As the months turned into years there were suspicions that the long-awaited report on John Smyth, thought to be the Church of England’s most prolific abuser, wouldn’t appear until the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, had retired. Five days after its publication on 7 November – more than four years after the original deadline – and in the wake of an angry, horrified reaction, he announced his resignation. On 12 November the Prime Minister said that Smyth’s victims had been failed “very, very badly”. Welby resigned hours later in a statement that acknowledged “personal and institutional responsibility” for the failure to address the abuse, about which he was officially informed in 2013.
From the late 1970s, Smyth, a barrister who was authorised to preach in the Church, carried out sadistic beatings and sexual abuse of children and young men, using a cane to deliver blows that left them bleeding and traumatised. His wife supplied nappies. Victims were told the beatings were “an appropriate step in their Christian progression”. Many were groomed at Winchester College. In 1982 one young man tried to take his own life after being told by Smyth that his 21st birthday would be marked by a particularly severe set of beatings.
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