How The Telegraph revealed the scale of Smyth abuse – and Welby’s connection

Archbishop of Canterbury under increasing pressure to resign over links to the child sex abuser

The crisis engulfing the Archbishop of Canterbury over his links to child sex abuser John Smyth has its roots in years of reporting by The Telegraph.
In February 2017, a Channel 4 documentary alleged that Smyth had routinely subjected teenage boys to sadomasochistic assaults during his time in charge of Christian holiday camps in the seventies and eighties.
In a series of subsequent reports, The Telegraph shed light on events surrounding the abuse and revealed the Most Rev Justin Welby’s connection to the scandal.
Despite having previously insisted he was not aware of the abuse, the Archbishop has now admitted he was warned about the Church of England’s most prolific child abuser 40 years ago. He is under mounting pressure to resign as a result.
The claims initially came to light in a 1982 report by the Iwerne Trust, a charity that ran the Christian camps where Smyth met many of his victims, but no action was taken by church leaders.
Following the airing of the 2017 documentary, Hampshire Constabulary announced an investigation and police sources said eight men had come forward to say that they were attacked by the barrister.
The Telegraph then published an open letter to the Archbishop, endorsed by the eight alleged victims of John Smyth, calling on him to reveal the true extent of his knowledge about the abuse claims.
The Archbishop worked as a dormitory officer on camps run by the trust, which Smyth chaired from 1974 to 1981. The Archbishop insisted he was “completely unaware” of the claims against the part-time judge until a victim contacted police in 2013.
The Archbishop also claimed he had not previously been aware of the claims because he moved to Paris in 1978, when the beatings were said to have begun.
But the report was carried out by Canon Mark Ruston, one of the Archbishop’s close friends, and the letter published by The Telegraph labelled him an “observer” of the abuse, who “knew but never reported appropriately”.
The Archbishop was then accused of changing his story over his links to Smyth after documents revealed he attended a summer camp when the campaign of abuse was being carried out.
 
He claimed he left the country at the time of the alleged abuse in the seventies but evidence emerged suggesting that he had attended the camp during that period.
Despite the Archbishop’s claims he moved to Paris in 1978 and had had “no contact” with the Iwerne Trust until his return to Britain in 1983, he later told Channel 4 News he had returned to the summer camp in 1979 and had not been in Paris as he originally claimed.
In August 2017, the Church announced an independent review into the assaults carried out by Smyth in the seventies and eighties. At the time, The Telegraph reported that the Archbishop was expected to give evidence.
Smyth died of a heart attack in 2018 aged 77 at his home in Cape Town, South Africa. In 2020 The Telegraph reported that the Titus Trust, which took over some of the responsibilities of Iwerne in 1997, had reached a settlement with three men who were subjected to the abuse from Smyth. After this was announced, victims of the abuse called for the Titus Trust to close and for the organisation to take part in the Church of England review.
In July 2020, Channel 4 News reported that the Church was investigating a formal complaint that the Archbishop failed to act appropriately on the allegations against Smyth. It was alleged that the Archbishop did not refer the abuse directly to social services and the police, in breach of church guidelines. The Archbishop insisted he knew nothing of the allegations until 2013, when the church passed them to police.
In 2021, he apologised to victims of Smyth’s “perverted version of spirituality and evangelicalism”.
That June The Telegraph revealed that Smyth’s son PJ Smyth, a church leader in the US, had been suspended from ministry amid allegations that he misrepresented what he knew about his father.
In January 2022, The Telegraph reported the findings of an investigation that stated Winchester College Christian society had allowed Smyth “unfettered access” to the school where he groomed boys. The college, which commissioned the inquiry, said it apologised “unreservedly” for its role in the “terrible experiences” of their former pupils.
In December 2022, the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team announced that it was “reaching its final stages” of its review, but there were subsequently further delays after new evidence was provided.
On Friday, the Archbishop acknowledged he had been warned to “stay away” from Smyth in 1981, decades before Smyth’s abuse became public.
The report found his failure to act meant the Church of England’s most prolific child abuser was never brought to justice.
The review, led by Keith Makin, a former director of social services, was five years in the making.