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Cops Urge Possible Victims of Archbishop of Canterbury’s Former Colleague to Come Forward

By Tom Towers And Carri-ann Taylor
The Sun
February 2, 2017

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2764091/archbishop-of-canterbury-apologises-for-working-at-holiday-camps-where-teenage-boys-were-abused/

POLICE probing physical abuse allegations against a former colleague of the Archbishop of Canterbury have appealed for possible victims to call them.

John Smyth QC, 75, of Winchester, Hants, is said to have beaten teenage boys at a Christian camp in the 1970s.

He has refused to discuss it.

Rev Justin Welby was made aware of the allegations in 2013 when the police got involved

The Archbishop of Canterbury issued an “unresereved and unequivocal apology” after it emerged he worked at holiday camps where teenage boys had been abused.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church had “failed terribly” by not reporting Smyth, the head of the Christian charity that ran the summer camps, to police after he was accused of abusing boys in the 1970s.

A Channel 4 News investigation, reported in the Daily Telegraph, is expected to reveal Smyth forced public schoolboys to strip naked before subjecting them to savage beatings.

John Smyth QC is accused of administering tens of thousands of lashes with a garden cane

In a statement the Archbishop said that he had been friends with Smyth during the late Seventies, when he worked at the camps, run by the Iwerne Trust, and had kept in “occasional” contact with the barrister since.

He was made aware of the allegations in 2013 when the police were involved.

The QC is accused of recruiting 22 young men into a cult in which they agreed to let him administer tens of thousands of lashes with a garden cane, supposedly to purge them of minor sins such as masturbation and pride.

The beatings, which took place in a shed in the garden of Mr Smyth’s Winchester home, were so intense that the victims were left with lasting scars.

One alleged victim, Mark Stibbe, alleged Mr Smyth told him the beatings would “help you become holy”.

One alleged victim, Mark Stibbe, alleged Mr Smyth told him the beatings would ‘help you become holy’

Another alleged victim, Richard Gittins, said boys were forced to wear adult nappies til their wounds healed.

The assault only came to light in 1982, when one boy attempted suicide after being ordered to submit himself to another beating.

The Iwerne Trust commissioned a report which concluded: “The scale and severity of the practice was horrific.”

But Smyth was never reported to cops.

He was instead allowed to move to South Africa after agreeing never to work with children again.

 

 

 

 

 




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