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Christian campaigner urged to return to UK to face teen abuse consequences

By Lorraine Caballero
Christian Today
February 7, 2017

http://www.christiandaily.com/article/christian-campaigner-urged-to-return-to-uk-to-face-teen-abuse-consequences/59918.htm

A bicycle hangs from a church on the Tour De France route in Leyburn, northern England, June 18, 2014.

[with video]

The son of a Christian campaigner who moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 is urging his father to return to the United Kingdom to face the consequences of teen abuse allegations against him that have surfaced recently.

Hampshire Police have just launched an investigation into allegations that John Smyth, a Christian campaigner who used to manage Christian youth camps, stripped and violently beat 22 young men from public schools in Britain. Channel 4 News talked to the alleged victims, who said they endured the lashings as punishment for pride and other minor sins.

According to the victims, they had to wear adult nappies after the beatings to stem the bleeding. The alleged abuses started in the late 1970s but the young men's schools were only informed about them after there was an attempted suicide in 1982. However, the allegations were unknown to the police until recently.

"These are horrific allegations' and if proven true it is right that my father face justice," the campaigner's pastor son PJ Smyth said, according to Times Live.

The younger Smyth said he did not see or hear anything which made him suspect that his father was involved in the allegations against him while he was still attending boarding school in the U.K. However, he said he is committed to reporting incidents of child abuse to authorities, Times Live also relays.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, used to work at the Christian holiday camps run by The Iwerne Trust and was also Smyth's former colleague. In light of the teen abuse scandal, he issued a statement of "unreserved and unequivocal' apology for the Church of England's failure in the matter.

On Sunday, elders at Smyth's former congregation in Cape Town released a statement urging the embattled Christian campaigner to admit the accusations against him and to ask for forgiveness. They also encouraged those who had experienced similar beatings to step forward and talk about the incidents so that they could take the necessary steps to address the issue.

Meanwhile, the Wynberg church has asked Smyth and his wife not to attend its gatherings until the issue is resolved.




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