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

UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Lorraine Caballero 07 February, 2017

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.

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