Four decades after the alarm was first raised, systematic abuse by a leader in the centre of a Church of England conservative evangelical network has been fully revealed in an official report.
The Makin report into John Smyth QC (1941-2018), a leader in the UK public schools (exlusive private schools) network known as the Iwerne camps, records episodes of thrashing over 80 young men in England, Zimbawe and South Africa.
““The abuse at the hands of John Smyth was prolific and abhorrent. Words cannot adequately describe the horror of what transpired,’ independent reviewer Keith Makin said this week as his report was publically released.
“Many of the victims who took the brave decision to speak to us about what they experienced have carried this abuse silently for more than 40 years.
“Despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a cover up.”
The abuse
John Smyth QC was a sucessful lawyer, the youngest to be appointed QC at the time, and was well regarded by leaders in the conservative evangelical network based on long standing tradition of evangelistic camps for public school boys known as the Iwerne camps. Generations of evangelical leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby were converted at or trained as leaders by the camps. Smyth also spoke at evangelical union meetings at three Cambridge University colleges and at Bristol, York and Durham universities, and subsequently was able to groom young men.
Using these connections, Smyth’s abuse consisted of brutal beatings.
A 1982 report by evangelical minister Mark Ruston (then at the Round Church, Cambridge) reported
“”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 31⁄2 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.”
The Makin report also includes testimony from victims including.
“The number of strokes increased each time up to well over a hundred….The total was between 800 and 1000 over ten visits.”
“I was struck 30-40 times with a cane across my bottom, sometimes the cane missed my bottom and connecting with my thigh. The pain was so intense, my bottom was bleeding and despite it being red raw he would continue striking me. Each hit was very violent, and it was extraordinarily painful. Smyth was hitting me as hard as he could – he was sweating and exerting a lot of energy with each stroke. During my time at Smyth’s house I recall conversations in which he stated that he had broken canes during the beatings. At no point did I seek medical attention following the beatings, for some years there was evidence of scars however these are no longer visible.
… and then he struck me. I thought until that moment that he was a nice guy, but that first strike was so brutal, there was no holding back at all, there was no mercy in it, there was no gentleness in it, it was absolutely ferocious and the sting and then the burning sensation.“
The abuse was directed at schoolboys as young as 14 and university students. Victims reported suicidal thought, long lasting trauma and there was one death.
The cover up
The Makin report contains a detailed timeline of who knew what, when. For example it states “our research, …has shown that a significant number of ordained Church of England Clergy knew of the abuse between March 1982 and July 1984, some may well have known or suspected it even earlier than 1982 although information confirming this is not available. One of these was very senior, a Bishop, and several others were well known influential leaders within Iwerne networks and the wider Conservative Evangelical world. Several not ordained, but powerful and influential leaders in Evangelism were also aware of the abuse.”
Makin provides evidence such as contemporaneous notes from the time, including the Rushton report which made it clear a circle of key leaders know of the abuse from 1982 onwards. “The decision was made that the authorities will not be informed (most importantly the police) and that the matter will be “held secret” by this small group,” Makin reports.
“The evidence from the time, which includes a great deal of contemporaneous correspondence between the people shown the Ruston Report, shows, clearly, that there were several possible reasons for the non-disclosure:
(i) To protect the reputation of the Iwerne movement.
(ii) To protect the wider reputation of Conservative Evangelicalism.
(iii) To protect the reputations of the individuals involved with Iwerne.
(iv) To protect the reputations of the victims’ parents.”
“In an interview with us [Makin’s team], David Fletcher {head of the Iwerne Camps from 1962-86 and a rector at St Ebbe’s Oxford] said: “I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public.”
But, Makin notes the abuse became widely known within church networks. “Our conclusion is that members of the Church did know of the abuse. The wider Church organisation could have and should have known of the abuse and, furthermore, a sufficiently large number of prominent people within the Church did know of it. Significant enough to say that the Church of England “knew” in the most general sense, of the abuse.”
The Iwerne Trust – a body that ran the camps attempted to bring Smyth under cantrol, but makin reviewing letters between the trust and Smyth notes. “The correspondence clearly shows that John Smyth is powerful and largely in control of this whole saga. We can only speculate that David Fletcher and his group are still in awe of John Smyth. It was probably the case that they feared legal retribution against them. The talk is of “keeping things quiet”, “protecting Iwerne”, “avoiding telling parents”. The pattern repeats when Scripoture Union which had some form of oversight of the Irwerne camps got involved.
The perpetrator was in charge.
But there was one effective response. Despite several attempts Smyth was kept of of the Church of England clergy,. Makin reports his extreme anger at being denied ordination. In addition, Makin reports a suggestion Smyth was told to leave the country – in effect sent to the colonies – although Makin can’t find direct evidence of Smth being forced to leave the UK.
Diastorted theology
Smyth QC told the young men he beat that the canings were to help them repent and overcome sin. Makin summarises this: “John Smyth was able to radicalise his victims, by using his misinterpretation and misuse of the Scriptures. He taught, preached, and exploited children and young people by applying a false theology, based on selected Scriptures, taken out of context. He mis-used the writings and views of various conservative theologians, primarily from the United States, including AW Tozer, Billy Graham, SD Gordon and Jim Packer. He contended that the way to Christ was through suffering, and he offered a “programme” which included ensuring that suffering was a route to the atonement of sins. This false thinking and perverted approach was known to the people around him and could have been challenged for what it was. Similar approaches were taken by him in Zimbabwe. He has been viewed by some commentators as being a “good Christian” who went too far. This Review’s conclusion is that he was a skilled and determined narcissist, who derived pleasure from the sufferings of others, as we have detailed in the narrative.”
A description from John Thorn (Headmaster of Winchester College) in his autobiography ‘The Road To Winchester’. gives a picture of Smyths influence in a evangelical group in the school. At first he saw it as a wholesome group. “Then the storm broke. I was told the extraordinary news that the neighbouring barrister has gained such personal control over a few of the senior boys in the group, and has 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. The world of conservative evangelicalism was left in twain. Absurd and baseless rumours were circulated that he was an unhinged tyrant, the embodiment of Satan. He must be banished. And – quietly but efficiently – he was. He left the Winchester district and them the United Kingdom. He departed for Africa with his family and, by me, has not been heard of since.”
The publication of Thorn’s book led to some publicity but not enough to fully reveal what was going on.
A lessons
Banishment and secrecy, and failed attempts to get Smyth to desist from ministry among young men, were the responses of the interlocked evangelical groups that Smyth was part of over the four decades of cover-up. The idea of full discolsure of the abuse was assiduosly avoided – and the attempts to discipline Smyth all failed. AS complicated relationship between Scripture Union and the Iwerne trust, and the influence of conservative evangelical network of connections operating in parallel with the official church structures gave Smyth scope to wriggle out of attempts to disciple him.
It is a commonplace that, post-Watergate. it was said of Richard Nixon the cover-up was worse than the crime. It might be harder to come to that conclusion about Smyth – there is ample testimony in the Makin report that the effects of Smyth’s abuse still lingers – but the cover-up over decades is surely devastating, too.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who has reason to be grateful for the Iwerne camps in his early life of faith has issued a personal statement. “I recognise the courage of those victims, including those related to John Smyth, who have come forward and relived their trauma through contributing to this review. I know their willingness to share their painful testimonies will come at great personal cost.
“I am deeply sorry that this abuse happened. I am so sorry that in places where these young men, and boys, should have felt safe and where they should have experienced God’s love for them, they were subjected to physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse. I am sorry that concealment by many people who were fully aware of the abuse over many years meant that John Smyth was able to abuse overseas and died before he ever faced justice. The report rightly condemns that behaviour.”
Image: John Smyth Image credit: Channel 4 screenshot