One of the victims of a Christian evangelist, who was brutally abused as a teenager, has called for an independent inquiry, and accused the Church of England of "marking its own exams".
Andrew Morse, who twice tried to take his own life after years of savage beatings at the hands of John Smyth QC, said he does not trust the Church to do its own investigation, accusing it of not doing enough to stop the abuse and help the victims.
He told the Today Programme: "The Church told us that they couldn't investigate because it was a police matter, and now that John Smyth is dead, it is no longer a police matter. We actually - our concern about the Church - is that Justin Welby himself who was at the camps with us, and who actually mentored a Smyth victim who reported the abuse to a Cambridge church in 2012, Justin Welby admits he became aware of the abuse in 2013, that somehow each of the four police forces that I've been told were contacted, none of them were given proper information.
"I'm not sure I would trust the Church to do that inquiry themselves, I would like an independent inquiry lead by somebody who the Smyth victims would choose. I think one of the problems with the Church, a bit like their safeguarding, is that they aren't independently safeguarded, they mark their own exams, and I don't trust that process."
Victims of Smyth said they are “incandescent with rage” that the Church of England and police failed to bring him to justice before he died and have demanded that the Archbishop of Canterbury explain why he did not expose the scandal.
They said the delays in acting on a string of abuse allegations before Smyth's death from an apparent heart attack at his home in Cape Town on Saturday had robbed them of any chance of closure.
Andrew Morse, who twice tried to take his own life after years of savage beatings, said: “I’m a generally very forgiving person but Justin Welby was the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“Jesus would not have silently protected the abusers, he would have stood with the abused.”
Smyth, 77, was accused of savagely beating more than 20 boys in thousands of sado-masochistic assaults in his garden shed in Winchester after meeting some of them at Christian holiday camps in the late Seventies. Many were pupils at Winchester College.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby, who attended the camp and knew the barrister, was forced to issue an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England last year, admitting that it had failed to report the allegations when they came to light as far back as 1982.
But the victims have questioned why the Archbishop did not take a personal interest in the case in 2013, when one of their number reported the abuse to the Bishop of Ely and the police were informed.
At that point, officers said there was not enough evidence to pursue the case. Yet they were never handed a 1982 report commissioned by the Iwerne Trust, which oversaw the camps, detailing the “horrific” scale and severity of the practice.
The report was written by vicar Mark Ruston but was never published and Smyth was allowed to move overseas.
Hampshire Police did not investigate until early last year, following a Channel 4 investigation. Just ten days ago, officers wrote to Smyth’s victims stating that they had been instructed by the CPS to interview him on UK soil with a view to prosecution.
It was too little too late. His family confirmed he died at 9am on Saturday of a probable heart attack following a heart procedure.
A number of his victims have instructed a solicitor to pursue civil action against those it has accused of failing them, including the Iwerne Trust, which is now part of the Titus Trust.
Andrew Graystone, a victims’ advocate in the case, said: “The amount of information given to the police in 2013 was so slim.
“They knew it was illegal. They knew there were at last 19 victims, they had clear, contemporaneous evidence yet they stayed schtum.”
Mr Graystone acknowledged that the Archbishop had denied being aware of the abuse until 2013 but he said he could not fail to have noticed that Smyth, chair of the Iwerne Trust since 1975, had suddenly “dropped out of circulation” in the early 1980s.
“Welby had been lodging at Mark Ruston’s vicarage, this was the talk of evangelical Christians in Cambridge, it was a very closed circle,” he said. “They all worked for the Church, they all went to Iwerne. He must have been walking around with his eyes closed.”
He added: “Even in 2013, Welby could have gone to the Titus Trust and asked what records they had, he could have asked who was involved, he could have opened his phone book.. He would have known who to talk to, it was a very close group.
“He could have picked up the phone to Andrew Watson, who is now the Bishop of Guildford, and asked if he was involved in any of this.”
Right Reverend Watson revealed last year that he was one of the boys forced to endure a “violent, excruciating and shocking” beating at the hands of Smyth.
Mr Morse, with the support of eight other alleged victims, wrote an open letter to the Archbishop last February, published in the Telegraph, asking him to explain why he had failed to expose Smyth’s abuse in 2013, but says he was met with a wall of silence.
Another victim, who uses the name Graham, said he remains angry that the Archbishop did not do more when he learned of the allegations.
“I am incandescent with rage that the opportunity to bring him to justice,” he said. “It was a wasted opportunity to address the most horrendous level of crime that has been known about for many years.”
The Iwerne Trust’s summer retreats for public school boys in Dorset were described as religion’s Sandhurst, intended to produce the next generation of elite Christians.
Smyth was the only member of staff accused of any abuse.
A spokesman for the Titus Trust said last year that the “very disturbing allegations... should have been reported to the police when they first became known”.
The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Peter Hancock, the Church of England's lead safeguarding bishop, acknowledged the difficulties now faced by Smyth’s victims in knowing that the police investigation will never be completed and said it was important for all organisations involved in the case to look at a lessons learnt review, whilst offering support to survivors.
A Church of England spokesperson said: “The Archbishop has stated that he knew nothing about the abuse at the time and when he learnt the full extent in 2017 he issued a personal apology to all the survivors and a full statement. Safeguarding has always been an absolute priority of his ministry.
“He has also gone on record about the information that came to Lambeth in 2013 from the Bishop of Ely – it fell within his diocese – that a survivor of Smyth had come forward.
“This was reported to Cambridgeshire Police, as well as the Church authorities, where Smyth was known to be worshipping in South Africa.
“These actions were checked with the National Safeguarding Adviser at the time, and an offer of support was made to the survivor.
“Our statement today acknowledges how difficult the news of Smyth’s death will be for the survivors and makes it clear that lessons must be learnt. Although the Iwerne Camps (now the Titus Trust) are not Church of England, we have offered support to anyone who has come forward (and a number have) and we are committed to offering continued support to them.”