THE Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) has sought permission to bring a further out-of-time complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) in light of the Makin review, it was announced on Tuesday.
In February, the NST announced that it was seeking to bring out-of-time disciplinary proceedings under the CDM against ten clerics, including two bishops, who had been criticised in the Makin report on the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth (News, 28 February). The President of the Tribunals granted this in seven of the ten cases.
On Tuesday, the NST released a statement saying that a new application was being brought against an 11th cleric: the Revd Iain Broomfield, a former chair of the Titus Trust, who was also criticised in the report.
The Makin report concluded that the “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse perpetrated by Smyth, who was a Reader in the Church of England, was covered up by “powerful evangelical clergy”. Smyth, who died in 2017 before he could be questioned by police, arrested, or tried, was a barrister who chaired the Iwerne Trust (absorbed into the Titus Trust in 2000) and a volunteer leader on its holiday camps.
Mr Broomfield was a senior schools worker at the Iwerne Trust and then the Titus Trust from 1987 until 2000, when he was appointed Vicar of Christ Church, Bromley. He was a trustee of the Titus Trust from 2006 until his resignation in 2018, and chairman from 2015 until 2018.
Mr Broomfield, who has since retired, was previously suspended on 25 January 2021 as Vicar of Christ Church, Bromley, after complaints about his behaviour, including concerns relating to safeguarding, the diocese of Rochester confirmed at the time. These had been the subject of a CDM, under which he was given a rebuke and injunctions in 2022, for “conduct unbecoming and inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders”. The matters considered did not relate to the camps.
The Makin report says that Mr Broomfield was not interviewed for the review at the time because of his suspension. It records, however, that around 1998, he informed a young priest that there was a “previous issue” regarding Smyth and that “something bad” had happened at Winchester College. In 2017, “Scripture Union records describe a call being made by the Archbishop of Canterbury [then Justin Welby] to Reverend Iain Broomfield in relation to the abuse.”
Later that year, Mr Broomfield received a letter from the then Bishop at Lambeth, the Rt Revd Nigel Stock, “asking the Titus Trust to make a stronger apology. The reply from the Titus Trust made the argument that the Titus Trust was not the direct successor body with control over the Iwerne camps. The letter also argued that an apology from the Trust would not be in keeping with the expressed wishes of the victims they knew of and had spoken with.”
The NST statement on Tuesday explained: “This new application, the 11th, follows the completion of other live processes that were ongoing at the time of the review Panel earlier in the year which had meant that the actions of this priest [Mr Broomfield], criticised in the report, could not be reviewed at that point. There will be no further comment until a decision is made by the President.”