The Smyth Story revisited

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With the imminent publication of Andrew Graystone’s new book on the Smyth saga, Bleeding for Jesus, we have renewed interest in the story from many, including the Press.  The Titus Trust have recently published a timeline of their version of the events in the narrative around responses to Smyth, covering the years 2012 -present.  The main feature of their timeline is to show that, even according to their contested account, the trustees of the Titus Trust and others involved with the Iwerne camps were extraordinarily tardy in dealing with the information that was gradually trickling out from 2012 onwards.  The fact is that there was, for most of this period after 2012, a dangerous abuser at large, albeit in another part of the world.  This fact did not really seem to inspire any sense of real seriousness among those who had the power to do something about it.  The Titus Trustees seemed to be anxious above all to establish legal distance from the previous Iwerne charity that ran the camps until 1997.  As with the wider Church of England, there was little evidence of urgency to show care and consideration for the victims who were known about.  It would appear that, by 2017, at least 22 victims had been identified, but the welfare of these individuals does not appear to have been high on the agenda of the Titus trustees.

This blog piece is unlikely to contain any fresh information, but rather raises some questions that must have occurred to others as they examine this extensive batch of material which is newly revealed in the Titus timeline.  In passing, I would suggest that there is up to week’s work just to become familiar with all the Smyth material that has already entered the public domain since the Channel 4 programme in 2017.  This is even before the Makin report has been released or Graystone’s book published.  Both documents will be required reading for those of us who have tried to follow the story so far.

My role in looking at all this new Smyth material and the role of the organisations involved with him is not to attempt to summarise all the paperwork.  Any contribution I can make is to draw to the reader’s attention certain anomalies and questions that stand out in my reading of this material.  The first point that needs to be made is that the Titus timeline only covers the period from 2012 to the present.  I want to ask questions about the previous period from 1982 to 2012.  1982 was the year when a group of senior evangelical leaders associated with the Iwerne camps were alerted to the violent behaviour of John Smyth against some of those young campers.  It was the year when the so-called Ruston Report was compiled, and this established beyond doubt that criminal acts by Smyth had indeed taken place.  Various reasons have been offered to explain why the police were not immediately involved.  These include the desire of parents to protect their offspring and also the reputation fears of the authorities of Winchester College.   The recipients of the Ruston report numbered, I believe, eight people, all of whom were identified by their initials.  Some have now died but there were some in active positions of authority within the Iwerne movement well after 1982.  They knew what had gone on and later they were to hand on that information to the current generation of trustees responsible for the camps.

The period from 1982 – 2012 is the period that interests me most.  Officially in the Iwerne/Titus hierarchy no one needed to admit to knowing anything as no victims had yet come forward to challenge the long thirty year period of silence.  The Iwerne/Titus Trust officials could sleep peacefully in their beds.  There was no interest in Smyth from safeguarding authorities, and there were no police or lawyers acting on behalf of the victims/survivors.  By focussing only on the period after 2012, the Titus timeline is creating a narrative that there was absolutely nothing for anyone to do until victims/survivors began to appear. The argument could also be made that it was precisely this suffocating silence sustained by Titus leaders that aggravated the long-term trauma of Smyth victims.  One hopes that Keith Makin will have something to say about this culture of secrecy maintained by Iwerne leaders for so long.  The culture of silence has, arguably, had a devastating legacy.  Another issue from this period, about which we would like to learn more, is the rationale for transferring all the assets and liabilities from the old Iwerne trustees to the Titus Trust.     Nothing I have read suggests that this ‘takeover’ in 1997 was anything other than an attempt to escape the moral and legal obligations of the other older charity.

The  next question that I want to consider is to ask who in the years before 2012 knew about the Smyth scandal and could have changed things?  There are three groups to consider.  One is the group referred to by Anne Atkins in the 2012 Mail piece. This referred to the Smyth affair being shared as a gossip topic at dinner parties.   Probably these recipients and purveyors of the gossip could have done very little to change the history of the affair.  The telling and retelling of any story countless times, as this one was, probably has the effect of making the actual facts less and less precise.  In short, people heard the rumours and the gossip, but they had no solid reliable facts to go on, even if they had had wanted to take it further.

The second group were those who did know the facts.  Some of these were officials in the Iwerne network and some had been part of the group who received the Ruston report back in 1982.  These included David Fletcher and others involved with Scripture Union.  There was in 2000 a handing over of an envelope containing details of the whole affair by Tim Sterry of the SU to a member of Titus trustees.  This envelope, which included among its contents a copy of the Ruston Report, would not be opened and read for another 13 years.  Outside the Iwerne/SU network, there were a number of prominent wealthy evangelical backers who facilitated the financial aspects of Smyth’s ‘banishment’ to Africa.  The enabling of Smyth’s ‘escape’ to Africa was an expensive affair since it required the setting up and financing of a new organisation, Zambesi Ministries. The details of the part of the story is not completely clear and again, one hopes for further clarification from Graystone’s book and the Makin report.  The most likely explanation for the official silence about Smyth by senior Iwerne connected officials before 2012, seems to have been a combination of wilful ignorance and a readiness to blank out of consciousness (forget?) inconvenient information. 

The period before 2012 also had a further distinct group who knew about Smyth’s criminal activities.  These are the victims themselves.  I am not about to indulge in any kind of victim blaming as I know enough about the effect of trauma on individuals to understand the extreme reticence of victims in many cases.  Trauma often creates repression of memory; the conscious mind may shut it away from recall for decades.  But there are questions to be asked of at least two individuals who entered the Anglican ministry and achieved prominence within the organisation.  I have in mind two people, both Smyth victims, who later received significant positions of influence in the Church of England. One became Bishop of Guilford and the other Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate.  The latter post is perhaps the most prestigious post in the Anglican con-evo world.  Both these individuals appear on the surface to have found a way through whatever trauma they may have suffered as young men at the hands of Smyth.  Their periods of prominence within the CofE certainly began before 2012 (2008 and 1998 respectively) and both were then in a position to do something on behalf of other victims during the silent period.  I leave it to my reader to answer this question.  If you are an important part of the leadership structure of a large organisation and you know of horrors committed against innocents within it, do you not have a moral obligation to share this information with appropriate people?  Is not sharing information with others who can put a stop to such depravity a moral obligation for a Christian leader? William Taylor in particular was in close working relationship with everyone of influence within the con-evo Anglican world before and after his appointment to the top job at St Helen’s.  The Bishop of Guilford from the time he was appointed as a suffragan bishop, would have had privileged access to safeguarding professionals locally and nationally. They could have advised him on what to do in facing up to safeguarding events from his personal past.

The answer to my question that I ask of these two Smyth survivors may well be answered by the phenomenon we have met many times before – misplaced loyalty to the systems and the institutions that reared you.  We end up in a place we have been on numerous occasions.  We are in the place of conflicting loyalties.  We do not know which loyalty has the greater claim on our conscience.    The sphere of Church leadership seems to place individuals far too often in this impossible place.  It is not surprising that many Church leaders wish fervently to lay down the burdens of their leadership responsibilities in exchange for the peace and tranquillity of retirement

About Stephen Parsons

Stephen is a retired Anglican priest living at present in Cumbria. He has taken a special interest in the issues around health and healing in the Church but also when the Church is a place of harm and abuse. He has published books on both these issues and is at present particularly interested in understanding how power works at every level in the Church. He is always interested in making contact with others who are concerned with these issues.

28 thoughts on “The Smyth Story revisited

  1. There is another aspect of the Smyth victims in leadership roles, that would benefit from sunlight.

    When victims like Andy Morse came forwards and spoke of their immense suffering – not only the vile serious criminal assaults, but the many subsequent years of mental anguish – what did these Christian leaders do to outreach to their old friend, to simply stand with him privately if not publicly?

    They were old friends. They passed by on the other side.

    Jesus had something to say about such “ religious “ leaders.

    1. My current thoughts exactly. The parable of the Good Samaritan is uncomfortably searching in a case like this. This insight came to me as I was mulling over how to describe in the most effective way what was done to some good friends in an FIEC church – ambushed and verbally beaten up in an irregular ‘pastoral meeting’, stripped of their church fellowship by a false accusation of ‘gossip’ cast out of membership and left as spiritually dead with an absurd public ban on Communion ‘at all gospel churches’. Pronouncing that the church elders had ‘sought to act in a godly manner’ two priests in the guise of well known FIEC pastors passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite posing as a high-up Gospel Partnership leader averted his gaze as he hurried by, brushing off all attempts to detain him. Having heard of several other similar sad stories in other non-conformist churches one begins to wonder just how common these quiet scandals are.

      1. Sadly, I think they’re very common indeed, in all denominations.

        ‘See how these Christians love one another!’

    2. Do we know for certain that no private contact or support was extended to the victims by their old friends?

  2. My current thoughts exactly. The parable of the Good Samaritan is uncomfortably searching in a case like this. This insight came to me as I was mulling over how to describe in the most effective way what was done to some good friends in an FIEC church – ambushed and verbally beaten up in an irregular ‘pastoral meeting’, stripped of their church fellowship by a false accusation of ‘gossip’ cast out of membership and left as spiritually dead with an absurd public ban on Communion ‘at all gospel churches’. Pronouncing that the church elders had ‘sought to act in a godly manner’ two priests in the guise of well known FIEC pastors passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite posing as a high-up Gospel Partnership leader averted his gaze as he hurried by, brushing off all attempts to detain him. Having heard of several other similar sad stories in other non-conformist churches one begins to wonder just how common these quiet scandals are.

  3. To what extent does someone’s promotion to high office override his personal traumatised past, with all its attendant rights to sympathy and privacy?

    1. Stephen hasn’t outed them, it’s already out there. Some people do react like this. Prejudice against women was routine when I was growing up. But women who did well didn’t always help others.

    2. And to answer your question, they’re still entitled to as much sympathy as they need, in my opinion.

  4. I agree that there are many questions to answer about the period from 1982-2012, including the transfer of assets & setting up of the Zambezi ministry.

    I would never criticise victims for remaining silent about their own abuse. Being in a leadership doesn’t make it any easier to disclose, or to confront & process your own trauma. You may have repressed the memories or have internalised the shame as your own, so not framing it as abuse.
    It took me over 20 years to disclose my abuser. I’m ashamed of that, but I understand it, & would never criticise another.
    Once it’s known, then they are accountable like everyone else.
    Also, being in leadership doesn’t mean you have overcome the trauma. You deserve sympathy and privacy as much as anyone.
    Some of us have dealt with our trauma by overworking & repressing our past & as a result have highly successful careers.

  5. I agree with Steve, Athena and Jane. Over on ‘Thinking Anglicans’ it was pointed out that the bishop made the revelation on seeing the the 2017 television documentary, and then immediately reported his childhood experience to the police. My own reaction to his announcement at the time was, frankly, astonishment and acknowledgment of his bravery in doing so.

    This is such a complex matter and I can foresee that Andrew Graystone’s account and Keith Makin’s findings might differ. Firstly, I am not certain that Keith Makin’s instructions extend to events in Africa. It remains to be seen whether, and how, he deals with that subject. More importantly, perhaps, his terms of reference from the C of E specifically instruct him that his findings are to reflect what was received practice at the time of the events and to eschew exercising hindsight. The events occurred more than forty years ago. I believe he, as a former senior social services director, will be uniquely qualified with the necessary knowledge and experience to make those distinctions where they need to be made.

  6. There is a fourth group of people who knew about the abuse back in 1982; those in positions of responsibility at Winchester College. I can think of a rationale for their conspicuous silence, but it’s not a good one.

    1. This has been discussed on ‘Thinking Anglicans’ where I pointed out that the former Headmaster of Winchester College unequivocally disclosed in his autobiography “The Road to Winchester” knowledge of John Smyth’s abuse of pupils. The book was published in 1989. One accepts that it probably had a limited readership, but, nevertheless, this was almost three decades before the television documentary.

      A significant fact which tends not to get mentioned is that John Smyth was rejected for ordination by the then Bishop of Winchester, John Vernon Smith, in 1981. Bishop Taylor had impeccable standards and would not have been privy to dinner party gossip, but he must have had his reasons. One accepts, of course, that these could have been totally unconnected with Smyth’s abusive activities.

  7. One of the things that still concerns me, is how Smyth was ‘helped’ to relocate to Africa, and no-one followed up to see that the diocesan authorities there had taken appropriate action to protect young men there.
    This is still the case. One of the bishops who failed to act on my report of multiple rape has retired to another diocese in the Anglican communion. The NST only informed that diocese of the safeguarding concerns I raised when I pushed them. When I asked how they had followed up to ensure the diocese had acted on the information, they said it was nothing to do with them.
    Luckily it wasn’t my abusers. But what it means is there could be another Guide Nyachuru.
    Washing hands 🥺

    1. Jane, the African end of things is an incredibly complex matter. They were aware of Smyth’s abusive activities by 1989/90. In fact I believe the Winchester headmaster’s book may have triggered that awareness, and a series of steps trying to restrain Smyth in Africa continued well into the mid-‘90s.

      The other angle to this is, as I understand, none of Smyth’s activity in Africa, specifically Zimbabwe, occurred within an Anglican context. Much later, in 2012/2013 a letter was written by or on behalf of the Bishop of Ely to the Archdiocese of Cape Town. By then Smyth had moved from Zimbabwe to South Africa where he seems to have been accepted as a respected and respectable member of society, appearing on S African national television as a legal expert commenting on the Oscar Pistorius murder trial. Also during the early African years Smyth had sometimes returned to England to appear in important trials here.

      I have described him elsewhere as a ‘supreme double-act’ and I think that fairly sums him up.

  8. I profoundly disagree with the idea that any of the victims, whatever their later careers in the church, had any responsibility to take action themselves in the ‘silent years’.

    As a survivor of abuse myself I know that I buried my experience down deep as far as it would go. I was completely dissociated from it as that was the only way I could function and I genuinely did not think about it from year to year unless some triggger caused a flashback which of course I tried very hard to avoid. You would not know that to look at me. I have a very successful career in a caring profession, happy marriage, kids but if I am forced to think about my abuse I feel physically sick and cannot function at all even 20yrs later. Today I’ve just mainly been in bed crying because all this Smyth stuff is coming too close to me and it rakes it all up.

    I carry a lot of guilt already that I never reported my attacker and for all I know he may well have gone on to abuse others. I already have to live with my shame over that. He is now dead and my belief is that he will face Gods justice. In recent years I have to add to that old guilt the new guilt that I do not want to ‘share my experiences’ or use them to help others. Sometimes I worry that God might have given me this suffering to use to help others and I am not doing it.

    My heart goes out to the 2 clergymen who you almost name (and who others have named against their will) who were just about the same age when they were abused as I was when I was raped. I think it is really very very wrong to have outed them to their families and the whole world (my family do not know about my experience at all) I honestly do not know what I would do if my experience became public. I would be distraught. I am not sure I could survive the shame and other peoples pity.

    It is very very wrong to make it seem as though they are as culpable as the abusers just for not speaking out when you should know how very hard it is for victims to speak out even many years later and even if they appear outwardly to have ‘got over it’ especially in a high profile case where their names will be in the national press.

    I think it’s a great shame that you take that position as it has ruined an otherwise good blog post. The idea that some victims deserve sympathy and anonymity and others don’t just by virtue of their later careers is plain wrong and I am afraid it smacks of victim blaming and a complete failure to understand the mindset of a person who has suffered abuse.

    Smyth, Fletcher, the Iwerne camp leaders, Scripture Union, the Winchester headmaster and most especially those who funded and supported him to go to Africa knowing he was an abuser are appropriate targets for condemnation but young university students who he targeted and abused are not whatever jobs they now have.

    1. Thanks Katy. Here you are helping those who have been abused. Your experiences are so vividly described, this is going to be a valuable contribution. My abuse was bullying. For twenty years. People like me need to explore the various possibilities. I’m sorry if the discussions have caused you such distress. But the better we understand the issues, the more we can help. Thank you for speaking out on behalf of all victims.

    2. People in caring professions are often the last even to think of seeking care for themselves, speaking from experience. You owe it to yourself.

    3. My abuse, by the standards of yours and others’ here on Surviving Church, was of a very ‘mild’ kind during schooldays. At my C of E primary school I was too young to realise that corporal punishment was used to disguise what was, in reality, sexual assault, and that certain victims were targeted, whereas the rest of the class went totally unscathed. At the time I resented the injustice of it, but was totally unaware that it was sexual. It was only in adult years, quite late in life, something triggered the memory and a sense of injustice and outrage, then knowing what it was really about, resulted. Later in my second State school, along with about 400 other boys, I was ‘touched’ by a PE teacher after showering, ostensibly checking that we had dried ourselves. One boy thought this wasn’t normal and reported it to his form master (as they were called in those days). The PE teacher disappeared overnight (rather like Smyth), never to be seen again, and, yes, I suppose like Smyth he was spirited away without any action taken against him, possibly the only consolation being that he could not have got another job without references. That was circa 1954/55. It was, of course, totally wrong but the experience was different as just one of a large group, rather than an individual assault, sometimes in private.

      The C of E primary school teacher doubtless carried on until he retired or corporal punishment in primary schools was abolished. I have said this before. Thank God for Baroness Warnock’s actions putting an end to such cruelty and abuse of young children in primary schools.

      I sympathise, and entirely support your stance. It takes enormous courage to say publicly what has happened to someone abused, whether as a child or an adult . Notwithstanding my respect for both of them (and their considerable experience and expertise in this field), I disagree with Stephen and Martin on this particular issue.

    4. Dear Katy, I am sorry for what was done to you, and for how triggering the Smyth debate has been. I hope you have some good support around you.

      As a fellow victim, I understand those feelings of guilt and shame around being abused and not reporting, but please know they are not yours to bear. The guilt and shame is entirely with whoever abused you; and anyone in leadership at the time who allowed it to happen.

      I agree that even victims in leadership positions should not be blamed for being unable to speak of their own abuse. No-one has the right to expect that of us. No-one else can understand the cost of speaking out. It has nearly cost me my life several times.

      What we can expect of those of us that end up in leadership, is that we will do our best to follow best practice in safeguarding and safe leadership. If we fail at that, we are accountable the same as any other leader.

      It’s hard to judge without knowing the full details, and I haven’t read Andrew’s book yet, so I won’t comment on that. But I must admit some of the statements on social media have concerned me, as there appears to be criticism of victims who were unable to speak out about their own abuse; and a victim claiming their story was written about without them being contacted for comment/permission. If that is true, it doesn’t seem ethical to me, as even if much of the story is in the public domain, it’s first and foremost the survivor’s story. If someone wrote about me and my experiences without asking me first, i would feel betrayed. It’s hard to know what is true though with contradictory claims.

      Just to agree that by sharing here, Katy, you are helping all of us who read this blog, and feel that sense of solidarity and being less alone.

      1. It would be hard to break silence when the clear (*both* formal *and* tacit) agreement had been for 30 years to keep silence to prevent further extension of trauma (30 years: water well under the bridge, it might have seemed, though its effects were not always). As for those who would not have wished there to be silence, they always had the liberty to break it but didn’t. And John Thorn’s book and Henry Olonga’s and the Coltart report meant that the silence was not total anyway.

        I do wish that people would see that if one person broke silence, the cat would be out of the bag for many and many would be put in the spotlight. This is akin to ‘outing’ people without their consent. However it is especially cruel when the person expected to do the outing was themselves no less a victim. Anyway, no one person knew who all the victims were (though there were those aware of circa 20 particular UK victims), let alone how to contact them all years after the event; nor did anyone know exactly who might be affected, and how, by one person’s act of making the Smyth story public. So it is no surprise at all that no-one broke silence – they didn’t want anyone to get hurt. JS should have been prevented more firmly and watched more closely in the initial stages.

  9. I agree I feel uneasy about this victim exposure. I think what is harder is when that victim goes on to be a leader in a church. How much does their abuse impact consciously or subconsciously on their work. E.g. In an overt example PJ Smyth, identified by Andrew Graystone as a victim, wrote a guide to parenting circulated in Newfrontiers Churches, that advocated smacking with a wooden spoon. That will have impacted others.

    1. I’m with you on this. I feel uneasy too, but at the same time leaders have a responsibility. According to a comment by Martin Sewell on Surviving Church, Alasdair Payne (Paine? I’ve seen it spelled both ways) was already widely known to be a victim of Smyth’s.

      I think I’ll wait until I’ve read Andrew Graystone’s book before I make a judgment on this.

      1. It was not widely known before Channel 4 picked up the story for sure, but a copy of a report was put on the internet that gave his initials and his position at St Andrew the Great Cambridge, thus making it easy to establish from that for those following the story on blogs and tweets. To put it in perspective, apparently his brother in law (similarly a clergyman and a Titus Trust trustee) had no idea prior to C4 news. At this point it wasn’t exactly public knowledge, but clearly some more people were aware. I’ve heard conflicting things on whether AG was responsible for the original leaked document that effectively named him. William Taylor’s admission that he too was a victim was a development that took many by surprise and apparently even took some critics off twitter. I hope Makin publishes soon.

  10. I assume that readers will know that PJ Smyth was John Smyth’s only son.

    I’m not fully up to date on the law of chastisement in the home. I am told that it is totally banned, i.e., illegal and subject to potential prosecution, in Scotland. I believe parental powers in England have been greatly curtailed, and punishment such as smacking, if resulting in bruising, is an offence, but I can’t quote chapter and verse for that. Using a wooden spoon would almost certainly be battery, and illegal.

    1. In England it is lawful to hit your child for ‘reasonable punishment’ (defence stated in Children Act 2004 sct.58), as long as it doesn’t result in bruising, swelling, cuts, grazes or scratches.

      If the hitting resulted in visible injury, ‘actual harm’ or child cruelty (depends on circumstances of punishment and nature of injury) it becomes an offence under the Offences against Persons Act or Children & Young Persons Act.

      Like the NSPCC, many of us have campaigned for a ban on smacking, like most of the rest of Europe, but not succeeded yet.

  11. I found Alasdair Payne’s personal account on Thinking Anglicans extremely moving, and felt sad for the Smyth victims who wanted their story heard without the issue of lack of permission becoming the main talking point. Justice is never served if not everyone is treated with equal respect and compassion.

    Years ago I went to see the chief exorcist for the Church of England and a few weeks later I read about my case in a Sunday newspaper when the exorcist had been interviewed about his work. I wasn’t named, I was completely unknown to everyone but me but the impact it had on me was devastating and contributed to my breakdown. Having trust betrayed is the worst of abuses, so thinking of Alasdair, his family and all Smyth victims at such a difficult and sad time.

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