P. J. SMYTH, John Smyth’s son, told Channel 4 News this week that his father had been a “master manipulator”. He was a “grand narcissist, barbaric, even monstrous, and my father”, he told Cathy Newman.

The shed in which his father had beaten him from the ages of seven to 11 had been “defining” in his life, he said. His mother, Anne, had been Smyth’s “closest victim”. Nobody aware of Smyth’s abuse had considered that his family might also be victims.

He recalled how, while he was suffering from cancer, his parents had told him that the disease was the result of ways in which he had “dishonoured” them, and that he would recover if he repented.

In 2021, it was announced that P. J. Smyth would step down as Pastor of Monument Church, Gaithersburg, Maryland, in the United States, and from leadership in the Advance Movement, a group of Evangelical churches with links to Newfrontiers, after concerns were raised about the accuracy of statements that he had made relating to his father (News, 11 June 2021). During the interview, he praised Ms Newman, who publicly exposed Smyth’s abuse in 2017, for having “courageously brought into the light what I couldn’t and others wouldn’t” and “punched a big hole in my wall of denial”.

His initial response — describing his father’s abuse as “excessive physical discipline” — had been “factually inaccurate” and had caused harm to others, he acknowledged.

During the broadcast, he read aloud, through tears, from a letter from a Smyth victim, “Graham”, who wrote of holding out “the hand of friendship” and offered a meeting.

Quotes of the week, page 18