The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. In October 2024 the Makin Report was published, examining the Church of England’s response to the case of John Smyth, a barrister who had used the cover of boys’ camps and his involvement at Winchester College to access children and beat them savagely. It concluded that there had been a marked failure for decades to deal with Smyth.
John Smyth, a barrister who ran Christian summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s, committed physical, psychological and sexual abuse against more than 130 boys and young men.
Welby, who like Smyth, was immersed in the evangelical wing of the Church of England, was named as someone who had worked in the camps in his early twenties, although he has always maintained that he knew nothing of Smyth’s crimes at that time.
Then, in 2013, soon after his appointment as archbishop, Welby was informed of the Smyth case and told that complaints had been reported to the police. But no formal referral had actually been made. Instead, the Makin Report says, Welby and other senior church figures showed “a distinct lack of curiosity” and “a tendency towards minimisation of the matter”.
As the report points out, if Smyth had been reported to the police at that time — and by then he was in South Africa, where he also abused children — then there could have been a full investigation, uncovering his crimes, and later victims would have been saved. Smyth died in 2018 and was never brought to justice.
The Archbishop reluctantly resigned. His position was untenable.