Vicar calls on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to resign over John Smyth sex abuse scandal

The Archbishop of Canterbury was aware of “really horrific” abuse of “significant sadistic nature” and should resign, one of the clergy members who launched a petition to get Justin Welby to step down has said.

Fr Robert Thompson told Sky News he wasn’t certain the Archbishop, who is facing calls to step down after a damning report found the Church of England covered up sexual abuse by a barrister, was “serious about reform”.

The Archbishop has been under increasing pressure over his “failures” to alert authorities about John Smyth QC’s “abhorrent” abuse of children and young men.

A petition by some members of the General Synod, the church’s parliament, has gathered more than 1,500 signatures urging the Archbishop to stand down.

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Fr Thompson, one of the three clergy members who launched the petition, said he has been in touch with victims of different abuses, many of whom still feel that “not much has changed” in how they are treated by the church.

“They feel gaslighted, they feel neglected, they feel as if people won’t meet with them,” he said.

“I think the reality is that Justin is making far too much of the changes that he has made because it doesn’t feel like that on the ground for victims and survivors.”

The independent Makin review into Smyth’s abuse was published last week, concluding he might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby formally reported it to police a decade ago.

Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and so was “never brought to justice for the abuse”, the review said.

Across five decades in three different countries and involving as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa, Smyth is said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks.

The Archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013 but acknowledged the review had found that after its wider exposure that year he had “personally failed to ensure” it was “energetically investigated”.

Mr Welby knew Smyth because of his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence he had “maintained any significant contact” with the barrister in later years.

‘Monarchs within their own diocese’

Fr Thompson said a “complete culture change” was needed in the episcopacy, while safeguarding must be “completely independent” as “we are way now beyond the point at which victims and survivors within the church would accept anything less and trust anything less and that is now the same, I think, for many clergy”.

Speaking of what he believes has become an “enormous crisis” facing the church, he said a lack of accountability of bishops and senior staff calls for a change in its governance.

“Hold us to account in parliament,” he said, adding that at present bishops can “can get away with far too much” and they “almost act as monarchs within their own diocese”.

‘We must see change’

The petition by church members states: “Given his role in allowing abuse to continue, we believe that his continuing as the Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable.

“We must see change, for the sake of survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable, and for the good of the church – and we share this determination across our traditions.

“With sadness we do not think there is any alternative to his immediate resignation if the process of change and healing is to start now.”

Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley today told the BBC that while his resignation would not “solve the safeguarding problem”, it would “be a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding”.

She said: “I think that it’s very hard for the church as the national, the established church, to continue to have a moral voice in any way, shape or form in our nation when we cannot get our own house in order.

“We are in danger of losing complete credibility on that front.”

Giles Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, west London, described it as a “terrible situation”, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m afraid he’s really lost the confidence of his clergy, he’s lost the confidence of many of his bishops and his position is completely untenable.”

Mr Welby, speaking to Channel 4 when the report was published, said he had been giving resignation “a lot of thought” – but added he had “taken advice” from senior colleagues and insisted: “I am not going to resign.”

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 church has said it is “deeply sorry for the horrific abuse” and added “there is never a place for covering up abuse”.