, that is, both then and now, at the heart of the CDM accusation.
Carey’s account of his own self-examination about whether he might have had a lapse of memory, after seeing such an explosive document as the Ruston report, is at the centre of this new autobiographical fragment. Carey rejects the idea that he could have read it, and then immediately put it out of his mind. Such a notion, he concludes, is impossible. Quoting Andrew Graystone, who knows more about the Smyth story than anyone else alive, he explains that the memo ‘is so shocking that I can assure that if you had been presented with Mark Ruston’s 1982 report you would remember it for the rest of your life.’
When my blog piece about Carey and his possible guilt over Smyth came out in 2020, a contributor to the comments section, called David Pennant, came up with a further valuable piece of information. He wrote: I was a full-time ordinand at Trinity College Bristol from 1981 to 1984, and then stayed on researching there from 84 – 86. I went into the college only once a week in the latter period, but in the early period I was there five days a week. We lived a mile away in our own home. This blog is the first time that I have discovered that John Smyth had any connection with the college. Had I known at the time, I would have searched him out and welcomed him, remembering him from Iwerne days. So, I am certain that I never heard anything about his presence. I also only discovered the allegations against him from this blog in recent years.
Reflecting on David’s testimony, we can make one or two observations. If a Iwerne alumnus had been present at Trinity, it is inconceivable that John Smyth would have managed to be so utterly invisible unless he had arranged to make his attendance deliberately so. Also, the evidence and testimony of the one member of staff who would have dealt with an external student, as Smyth must have been, Peter Wiliams, was never followed up by the core group. This might have shown Carey was never party to any information about Smyth and his fleeting attachment to Trinity Bristol in those far-off days. Here the Church of England core group system shows itself unwilling to pursue facts as far as they lead. Certainly, there is plenty of ‘reasonable doubt’ to query the group-think conclusion held by the core group. They decided that George Carey knew all about John Smyth and his crimes but chose to supress this knowledge in order to have a quiet life.
I do not know George Carey personally, though we met at a Hereford diocesan conference in around 1991 when he was Bishop of Bath and Wells. The story that I have discerned now and in 2020 when trying, on this blog, to make sense of his narrative, is capable of more interpretations than just those given by the NST and the original core group. Once again, we seem to be encountering a clear interest in the rights and privileges of institutions and how these take precedence over a concern for justice for the individual. Having been permitted to glimpse the ‘evidence’ brought forward as a way of pinning guilt on Carey, I have very little confidence that church justice is or was being served. We can say that whenever there is evidence that facts are not pursued in a thorough professional manner, any accusations made against an individual lack integrity and even credibility. Common-sense questions also arise about the possible reasons for only one example of malfeasance, Carey’s, being acted upon prior to the excruciatingly delayed publication of the Makin report. What made Carey’s ‘misdeeds’ so much worse than those of others? One word used by both Carey and Julie McFarlane to describe the operation of church justice, whether in the role of the accused or the accusing, is ‘brutal’. There is a brutality about a process which seeks to attack and sometimes destroy those it disapproves of. One thing I can hope for is that the exoneration of George Carey will eventually be complete. Based on the evidence that I have seen, I hope that his friends in the legal world will be able to show up clearly the pettiness, vindictiveness and injustice which the Church of England has allowed to become part of its life. That may lead to the eventual complete dismantling and rebuilding of the structures around safeguarding so that justice, honesty and harmony may be restored to this area of church life.
I find this entirely convincing, FWIW: it fits with the pattern of scapegoating which has characterised so much of these scandals.
As a visitor to this page can I comment that very little in the Makin report would pass in a court of law. I read the entire document and noticed two things. Firstly nearly every senior evangelical Clergyman has been included in a wide ranging scandal involving a man who was not ordained or employed by the C of E. Their connection has mostly been tenuous and in the order of gossip rather than demonstrated fact. None appear to have been able to challenge the report before publication and some accusers have not been forensically interviewed to find if they are lying.
Secondly, the dead have been accused according to the current safeguarding standard that did not apply when they were working for the church.
Where are the high church and liberal clergy who have been disgracing the church for years. As a boy I was awarded a choral scholarship to a cathedral school. My father (a clergyman) would not let me go because he discovered the priests were sexually abusing the boys. If this was open gossip 40 years ago – why has there been no investigation of these high churchmen. Where are the voices of the abused.
When I discovered Jill and Martin Kingston had been named seven times in the report, the answer became clear. Martin has given legal advice to the group of clergy and churches who are considering what to do once gay marriage is approved in church (as will surely soon happen) they have been included because this report is a sham. A device to discredit evangelical clergy only and weaken their representation on committee. For example Hugh Palmer, a very holy and distinguished clergyman has been stripped of his right to officiate and of course also removed from the panel appointing the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Once you understand the real reason behind this, the targeting of so many by gossip alone makes sense.
Smyth was a Reader in a Diocese of Winchester church at the time he committed the crimes. Many of those who covered up those crimes and ensured he was sent to Africa, where he continued to abuse and young men, were Anglican clergymen. I agree that we should not hold the people of 40 years ago to present safeguarding standards, but their behaviour was questionable even then. The Ruston Report, with its list of recipients, is evidence of that.
I agree also that the Makin Report is seriously flawed, especially in its handling of the evidence. However, much of the information was already in the public domain, thanks to Channel 4’s ongoing investigation and Andrew Graystone’s meticulous research in ‘Bleeding for Jesus’.
‘Where are the high church and liberal clergy who have been disgracing the church for years.’ Keith Makin was employed to investigate only one offender, John Smyth. Other reviewers have investigated the crimes of High Church clergy, e.g. Robert Waddington, Peter Ball, Roy Cotton, Victor Whitsey, Trevor Devamanikam, and others. IICSA impartially investigated both evangelical clergy (such as my own vicar, Gordon Rideout) and Anglo-Catholics. Some abusive clergy, such as the evangelical Brandon Jackson, have escaped investigation altogether. I really can’t see a pattern of any sector of the C of E being favoured, or treated with prejudice, in all this.
The ‘evidence’ of Smyth’s lay readership is, as you have previously pointed out, the entry in the Winchester diocesan directory. That was in response to an assertion some years ago (I don’t recall whether here or on ‘Thinking Anglicans’) that there was no record of his being licensed. Quite recently, the present Bishop of Winchester was quoted as saying that no such record could be found now. I haven’t seen any follow-up of this crucial issue – admittedly like much else in this saga – at present only hearsay. I thought, and still think, it is something so fundamental that I expected Mr Makin would have dealt with it as an essential fact to be established, one way or the other.
Incidentally, his terms of reference from the outset required him to disregard or make findings based on hindsight.
I have seen a photocopy of the page in the Winchester diocesan directory in which Smyth is listed as a Lay Reader.
Fully understood and already acknowledged in this and many earlier comments! But why should the Bishop of Winchester (apparently) have specifically stated recently that there is no record of Smyth being licensed? That still leaves an unanswered question – and an important one.
Yes, you are right. It may simply be that they have not archived diocesan directories from the 1970s and 1980s. Some dioceses cleared their files and records when the data protection legislation was enacted.
At least, they claim to have done so, but that might be just an excuse. With the C of E, you can never tell. Bp Robert Hardy of Lincoln, on his retirement, placed his entire file on Dean Brandon Jackson in the county archives, with a 25 year embargo, and told no one except his successor. And Abp Sentamu claimed that a number of files were destroyed in a flood at Bishopthorpe in 2015 – but he had previously claimed that no damage was done in that flood.
The BBC doc the church’s darkest secret reveals that in the 90s as ABC Carey did not hand complaints about the paedophile bishop Peter Ball to the police. One victim was treated so heinously by the church that he took his own life.
Carey should be investigated for that
Carey’s role in the Ball case was investigated by IICSA. There is no evidence that he personally saw the letters from those complaining about Ball, but he was blamed – and accepted responsibility – because he was ultimately in charge. ‘The Church’s Darkest Secret’, it should be noted, is a docudrama and not a forensic investigation or even a fact-finding documentary. Some of it was accurate, but some deliberately skewed to increase the drama, and the share of blame attributable to Carey.
In any event, that is a separate case to the Smyth one. Each must be judged on its own merits.
i – I recently saw a Daily Mail article in “press reader” (the date may have been about October 2015 possibly) stating that the then Bp Carey had concretely made Bp Ball an assistant bishop in Wells after his police caution. Is there some corroboration about that specifically?
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20151009/281483570210349
P.s the following was said on a different forum about a media-based commercial subject matter (some craze apparently around “ponies”):
“If there’s anything I learned from any franchise targeted towards younger people, you always going to have predators that are influencers in said franchises.”
It sounds like whoever doesn’t want the Ball case looked at any more nowadays, would prefer to load the specific Carey-Smyth connection according to Stephen. Have there been two CDMs out against the now Abp Carey? “Review” writers and readers may be content to lose track of when Ball is really meant – AND exactly why – and when Smyth is really meant (double bait and switch as well as the ever useful vagueness).
ii – While the upper class evangelism obsessives (successors to Stott, Smyth and Ball) and the lower-class evangelism obsessives (Pilavachi) pretend to be at daggers drawn, they are strongly united in triumphalism, attitude of superiority, and materialist approach to “influencing”. I don’t know Abp Carey’s detailed attitude to the then initiatives of various value, but surely it would have been his duty to evaluate the politicking around those?
In the 1990s the C of E was missing a lot of crucial tricks altogether (half-heartedness about women vicars, the irrational Abps’ “Council”, complacency about Wimberism / Toronto / dominionism, while spurning traditional solid nonconformists).
iii – The thing that ought to worry us about the circulating of two tiers of vague and less vague reports is that we don’t get to hear what the recipients were expected, or told they were expected, or thought they were expected, to do about it. Was an opportunity for coordinated whistle blowing missed? Since J Stott thought nonconformists didn’t have anything to offer the Christian faith (proving himself the more sectarian than he alleged they were) why would C of E recipients enlist Jackman’s help or offer him theirs? Could Jackman have broken the unwritten rules and told them that the “Iwerne” idea had never been worth anything?
What did they really think the impact of the Holy Spiritless, cut down “gospel” would be – blood drawn OR not – on the nation’s upcoming religious leaders and public? If “Iwerne” / the Brompton juggernaut / etc was so central in purpose, why didn’t any of these thoughts cross any of their minds? Ensure that the main thing is never the main thing – will the Son of Man come across faith – Rev 3:20. Despair as the defining limit of religion, for over 40 years.
Carey made Peter Ball Bishop of Gloucester before Ball’s cries came too light. Ball then resigned the post after being cautioned.
I’m not aware that anyone wants the Ball case not to be looked at any longer. It simply isn’t the subject of this blog, and each case has to be looked at separately.
Michael, you ask ‘why would C of E recipients enlist Jackman’s help or offer him theirs?’ We don’t know that either was the case. The Iwerne elite circulated the Ruston Report to a very limited group of Iwernites, and another memo to a wider group of outsiders, simply to warn them be cautious of Smyth. According to Andrew Graystone, the second memo was so vague it may have failed in this purpose.
Apologies. That should read ‘crimes came to light’.
Thank you. There is a very big chorus saying Graystone gets things wrong. I think Bp A Watson and Rev W Taylor have been far too quiet as they possess means to critique the spiritual background.
Summarising my recent church history reading: historic superiority, a Torreyite sense of the “dutiful”, and undervaluing prayer and inference in the life of the faithful, permeating the mindset, creates the vacuum for aberrations. A dodgy ex-RE teacher fled my school and its Christian Union suddenly while a CU faction was into evangelism without what I would call ongoing belief. I was moderately unusual but not alone, in my sense of critique (albeit inarticulate).
The activities of Smyth latterly probably took cover in the smorgasbord of fads of “emergent” or “power christianity” (as well as having “missionary” glamour). I and my parents (no fogeys ourselves) weren’t alone in puzzlement about trends in trendiness.
Stephen P. is absolutely on point in exposing the sliding of legal issues in more ways than one. For one thing, “Ruston” itself means two different things. Has religion become solely a set of mutually revolving “administrative” and legal questions? Carefully curated to become not what anyone thought it seemed? Just shells within shells.
Why were C of E clergy aware of Iwernitism or why would they recommend it to their young people? Did it suit their dominionist theology? Were chaplains at Public Schools part of the C of E in some sense? Also if Iwernitism (with or without Smyth) had a deniable status in the C of E why was anyone who received this memo supposed to take notice of it anyway?
Are other denominations also prosecuting their involved clergy?
Was the subtext for the elite youth: that we lower classes would never care about what was done to their minds?
Are Iwernitism officers and trustees “still around”? Do their organisations have some disciplinary processes that are not yet compromised? Scripture Union was a trusted institution in our High Streets.
Did Iwernitists think they were acting on behalf of the spiritual welfare of the C of E? Did Smyth, when infiltrating, claim to be benefitting the C of E?
In cases of officers and financiers of Smythism and everyone derelicting a moral duty to enlist forces to obtain reparation for his activities, the present prosecutors will be on point. But bewilderment about religious fudge and fog, as if an unquestionable fixture, has become a too convenient excuse for carelessness sometimes. It is noble for young people and parishioners to detach from “the way of doing things” (Acts 17:11).
It’s interesting that David Jackman got told, as he isn’t an Anglican but an FIEC minister. He was an IVF (now UCCF) Travelling Secretary when I was at University and later became minister of the large Above Bar Church in Southamption. However he clearly has close connections with evangelical Anglicans as he was involved in founding the Cornhill Training course and the Proclamation Trust.
When denominational boundaries are not respected (a feature of evangelicalism), it does make safeguarding more difficult.
Jackman was sent the memo (probably the vaguer version, rather than the Ruston Report) ) because by then Smyth was attending his church, Above Bar in Southampton.
And for instigating letters of support for Peter Ball
So did Prince Charles, Lord Lloyd, and any number of the great and the good. Ball groomed the whole Establishment. Why would a lad from a Dagenham council estate presume that he knew better than senior lawyers and royalty?
Ball was my bishop when I lived in Eastbourne. I can testify that he was mesmerising, and had a huge following among people of all denominations. When he spoke at Eastbourne’s renewal meeting it was packed out, and he had the congregation eating out of his hand. The only person I knew who saw through him was, ironically, Gordon Rideout – but Gordon didn’t like Anglo-Catholics and was himself a paedophile. Sometimes it takes one to know one.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was widespread ignorance of sexual abuse and narcissism. I think there would be much less excuse if similar events occurred now, after child protection legislation has been enacted and everyone has done safeguarding training.
There was something like a grey aura, and a feeling of shadow and dustiness and mustiness about him. I noticed it but put it to one side and did not interpret it, probably putting it down to bachelor laundry habits! So on seeing and hearing him speak I also thought he was a holy man. I know better now, and would at least examine such hunches through a sieve of rational correlating evidence, I hope!
We all tend to interpret others through ourselves, which can catch the more innocent minded out, and lead the less innocent to imagine others are equally corrupt but just hiding it better. I think this seeing others through the glasses of oneself is partly what has tripped up some and led them to be unjustly scapegoated.
Child and adolescent sexual abuse is also so awful that some would rather avoid it , lessen the pain of exposure to knowing the worst of it, and go for the low-hanging fruit of those who might have been so busy that they missed seeing a letter, or misunderstood a passing reference.
Yes indeed Janet. Things really were different then. People didn’t get it. And if a victim didn’t want to go to the police, you didn’t. But sadly, people still don’t.
Stephen is there any other evidence beyond Makin that can link Carey to the documents. I am not sure if Andrew Graystone may be able to shed further light? I note the above comments linking Carey to other safeguarding failures. It would indeed be sad if Carey faced a CDM for a case that lacks the proverbial smoking gun evidence when stronger evidence in other cases is around .
Given the tragic situation with many individuals not named for investigation who look far more culpable regarding Makin especially in the period 2010 to 2017 and granted you feel passionately about Carey being possibly innocent could you think about a post about your views on the evidence in Makin that highlights the period after 2010 as a number of senior Bishops and Archbishops seem to be named but not at this stage subject to CDM.
I would greatly appreciate if Andrew Graystone reads your article that he could perhaps shed light on this.
Although Makin cannot comment directly could their be evidence from interviews or documents that could firm up the NSTs reasons for commencing a CDM /
You do such wonderful work in this space and I would hope that somehow more light is shed on your conclusions.
‘The surmise that he had seen the report was based on two passing references in letters sent by David McInnes to David Fletcher. In the second of these two letters, David MacInnes was wanting to trace a number of ‘memos’ describing Smyth’s crimes. ‘ This was in 1982 or 1983.
In actual fact the evidence Makin had was much vaguer than that. David MacInnes merely referred to a ‘memo’; there was no suggestion that this memo described Smyth’s crimes. Andrew Graystone, who as Stephen says knows more about the Smyth case than anyone, has told me that the Ruston Report was sent to a very small group of people, the Iwerne inner ring, whose initials were given at the top. Anyone can look this report up online and check the initials. But a much more vague memo was sent out to a wider group of people who were not part of Iwerne. This memo for more general circulation gave no details of what Smyth was accused of, and was probably the one sent to David Jackman and George Carey. Since it didn’t give an indication of the seriousness of Smyth’s crimes, it may not have been passed on to George at all.
I have seen the correspondence between Keith Makin and the NST, and I was appalled that having seen an extremely vague reference to ‘a memo’, he could immediately jump to the conclusion that the Ruston Report was meant. That is not the way to handle evidence.
Many junior clergy, and also ministry trainees, presently face horrific bullying. This has gigantically negative and immediate repercussions for the Anglican Church. What do the laity and victims seek? What are lawyers or safeguarding professionals after? Where do senior clergy fit in all of this?
The Archbishop Carey story, as relayed above, should ring alarm bells. Decades old historical abuse, once victims’ needs are ignored, is largely irrelevant. It suits lawyers and professionals to have some table tennis games (at £1000 or more per email response shot). It may well suit current clerical villains, if a spotlight is fixed on the hypothetical walls of where yesteryear’s castles stood in terms of clerical abuser barons.
The Pilavachi/New Wine inquiry pedantically probed historical associations between New Wine and Soul Survivor, and also Pilavachi’s connection to New Wine. But less, very much less, and little or no detail, was included on modern witness evidence pointing to continuing problems with New Wine. The paragraph on page 37, just before the report’s conclusion, suggests that even after the complete exorcism of Pilavachi, things are far from well at New Wine.
Fretting about errors made in the Battle of the Atlantic will not help the Royal Navy defend against potential attack from Putin. In a similar vein, is the probe on Carey’s behaviour decades ago a nonsensical use of resources, and a total waste of Church member’s money?
Zero tolerance of bullying, adult or child or VA, should be our aim. An obsession with historical sex abuse may allow today’s Church bullies to flourish with minimal fear of intervention.
Looking at historical cases does at least two things. It enables victims to be recognised, ministered to, and hopefully, restitution given. (Hollow laughter) But there’s a reason people do war studies. You should be able to learn from history. People should get wiser and more perceptive. More hollow laughter, but that’s the theory.
That’s absolutely true, up to a point. But lots of victims hate complex legal processes, and are not primarily seeking money anyway. Legal chicanery enriches lawyers, provides time for senior offenders to slide offside and lets the heat of scandal escape wider notice. Paradoxically, the real sin in evangelical bullying cover ups is often blasphemy. We can lose sight of that with prolonged inquiries. An Occam’s Razor explanation of Anglicanism’s crisis takes me to 2 Corinthians 13:1, and St Paul’s sentiments are embedded in other bits of the bible. The final answer, to bullying cover up by clay-footed Bishops or clay-footed New Wine leaders, comes when the chances of getting caught are exceptionally high. U-boat commanders dreaded leaving port in the later stages of the war. That’s what we want to see with senior Anglican clerics who bully or cover up bullying. There is no other solution, and that’s where diocesan fingers on the reigns remain a nightmare.
As we all know, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat its follies. Unfortunately something called human sinfulness gets in the way – look for example at Gaza, or today’s headlines about religious mass murder taking place in Syria. When does that cease to be mass murder and become genocide, I wonder? And the Christian church is just as guilty as other faiths.
I know I am going to be unpopular saying this. At the time I applauded the appointment of Keith Makin as bringing the fresh perspective of a social worker to the ‘case’. When I began reading his report, I was filled with dismay. Making judgements “on the balance of probabilities” requires full consideration of both sides of any issue: judges are doing this in the civil courts every day. It doesn’t extend to guess work without such evaluation.
Stephen has analysed the issue with great skill. Can we hope that the NST might review this decision. My understanding is that Lord Carey no longer has PTO. Can he be seriously considered to be a ‘safeguarding risk’? As Janet points out, the case of Peter Ball is an entirely separate matter and should not play any part in this.
Without checking my information, my recollection is that Smyth moved next to Canada after the brief attendance (and its rather vague details) at Trinity College.
Yes, just look at the Pilavachi inquiry reports! There is reference to some victims feeling there was a potential sexual element to their ill-treatment. Yet did the Anglican Church fix for a separate judge or barrister analysis of this? Well no-” it’s so sensitive”-but let’s just kick it into the long grass bishops and hope for the best, a bit of delay and public or media release will fade. Cynical in the extreme. Little wonder Anglican Churches are emptying……..
Rowland, I hope you won’t be unpopular – at least among those survivors and victims (and there are many) who remain objective in their criticism of / comments on CofE safeguarding. Makin’s report, even after its 5-year gestation period, is seriously deficient, with many so-called ‘findings’ unsupported or inadequately evidenced. The contrast in quality with the Wilkinson ‘Review of the Independent Safeguarding Board’, published on 30 November 2023 and completed within just three months, is stark. The NST are at fault, in instructing a former social worker, rather than a judge or senior lawyer, to chair the Smyth review, and then in both inadequately resourcing and failing effectively to project manage the review.
Compare the much more considered/nuanced conclusions in “A Betrayal of Trust”, the independent report by His Honour David Pearl (a retired circuit judge) into “the handling of allegations that [came] to the attention of the Church of England concerning the late Hubert Victor Whitsey, former Bishop of Chester” published in 2020 and re-issued in January 2021.
You rightly ask, “Can [George Carey] be seriously considered to be a ‘safeguarding risk’?” I made the same point in my letter, published in the Church Times on 3 July 2020:
“… the recent revocation by the Bishop of Oxford (as directed by the National Safeguarding Team) of the retired 84-year-old former Archbishop Lord Carey’s “permission to officiate” (PTO) in the diocese, thus enabling him to minister in the parish church where he now worships, cannot conceivably be justified on any safeguarding basis.
“Whether the “new information” received by the Makin investigation into John Smyth concerns Lord Carey’s time as Principal of Trinity College, Bristol (1981-87) or his years as Archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002), it is plainly now irrelevant to his ministerial role in retirement. Frankly, the Church’s action is both irrational and cruel, and the PTO should be restored forthwith.”
I added this in a letter published in the Church Times on 29 January 2021, after Lord Carey’s PTO had been restored:
“As I stated (Letters, 3 July 2020), the revocation of his PTO last June could not be justified on any safeguarding basis, and the decision to do so was both ‘irrational and cruel’. He deserves an apology from the National Safeguarding Team, but I note that none was forthcoming in the less-than-gracious announcement on the Oxford diocese’s website, which, in its ‘Note for editors’ was more concerned to record that the NST had found ‘substantiated’, solely on the basis of two letters written in 1983/84 by Canon David MacInnes to David Fletcher, a concern that Lord Carey had seen the Ruston report detailing allegations of physical abuse by the late John Smyth, a conclusion rightly rejected by Lord Carey.”
I suggest that the analysis at paragraphs 12.1.147 to 12.1.167 is an inadequate basis for Makin to reach the conclusion he did about George Carey’s assessed knowledge of Smyth’s abuse, especially in the light of George’s clear lack of recollection of such knowledge and his cogent reason (cited by Stephen in his above blog post) for saying that he would remember had he seen such an explosive document.
There is a further significant point, which the President of Tribunals will surely need to consider when deciding whether to permit the NST Director to bring a CDM complaint against Lord Carey out of time, and that is that of ‘double jeopardy’, the allegation (in effect, and made public by the withdrawal of PTO) that he failed to take appropriate action in response to being informed about Smyth’s abuse over 40 years ago, whether or not he was sent a copy of the Ruston report, was investigated by the NST nearly 5 years ago, with the outcome being the restoration of his PTO.
The NST has stated that in reaching its conclusions “the Stage 3 panel considered safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time, the facts of the particular case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceedings” [Statement on CofE website, 25 February 2025]. While no doubt claiming confidentiality for the details of any CDM complaint intended to be brought against Lord Carey and the other nine named clerics (all now retired), the NST ought to publish what they claim to be (i) the “safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time”, and (ii) “the relevant legal considerations”, bearing in mind that there was and is no legal obligation to report knowledge of a criminal offence (accepting that paragraph 3 of the Ruston report acknowledges that the beatings administered by Smyth in his garden shed “were technically all criminal offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1867, Sec. 47.”): see the recent case of R v Gallen [2024] EWCA Crim 1096; [2025] 1 WLR 681, in which the Court of Appeal endorsed the general legal principle that “the criminal law does not penalise mere omissions to act” and that “There can ordinarily be no liability for failure (or omission) to act, unless the law specifically imposes such a duty.” A ‘mandatory duty’ to report child sex abuse is contained in clause 45 of the Crime and Policing Bill, currently before Parliament, but there was no such duty in the 1980s.
Finally, the terms of the second proviso to section 9 of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 should be noted: “And provided further that the president of tribunals may, if he considers that there was good reason why the complainant did not institute proceedings at an earlier date, after consultation with the complainant and the respondent, give his written permission for the proceedings to be instituted after the expiry of the said period of one year.”
At present there are no published decisions on what, in past cases, the President (or her/his deputy) has considered ‘good reason’ to give such permission. In these ten high profile cases, for the sake of both transparency and confidence in the process, the President (now Sir Stephen Males – Lord Justice Males) should make all his decisions public, whether they be to grant or refuse permission.
This analysis is spot on. It is to GC’s credit that he has always treated people the same, irrespective of their fame or social background.
Hello Peter. Yes, George Carey has always delighted in visiting working class parishes and churches, and been very supportive of them. As he – and you – were of my gritty Manchester overspill estate church in Macclesfield.
Forensic archaeology suits the lawyers, the present bishops and the tabloid press. A witch hunt against ex-Archbishop Carey serves very little useful purpose. After a middle life conversion I met with Catholic friends in 2001-2003.
I had expected a welcome into ‘the Christian club’ coffee or beer. But some of those friends were shaken to the quick by revelations about clerical child abusers. We are living through something similar in Anglicanism, with additional issues around bullying or harassment of Anglican ministry trainees on an epic scale.
Society and Church members are now far more aware of various abusive behaviours, their impacts and the scale of the problems once being hidden. Is it unfair to blame Archbishop Carey retrospectively, in the absence of very clear evidence of serious misconduct, when such a paradigm shift has taken place over the last 20-30 years?
I return once against to 2 Corinthians 13:1. Are we as Anglicans sure that children and adults get protected after 1,2,3 witness reports of ill-treatment? Well, actually, the answer is NO. Our tradition is still awash with unrestrained bullying, and an exodus of trainees or young clergy tells a plain enough story.