Updated
The Church of England has this morning published the following statement from the independent reviewer in the Smyth case.
Statement from independent reviewer in Smyth case
18/04/2023
“I have made a report to the Police regarding matters that have come to light in recent weeks and in the course of my review, into the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. I have subsequently passed extensive information to them in relation to this matter. This necessary development is in line with my obligations set out in the terms of reference for the review and in UK law and is therefore unavoidable. This impacts on the planned timescale for completion of the review, and I am aware from my regular contact with victims, of the distress that this is likely to cause them, their families, and others affected by this case. A further update on this will be provided as soon as is possible”.
Keith Makin, independent reviewer
The National Safeguarding Team has arranged continued support for victims through Nina Tanner, a specialist Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA). The formerly named Splitz organisation have changed their name to Fear-Less.org.uk Home – Fear Less (fear-less.org.uk) but still provide the same service to victim and survivors. Nina remains the independent lead for support for the victims of John Smyth and fulfils the same role as before. If you need support, she can be contacted on Nina.Tanner@fear-less.org.uk or on 07825 741751. If you have been affected by this latest update and need support, please do contact Nina.
Church Times: New information, passed on to police, delays Makin review of John Smyth case
Telegraph: Church of England review into John Smyth paused again as police handed new information
Previous TA report (December 2022): Smyth Review – further delay
On the one hand, it’s about time that these matters went to the police.
On the other hand, given Smyth is dead and therefore beyond the reach of the justice system, it’s, well, convenient for many of those involved that the veil of secrecy is now re-applied.
This seems to assume that the allegation referred to the police relates to Smyth himself, and not to the actions of someone else – who may be living.
The relevant paragraph of Keith Makin’s Terms of Reference is para 3.1(6), which provides: “The Reviewer should… Ensure that if, in the course of their work they identify additional relevant matters (whether additional allegations or failures to respond properly by a church officer or Church body), that these are brought to the immediate attention of the police and other statutory authorities, the Director of Safeguarding, and Winchester College as appropriate.” A footnote explains: “In these terms of reference, the meaning of the term “church officer” is to be broadly interpreted, taking into account a range of factors including how the… Read more »
If criminal proceedings may follow, which prior publication of Makin’s report could prejudice, it must be hoped that a suitably redacted report could be published without [further] delay as an interim report, with an unredacted version to follow after the conclusion of any such criminal proceedings. That is assuming the purpose of Makin’s report is to actually investigate the events, rather than to act as a smokescreen for inaction. I don’t believe that there is a serious intent to publish it. It’s a Potemkin report: bustle around in “secret” while doing very little, and then find endless excuses as to… Read more »
The Australian Royal Commission managed to publish their case studies in the midst of active legal actions, up to and including criminal prosecutions, of some of the key witnesses. I am sure we all have opinions on George Pell, ranging from Tim Minchin’s song to sympathy for a naive man who meant well (I tend towards the former position) but neither his refusal to leave Rome nor his later criminal prosecution prevented the inquiry from giving a good account of the actions of others. I am afraid that I have little faith in the endless sequence of reports which are… Read more »
Many thanks for this. You aptly mention defamation of the dead. Of course, it is a well-established doctrine of English law that the dead cannot be defamed (being dead they are in no position to care). However, the UK has incorporated the ECHR into domestic law via the HRA, as you will know well. In 2014 the ECtHR held in Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Dzhugashvili v Russia (in which the claimant, a grandson of Stalin, objected to a newspaper describing his forbear as a ‘bloodthirsty cannibal’) that it is not possible to defame the dead. However, in 2021, the position became rather… Read more »
The right thing to do, of course, though a great pity that the information couldn’t have gone to the Police a lot earlier. But if it’s only just emerged… The worry is how long the Police and the CPS take. I had a priest suspended for years before it got to court. Meanwhile everything (parish, perpetrator, victims) was in limbo. One can only feel huge sympathy and anger on behalf of Smyth’s victims for yet more delay. There are so many “if onlys” in this horrendous series of events – particularly the “if onlys” in relation to those who should… Read more »
Absolutely unbelievable! I feel so sorry for those this now continues to abuse and the handling of it all is absolutely scandalous.
From an early stage there was concern at the resource and project management of this enquiry. This was a large sector, many knew “something”, many were disinclined to talk lest it prejudice “the work”, so facts will have had to be pieced together: there is money for lawyers to argue and threaten lawsuits. Other cases have fewer people or a good email chain to speed through who knew what when. Not here. This has indeed been a huge piece of work but whether we learn much more than we did upon reading Andrew Graystone’s “ Bleeding for Jesus” I am… Read more »
This report was commissioned in August 2019 and work on its started in October of that year. It was supposed to have taken 9 months (with projected publication in July 2020). The initial rationale for delay was the pandemic, but that excuse quickly wore out. Whilst this inquiry is not approaching that of Saville (‘Bloody Sunday’) or Chilcot for delays, it raises questions about whether it is reminiscent of them in certain respects. Those inquiries were heavily delayed to some extent because of: (i) the wide remit adopted by Blair for Saville and Brown for Chilcot (though the TOR of… Read more »
I recall it being said (I suspect by a barrister!) that a lawyer could have produced the Chilcot Report in half the time and in half the number of words. It was indeed a dramatic moment when Sir John Chilcot unloaded a large pile of volumes onto the table!
I don’t think that was the purpose. I think the purpose was to kick the issue five years down the road and hope everyone forgot. They set up an inquiry that was designed to fail, and are now erecting further barriers to ensure it will never be published.
Many thanks to you and Mr Wateridge. You may well be right, and you have reminded me of an old set of verses on the futility of many committees of inquiry (which may have been written by A. P Herbert, I forget), which went as follows: ‘I saw an old man in the park, And I asked the old man why he watched the couples after dark. He made this strange reply: “I am the royal commission on kissing, Established by Gladstone in ’74. All of my colleagues are buried or missing, Our minutes were lost in the last Great… Read more »
“Intention” is a very complicated concept. I don’t for one second believe that Keith Makin set out to do anything other than a comprehensive and correct job. The point is that such work happens in a context, and (vide Macpherson’s “institutional racism”) it’s unfortunately possible for people to be honest actors and yet unable to operate honestly within the constaints in which they find themselves. In this case, it will always be possible to find just one more example in a report of an account of actions by someone still living which could be read as alleging criminality. If you… Read more »
Many thanks again for these very useful remarks. I don’t doubt that Mr Makin will have been acting in good faith. What I find puzzling is Paragraph 8.1 of the TOR, which reads: “The Review should be drafted ready for publication, i.e. with appropriate steps taken to anonymise the name of individuals who do not wish to be named and to redact such information as might allow for identification.” This section appears (to me) to have been drafted so that publication of the report not be impeded by those concerned about the risk of reputational damage, and also to protect… Read more »
IO wrote “Short of waiting until literally everyone is dead”. In my cynicism I wonder if that is exactly what’s going on – that through no fault of Mr Makin there will be no publication until the Lord has called home a few more old men..
In light of this debacle, can one expect this will appear as an agenda item at Synod for full and frank discussion….
Indeed. If any of those named as people who may have known something and helped cover it up are still licensed clergy or clergy with PTO, I struggle to see why they have not been suspended during the on-going enquiry. Others have been suspended pending investigation of less serious allegations.
This is the biggest scandal to hit the Church of England in recent times. Of course I agree with Pete Broadbent that one can only feel huge sympathy and anger on behalf of Smyth’s victims for yet more delay. It seems obvious that Makin has been dealing with a tsunami of disclosures, despite the fact that there is only one living person identified as a recipient of the Ruston Report in 1982. This is significant in that the Makin review is probing a part of the church where the culture of silence was, and is, strong. He (Ruston) was entirely clear they (the Iwerne… Read more »
“one significant consequence of Smyth’s friends facilitating and funding his removal to Zimbabwe as a free man…”
Smyth himself is now dead. But are there accessories-after-the-fact still living?
Events at Winchester were largely known and made public in 1989 with the publication of the then Headmaster John Thorn’s autobiography “The Road to Winchester”. He was quite specific about Smyth being shipped out to Africa having given an undertaking that he would not transgress again. When this fact was pointed out on TA some two or more (?) years ago, this was pooh-poohed that the book would have a limited readership, it was argued. I deliberately said ‘largely known’ as Winchester College is well ahead of the field having published a truly independent report in January 2022 which shows… Read more »
Many thanks. I think that a significant factor in the effective TOR and the relatively rapid production and candour of the Winchester College report will have been Tim Hands (who was once my housemaster). He has been an outstanding head of three schools (Portsmouth GS, Magdalen CS and now Winchester, from which he is about to retire). His acuity, efficiency, savvy and understanding of what is at stake in scenarios like this is second to none, and I suspect that he will have had scant tolerance for the opportunistic and half-baked compromises and equivocations which characterise Church politics. After all,… Read more »
Little in that long list of issues justifies delaying the report. In theory, some of the players in this sad story could be accused of offences under Section 4 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. But there is no way prosecutions for that would succeed, particularly at this distance in time and with the main offender dead. It requires them to have at the time to have “know[n] or believ[ed] him to be guilty”: the test is _not_ that they should have known, or that the proverbial reasonable man might have known, but that they _actually_ knew. It would be… Read more »
And perhaps a disgraceful part of the scandal, Anthony, is the way that for a time George Carey had his PTO removed due to the fact that John Smyth had briefly studied at Trinity Bristol as an independent and part time student while Carey was Principal there. I don’t personally have a great deal of respect for Carey – partly due to his reputation in Canterbury Diocese while my husband was working there – but on this issue I feel that he was a convenient ‘target’ for those currently in power in the C of E to show that they… Read more »
Clare, you are right to highlight the (happily temporary) revocation of George Carey’s ‘permission to officiate’ in 2020 by the Bishop of Oxford, effectively on the direction of the National Safeguarding Team (NST) following the receipt of information from Makin that Carey may have been alerted to Smyth’s crimes when he was principal of Trinity College, Bristol’ 40 years ago, before he became Archbishop of Canterbury. The PTO enabled Carey to minister in the parish church where he now worships. It would appear that in considering whether action should be taken against any CofE clergyman who knew about Smyth’s offences… Read more »
It’s absurd – I can think of other epithets! – that Lord Carey remains the only person who has been disciplined over the Smyth cover up, when those whose initials actually appeared on the Ruston Report have still not had to answer for their knowledge and lack of action.
Aren’t they already deceased, with just one exception?
I totally agree with previous comments about the treatment of Lord Carey which was arguably unjustified and totally disproportionate.
There were several still alive when Makin named Lord Carey. Which was odd, because Makin didn’t report to the NST, as far as we know, those who were named recipients of the Ruston Report. Unless Makin did report them, along with Lord Carey, and the NST ignored the others and chose to focus solely on Carey?
Well, we of course are not privy to what the police may have been doing: I think we can only accept that it is significant that no prosecutions have been brought (which, incidentally, can only be done by or with the agreement of the Director of Public Prosecutions for an alleged offence under Section 4 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 which, as Interested Observer states above, would appear to be the possible only relevant power).
Second reply: I missed your point about the NST – apologies! Assuming what you say to be the case, I agree.
Anthony, As one of the approx 30 UK survivors of the John Smyth cult, one of the approx 130 worldwide victims, may I be permitted a correction of your lazy ‘it’s said that many parents …’ remark? Rowland has helpfully referenced a couple of important sources ahead of Keith Makin’s report. We know currently that approx 4 of the 30 UK victims were under 18 when first beaten (all students at Winchester college), and approx 100% of the African victims were under 18. Thus in excess of 95% of the total victims were (initially) under 18. It is believed that… Read more »
Thank you for your contribution. I am of course sorry to hear this. My comment ‘it’s said that many parents’ might have appeared lazy but was not intended as such. It might better have read as ‘it’s said that some parents.’ I like very many others have read Bleeding for Jesus, and was shocked by the deceit and cover-up, but as many have asked, including on this thread, why was Smyth not turned in to the police at the time? It was part of the excuse for the decision, particularly of Winchester, to just get rid of Smyth and force… Read more »
Reading this thread what is so fascinating to me is that the two uniting strands are distrust of the Independent reviewer and the sense that the National Safeguarding Team needed to apologise to Lord Carey. I had an extensive career in Safeguarding… requirements to refer matters to the Police have been tightened up gradually since around 2010, and many organisations have had to be lead, kicking and screaming, to do this. There is also often a fine line between a safeguarding risk posed by an individual’s personal appetites/ conduct and the risk posed by a manager turning a blind eye… Read more »
To be clear from my Dad’s perspective – and I only comment because he has been repeatedly mentioned here – his complaints are about delays in passing on information; the actions of Bishop of Oxford in communicating the suspension of PTO and the incompetent conduct of the core group. He has made complaints about all three but all complaints are always kicked into the long grass. He does not seek a public apology from anyone not least the NST – a body which is hamstrung by the insistence of the bishops and Archbishops that there is no independent investigatory safeguarding… Read more »
Which comment totally hits the nail on the head. Add to which the reviewer/s very easily face all the displaced negative focus if their conclusions fail to suit the interested obfuscators
To pick up on one point, I think it is necessary to say that the headmaster of Winchester College was not the prime mover, if one at all, of Smyth’s moving to Africa. My understanding that ‘the decision to get rid of Smyth’, as you assert, “particularly of Winchester” is only true of Smyth’s being barred from the College premises and having no further contact with College pupils. Available information indicates that the initiative for his leaving the UK was taken by others (it is not my place to name them); these details even appear in the Coltart report at… Read more »
This is of course a hugely important piece of the jigsaw, for the reasons I and others adduce, namely the ability of Smyth to continue to abuse elsewhere. I am sure it is probable the ‘tribe’ facilitated his removal, but clearly it would have assured Winchester as to the likelihood of his complying with the undertaking. It is greatly to be hoped that the Makin Review will get to the facts.
It is a bit like “please sir, the dog ate my homework.” Maybe the report hasn’t actually been written yet.