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John Smyth (barrister)

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John Smyth
An old man with thin white hair and a combover making a displeased facial expression.
Smyth in 2017
Born
John Jackson Smyth

(1941-06-27)27 June 1941
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Died11 August 2018(2018-08-11) (aged 77)
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
NationalityBritish
Alma materTrinity Hall, Cambridge
OccupationBarrister
Known forAbusive behaviour
SpouseJosephine Anne Leggott
Children4

John Jackson Smyth QC (27 June 1941 – 11 August 2018) was a Canadian-born British barrister and child abuser who was actively involved in Christian ministry for children within the Anglican Church, as chairman of the Iwerne Trust which raised funds for, and in practice ran, the influential evangelical Iwerne camps. He acted as lawyer for Mary Whitehouse, a Christian morality campaigner.

In 1982, the Iwerne Trust was informed that Smyth had performed sadistic beatings on schoolboys and young men associated with the Iwerne Camps and with a Christian group at Winchester College. Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where he continued to run children's camps.

The police were not informed of the 1982 report until 2013, and it became public in 2017. Anglican Bishop Andrew Watson disclosed that, as a young man, he was a victim. No criminal charges were brought against Smyth because he died while under investigation. An independent review concluded that he inflicted sexual, emotional, spiritual and physical abuse on at least 100 people. In 2024, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned his post over his part in the church's response to the Smyth case.

Early life

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Smyth was born in Canada on 27 June 1941. He attended Strathcona School, Calgary. His family subsequently moved to England, where he was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and Trinity College, Bristol.[1]

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Smyth was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1965, and took silk as a Queen's Counsel in 1979. He was a recorder (with the powers of a circuit judge able to sit in the Crown Court, the County Court or the Family Court) from 1978 to 1984.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, he lived in Winchester while practising law in London.[2]

In July 1977, Smyth acted for Christian morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse in her successful private prosecution for blasphemy (Whitehouse v Lemon) at the Old Bailey against the newspaper Gay News and its editor, Denis Lemon, over the publication of James Kirkup's poem The Love that Dares to Speak its Name.[3] He also initially acted for Whitehouse in her failed prosecution of the National Theatre production of Howard Brenton's play The Romans in Britain in 1980, but withdrew from the case in 1982, which was stated at the time to be due to illness, but later documented in the Makin report to have been part of his agreement with the Iwerne Trust after they became aware of his abuse.[4][2]

He moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, and in 2001 to South Africa.[2]

While living in Cape Town, South Africa, he ran the Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA) for some years. JASA describes itself as "a coalition of corporations‚ individuals and churches committed to upholding and fighting for justice and the highest moral standards in South African society".[5]

Smyth represented South Africa's Doctors for Life,[6] and, as an amicus curiae of the Constitutional Court in May 2005, unsuccessfully opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage in South Africa.[7] Smyth claimed that to introduce same-sex marriage, would result in "violence to the mind and spirit" of the religiously devout and would discriminate against them.[8]

It emerged on 3 February 2017 that the board of the Justice Alliance of South Africa had asked Smyth to immediately stand down as the head of the organisation. His standing-down was described as temporary, but his return was not thought likely.[9]

Children's work and abuse

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The Iwerne camps took place at the Clayesmore School from the 1940s until the early 2000s.

Smyth was chairman of the Iwerne Trust between 1974 and 1981. This organisation raised funds for, and in practice ran, the Iwerne camps, conservative evangelical Christian holiday camps that had been founded by Eric "Bash" Nash for public school pupils[10] at which Smyth was a leader.[11][12]

Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where in 1986, he set up mission Zambesi Ministries, which held summer camps for boys from the country's leading schools. He was arrested in 1997 during the investigation into the drowning of a 16 year old boy, Guide Nyachuru, at the Marondera camp. Nyachuru's unclothed body was found at Ruzawi School pool in December 1992. Smyth always said that his death was an accident.[7] The possibility of culpable homicide was, after a long investigation, ruled as unlikely, but the incident raised concerns about Smyth's behaviour towards boys in his care.[7][13] He subsequently moved to South Africa.

First reports

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An internal report from the Iwerne Trust in 1982, compiled by Mark Ruston of the Round Church Cambridge and Iwerne camp leader David Fletcher (employed by Scripture Union), referred to "horrific" beatings of "young men".[14][15] According to Ruston:

The scale and severity of the practice was horrific. Five of the 13 I have seen were in it only for a short time. Between them they had 12 beatings and about 650 strokes. The other 8 received about 14,000 strokes: 2 of them having some 8,000 strokes over the three years. The others were involved for one year of 18 months. 8 spoke of bleeding on most occasions ("I could feel the blood splattering on my legs" – "I was bleeding for 3 1/2 weeks" "I fainted sometime after a severe beating"). I have seen bruised and scored buttocks, some two-and-a-half months after the beating. Beatings of 100 strokes for masturbation, 400 for pride, and one of 800 strokes for some undisclosed "fall" are recorded.[14]

Winchester College, with its pupils among alleged victims, was informed about the alleged beatings but both the college and the trust failed to inform the police about Smyth. The headmaster asked Smyth to keep away from the college and not to contact its pupils.[16]

In February 1989, John Thorn, the headmaster of Winchester College during the years that Smyth was active, released his autobiography, which included the following:[17]

I was told the extraordinary news that the neighbouring barrister had gained such personal control over a few of the senior boys in the group, and had kept it after they left the school, that he was claiming to direct their burgeoning relationships with girls, and was, with their consent, punishing them physically when they confessed to him they had sinned.

— John Thorn, The Road to Winchester

Further investigations

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On 3 February 2017, two days after Smyth was publicly named as an abuser, Anne Atkins, an evangelical Christian apologist, revealed via an article in The Daily Telegraph that she had referred to him in her 2012 article.[18] The independent review commissioned by Winchester College and published in January 2022 included the above passage from Thorn's autobiography and indicated that it was a reference to Smyth.[19]

Smyth was first publicly named as an abuser by an article in The Daily Telegraph published on 1 February 2017.[20] The article indicated that Channel 4 News would be broadcasting a report on Smyth's violent physical abuse of young men. The report aired the next day and showed Smyth being doorstepped by reporter Cathy Newman, while on a Christmas and New Year visit to friends in Bristol, England.[21] Smyth commented that he was "not talking about what we did at all" and said some of the claims were "nonsense".[22]

Shortly after the report the Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson, disclosed that he was one of Smyth's victims.[23][24]

I am one of the survivors of John Smyth's appalling activities ... the beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking.

— Andrew Watson, Bishop of Guildford

After the abuse became public, Graham Tilby, national safeguarding adviser for the Church of England, said: "Clearly, more could have been done at the time to look further into the case."[16] Smyth was excommunicated from the Church-on-Main in Cape Town after church leaders said he refused to return to the UK and engage with police.[25]

On 10 April 2017, BBC News At Ten reported that the English first-class cricketer Simon Doggart had been abused by Smyth, but he also had administered beatings alongside Smyth to other victims.[26][27][28]

Death

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Smyth died on 11 August 2018 at his home in Cape Town. A family statement said "The official cause of death has not yet been made known, but the indicators are that it was a sudden heart attack following a heart procedure earlier in the week."[29]

Subsequent developments

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In June 2020, the Church of England removed final diocesan permission to officiate from George Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, having identified procedural failings either in his review of, or his failure to have other bodies review, allegations against Smyth.[30] Permission was restored to Carey by the Bishop of Oxford seven months later.[31]

A book documenting Smyth's abuse was published in September 2021. Bleeding for Jesus: John Smyth and the Cult of the Iwerne Camps was written by Andrew Graystone, a journalist and theologian who had been involved in the exposure of Smyth.[32] Graystone described how from 1976 onwards, Smyth developed an interest in boys at Winchester College's Christian Union, a body that grew substantially in size during the so-called "evangelical revival" at the school in the mid-1970s, with 35 out of 50 boys at one boarding house – Kingsgate House (or "Beloes"), from which Smyth selected the majority of his victims – at one time attending Bible studies.[33] Smyth attended the Christian Union nearly every week, giving a talk each term, and he would regularly drive two or three boys from this group to his house in Morestead just outside Winchester to share Sunday lunch with him and his family.[34] Those boys whom he had successfully groomed (many who were invited to these lunches suffered no abuse) would individually be taken to a shed in his garden, where both Smyth and the boy would remove some or all of their clothes. Smyth would then beat the boy, a gym shoe being used at first, then a garden cane, with the number of strokes, as detailed in the Ruston report, initially equating to the severity of their supposed spiritual infringement.

Over time the number of strokes increased, and the caning would be undertaken not as punishment for any specific "sinful" deed or thought but as "prophylaxis; a spiritual discipline to keep the soul in order".[35] Adult nappies and lotion were given to boys after the beating to prevent them from bleeding on the Smyth family furniture when they returned to the house.[36] Smyth later had a special garden shed designed, soundproofed and equipped with a variety of canes.[37] When he was a carrying out a beating a white yachting flag would be planted on the garden lawn so that his wife Anne and members of his family knew that he should not be disturbed.[38] When they returned to school, some boys refused to use the communal showers as their wounds were so extensive, and one boy, Simon Doggart, had to play a game of Winchester College football in February 1978 with bandages under his kit to hide the severe wounds he had received from a beating that Smyth had given him for the "sin of pride".[39]

In January 2022, Winchester College apologised for abuse perpetrated by Smyth, following the release of an independent review that the College had commissioned.[19][40]

The reviewers have not encountered any evidence, whether oral or documentary, which suggests that John Smyth did not commit the acts described within this report. [...] In total, the reviewers are aware of 13 former pupils of Winchester College who were abused by Smyth. Not all of the abuse involved assault or physical beatings. Some of the victims were subjected to severe emotional and spiritual abuse and inappropriate sexualised behaviour. [...] The reviewers have concluded that if Smyth had been prosecuted for the offence of assault or assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the 1980s or later on the basis of the evidence shared with the reviewers, there would have been a reasonable prospect of conviction.

— Review into the abuse by John Smyth of pupils and former pupils of Winchester College

In 2024, an independent review commissioned by the Church of England concluded that the church had covered up the abuses of Smyth, and he had been allowed to take positions abroad by church officials who knew in a general sense of the abuses.[41][2] The report also concluded that Smyth had abused boys at the camps sexually as well as physically and emotionally, citing reports of Smyth forcing victims to strip naked, striking them on the buttocks and kissing their necks, as well as stripping naked in front of them and on one occasion grabbing a teenage boy's genitals.[19] Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who had been informed of Smyth's abuse in 2013 but took no action against him, resigned over the scandal on 12 November 2024, after some members of the General Synod had started a petition calling on him to step down.[42][43]

References

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  1. ^ 'SMYTH, John Jackson', Who's Who 2017, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017
  2. ^ a b c d Makin, Keith (18 October 2024). "Independent Learning Lessons Review – John Smyth QC" (PDF). Church of England. pp. 1, 25, 61–63, 118–120. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
  3. ^ Humphreys, Brett (2002). "The Law that Dared to Lay the Blame..." Gay and Lesbian Humanist. Archived from the original on 5 March 2007. Retrieved 20 January 2007.
  4. ^ Laville, Sandra (2 February 2017). "John Smyth: the go-to barrister for Mary Whitehouse". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  5. ^ Chambers, Dave (2 February 2017). "Top SA legal campaigner abused boys for decades in UK' says documentary". Times Live. Johannesburg. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  6. ^ "JASA Executive Board". Archived from the original on 11 October 2016.
  7. ^ a b c Tolsi, Niren (2 February 2017). "Christian crusader in teen abuse scandal". Mail & Guardian. Johannesburg. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  8. ^ Evans, Jenni (18 May 2005). "Homosexuality against the Bible, court hears". IOL/Independent Online. South Africa. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  9. ^ Chambers, Dave (3 February 2017). "Justice Alliance head gets the boot after child abuse allegations". Times Live. Johannesburg. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  10. ^ "Scripture Union criticised for silence about John Smyth". Church Times. 26 March 2021. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  11. ^ Foster, Patrick; Harley, Nicola; Willgress, Lydia (2 February 2017). "Archbishop of Canterbury issues 'unreserved and unequivocal' apology after links to 'child abuser' emerge". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  12. ^ "Archbishop of Canterbury sorry over charity abuse claims". BBC News. 2 February 2017. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  13. ^ Foster, Patrick; Harley, Nicola; Thornycroft, Peta (2 February 2017). "Archbishop of Canterbury's 'delightful' friend accused of killing teenager in Zimbabwe". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  14. ^ a b Ruston, Mark (1982). "Ruston Report" (PDF). Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  15. ^ Davies, Madeleine (21 August 2021). "Titus Trust: 'This is what we knew of John Smyth's abuse, and when we knew it'". Church Times. Retrieved 21 August 2021. The contents of the Ruston report were not news to another Titus Trust trustee, the Revd David Fletcher, who, as the Scripture Union employee responsible for running the Iwerne camps, had worked with Mr Ruston to compile the report before confronting Smyth in 1982.
  16. ^ a b Sherwood, Harriet (12 August 2018). "Lawyer accused of beating boys at Christian camps dies". The Guardian.
  17. ^ Thorn, John (1989). The Road to Winchester. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 154–155. ISBN 0-297-79201-6. OCLC 22489793.
  18. ^ "Anne Atkins: Inside the sexual apartheid of John Smyth's summer camps". The Telegraph. 3 February 2017. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  19. ^ a b c "Review Of Abuse In The 1970s And 1980s By John Smyth QC Of Pupils From Winchester College". www.winchestercollege.org. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  20. ^ Foster, Patrick; Willgress, Lydia; Harley, Nicola (1 February 2017). "'I could feel the blood spattering on my legs': Victims tell of 'horrific' beatings at hands of Archbishop's friend". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  21. ^ Newman, Cathy (2 February 2017). "How Channel 4 News revealed claims of savage abuse by Archbishop's friend". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  22. ^ Newman, Cathy (1 February 2017). "Archbishop admits Church 'failed terribly' over abuse revelations". Channel 4 News. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  23. ^ "Statement from Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson". Church of England. 6 February 2017. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017.
  24. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (6 February 2017). "C of E bishop: I was subject of 'excruciating' beating by John Smyth". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  25. ^ Rudgard, Olivia (24 June 2017). "John Smyth excommunicated from South African church". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  26. ^ BBC News at Ten: April 10, 2017, Internet Archive TV News, 10 April 2017, retrieved 22 January 2022
  27. ^ Sabur, Rozina (11 April 2017). "Claims John Smyth recruited victim – now head of top prep school – to help him carry out beatings". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  28. ^ "New allegations tell of savagery of Smyth beatings". www.churchtimes.co.uk. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  29. ^ BBC radio news report, 12 August 2018
  30. ^ "George Carey: Former archbishop suspended over abuse inquiry". BBC News. 18 June 2020.
  31. ^ "George Carey: Ex-archbishop allowed to be minister again". BBC News. 26 January 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  32. ^ "Bleeding For Jesus". www.dartonlongmantodd.co.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  33. ^ Graystone, 2021, pp. 28–9.
  34. ^ Graystone, 2021, p. 30.
  35. ^ Graystone, 2021, p. 34.
  36. ^ Graystone, 2021, ibid.
  37. ^ Graystone, 2021, ibid.
  38. ^ Graystone, 2021, p. 35.
  39. ^ Graystone, ibid.
  40. ^ "Winchester College sorry for 'horrific' summer camp abuse". 19 January 2022 – via www.bbc.com.
  41. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (7 November 2024). "C of E covered up attacks by serial abuser John Smyth, review finds". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
  42. ^ Kirka, Danica (11 November 2024). "Church of England head Justin Welby under pressure to resign amid abuse scandal". AP News. The Associated Press.
  43. ^ Aikman, Ian (12 November 2024). "Archbishop of Canterbury resigns over Church abuse scandal". BBC News. Retrieved 12 November 2024.

Further reading

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