JOHN SMYTH’s abuse was properly referred to the police by the Church of England in 2013, retired senior police officers have told the Church Times. Their comments challenge the Makin review’s conclusion about the responses of the diocese of Ely, and of Lambeth Palace, in that year.
In a “summary of failures”, the Makin report says: “There was never a formal referral to Cambridgeshire Police.” But three retired detectives with extensive safeguarding experience have told the Church Times that, on the evidence presented in the report, a referral had properly been made by church authorities in 2013.
Analysing the steps taken by the Bishop of Ely’s safeguarding adviser, Yvonne Quirk, in 2013 after learning of the abuse, one retired police detective, who has worked in safeguarding for more than 20 years, told the Church Times: “I don’t know how much more of a referral you can get.”
None of the three former officers were willing to put their name to their concerns, owing to their holding independent safeguarding positions, and will be referred to as former officers A, B, and C.
In his report, released on 7 November, the independent reviewer Keith Makin wrote: “John Smyth could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK and to authorities in South Africa . . . by Church officers, including a diocesan Bishop and Justin Welby in 2013.”
Former officer B told the Church Times: “Nobody can say this isn’t a hideous, horrific case, but to say that, in 2013, no one did anything, and that it wasn’t a police referral, leading to where we are now with the Archbishop resigning, it’s just wrong.”
The Makin report records that the police detective who received information from Ms Quirk understood the conversation to be about giving advice. The report says that the police officer, Lisa Pearson, “did not consider this to be a formal referral to the Police”.
But this, the former detectives claim, is contradicted by the fact that there followed a meeting between Ms Quirk and two of Ms Pearson’s senior colleagues.
An in-person meeting with senior officers to discuss the case was not an informal process, former officer C said: “That’s reporting to police.” Officer C said that it was unclear to them what Mr Makin meant by a “formal referral”.
When this was put to Mr Makin, his spokesperson said: “Any detail on police involvement beyond what is contained in the report is a question for the police.”
Former officer A also said that the production of an “intelligence report” by Cambridgeshire Police, to be sent to Hampshire Police, about Smyth’s actions was further evidence that Ms Quirk was justified in thinking that the disclosures had been treated seriously by police.
Officer A emphasised that this was not a criticism of Ms Pearson, who, they said, had acted correctly by bringing in senior colleagues.
The Makin report says that “no other record” of the intelligence report had been found, and a spokesperson for Hampshire Constabulary told the Church Times: “No intelligence report was received by us from the force mentioned within the report.”
Ms Pearson, who is now assistant diocesan safeguarding adviser in Ely, declined to comment. The Church Times was unable to contact Ms Quirk.
The Makin report says that Archbishop Welby was “ill-advised about the actions taken in the Ely diocese”, where Smyth’s abuse was first reported to a church safeguarding adviser. “He was told that a referral had been made to the police. This was not correct.”
All three of the retired detectives who spoke to the Church Times suggested that, on the basis of the information presented in the report, Archbishop Welby was justified in thinking in 2013 that proper processes had been followed.
The Church, officer B said, had “trusted the professional judgement of the police, and discharged its obligation in terms of referral”.
In the statement announcing his decision to resign, Archbishop Welby said: “When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow” (News, 12 November).
In a statement on the same day as Archbishop Welby announced his resignation, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Rt Revd Stephen Conway, who was Bishop of Ely in 2013, said: “It was my understanding that this matter was reported to the Police in Cambridgeshire and duly passed on to the Police in Hampshire where the abuse had occurred.”
Ms Quirk, officer B said, was “absolutely right” to think that she had made a referral, and therefore Bishop Conway and Archbishop Welby were justified in their confidence that a referral had been made: “Because the adviser said: ‘I’ve made a referral and I’ve had a meeting with them, but they don’t feel there can be a prosecution.’”
On the interactions between Ms Quirk and the police, the Makin report says: “The crucial issue here is that these two interactions with Police were later assumed, by more senior Church leaders, to be a ‘report to police’, although no crime record or crime reference number was made.”
But the former detectives who spoke to the Church Times dismissed the apparent conflation of a crime report with a crime reference number. “Whether it’s given a crime number or not, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a referral,” officer A said.
Instead, officer A said that this indicated that the police, having considered the evidence, had decided not to investigate it as a crime — a conclusion that echoes Ms Quirk’s account of the meeting in the Makin report: that the case “had been given proper consideration but there was no possibility of a criminal investigation. That is why there was no crime number.”
In 2014, an inspection of Cambridgeshire Police concluded that the recording of crimes referred to the force by third parties, including “other public sector organisations”, required urgent attention.
“We found little evidence of supervision of these systems and we found that there is no cross-referencing to the crime-recording system,” the inspection report said.
Crime Recording Rules from the Home Office say: “A belief by the victim, or person reasonably assumed to be acting on behalf of the victim, that a crime has occurred is usually sufficient to justify its recording.”
A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Constabulary said last week: “Concerns regarding the conduct of a man in the 1980s were discussed at a safeguarding meeting in October 2013. Limited information was spoken about in relation to two victims of physical abuse who had approached representatives from the diocese of Ely, but did not wish to be identified or make a formal complaint to the police.
“Both victims were adults at the time of the alleged incidents and none of the incidents were believed to have taken place in Cambridgeshire. With the limited information available at the time, and the victims’ not wishing to make a complaint, it was not possible for us to pursue an investigation.”
The Makin report says that, “had the known and full description of the abuse been shared” in 2013, it “would have indicated the seriousness of the abuse and potential level of risk posed by John Smyth. In turn, this may have led to further Police led investigation at this point.”
The Makin report records that Ms Quirk said that she refuted the claim that she did not share fully the knowledge that she had about the abuse in her interactions with the police.
“REALLY, what more could the Church have done?” said former officer A, in relation to ensuring that the police were investigating John Smyth in 2013.
Asked whether a bishop or archbishop asking the police to investigate further would have been likely to have an impact, the former officers said that they would have been given the same rationale for not pursuing the case that Ms Quirk was given.
“They couldn’t coerce the police into taking action,” former officer C said, though suggested that, with more resources, church authorities could have further investigated Smyth and presented more evidence to police.
Officer C warned, however, of the danger of judging actions in 2013 with the benefit of hindsight.
In response to a request by the Church Times, Mr Makin agreed to answer written questions via a public relations adviser.
Asked to comment on the suggestion that knowledge of Smyth’s abuse had been properly referred, Mr Makin’s spokesperson said: “Any detail on police involvement beyond what is contained in the report is a question for the police.”
Asked what specific action Bishop Conway and Archbishop Welby could have taken in regards to ensuring police pursued the case, Mr Makin’s spokesperson said: “The point made by the report is that both of the bishops you have named knew about the abuse that had taken place and mistakenly thought the matter was being pursued by the police and more should have, and could have, been done to ensure appropriate action was being taken.”
Asked whether he thought that the actions of the police should be reviewed, Mr Makin’s spokesperson told the Church Times: “That would not be a decision for Keith to make, it is beyond the remit of the review.”
In a statement, Mr Makin said: “The focus of the report is the experiences of the victims and these should remain central to any discussion about the events that have taken place, the processes that should or could have taken place, and what changes are yet to come to safeguard people in the future. We must never forget why this review was launched in the first place.”
Lambeth Palace declined to comment.
In addition to the former officers, the Church Times also spoke with several current church safeguarding professionals, who, because of their jobs, did not want to be identified. One said that asking questions about Mr Makin’s conclusions was “not an anti-survivor narrative, on any level”, and emphasised that proper scrutiny of all the institutions referred to in the Makin report was important for securing improvements in safeguarding.
Asked to comment on the expectations put upon safeguarding personnel in the Church of England, a spokesperson for the National Safeguarding Team said: “Our Responding guidance is very clear — that full and detailed reporting and referrals must take place, with all concerns and allegations logged in writing.
“Any contacts and/or meetings with statutory agencies including police should be recorded in writing and a copy kept securely in the respondent case file. This record should include the date the referral was sent, which agency it was referred to, by whom and any decision made in relation to the concern or allegation.”
Guidance on practice from the College of Policing says that “passing information between agencies is a referral if someone believes a child may be suffering or is at risk of suffering significant harm.
“The police may become aware of child abuse cases through contact by a representative from another agency (for example, children’s social care, education or health sector, or the [NSPCC]. This information may be received as a documented or verbal referral.”