THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said he considered resigning as recently as Thursday morning after a report said a Winchester barrister who abused more than 100 children and young men could have been brought to justice a decade ago.
John Smyth QC’s abuse was covered up within the Church of England for years, an independent review has concluded.
Smyth, believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England, died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who knew Smyth through his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, “could and should” have formally reported the abuse to authorities in 2013, the review said.
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“I have given it (resigning) a lot of thought and have taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues, and, no, I am not going to resign.”
Asked if he considered resigning on Thursday morning, Mr Welby said “yes”.
Smyth, called an “appalling abuser of children and young men” in the review, abused as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa over five decades.
He is said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks.
Mr Welby also said he donated money to Smyth on missions in Zimbabwe.
Smyth was able to move to Africa from England while “church officers knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring”, the report said.
Mr Welby told Channel 4 News: “Lots of people funded his mission out there (in Zimbabwe). I think on two separate occasions I gave £40 or £50.”
Mark Stibbe, a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, told Channel 4 some boys were beaten so hard they bled and had to wear nappies.
He said the abuse had been covered up by people “at the highest level of the Church of England”.
“It is very distressing,” he said.
Despite Smyth’s actions having been identified in the 1980s, the report concluded he was never fully exposed and was therefore able to continue his abuse.
The report said while Mr Welby knew Smyth and “did have reason to have some concern about him”, this was not the same as suspecting he had committed severe abuses and concluded it was “not possible to establish” whether Mr Welby knew of the severity of the abuses in the UK before 2013.
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Smyth “could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013″, the review said.
It said “had that been done, on the balance of probabilities” Smyth could have been brought to justice “at a much earlier point” than the Hampshire Police investigation in early 2017.
In a statement, Mr Welby said he was “deeply sorry that this abuse happened” and “sorry that concealment by many people who were fully aware of the abuse over many years meant that John Smyth was able to abuse overseas and died before he ever faced justice”.
He added: “I had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013. Nevertheless the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated."
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