THE Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) failed to mitigate the “serious risk” that John Smyth would continue to groom and abuse young men during his time in South Africa, an independent panel has concluded.
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Dr Thabo Makgoba, who commissioned the panel, told a press briefing on Tuesday that, as Metropolitan of the ACSA, he was accountable for this failure. He apologised.
“The buck stops with me. That being the case, I accept the Panel’s findings unreservedly. I acknowledge that during Smyth’s time in Cape Town, God’s people were exposed to the potential of his abuse and I and the Diocese apologise to our congregants and the wider community that we did not protect people from that risk.”
Smyth, a Reader in the Church of England who emigrated to South Africa in 2001, died in Cape Town in 2018, while under investigation by Hampshire Police (News, 13 August 2018).
In November, the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse — published five years after it was commissioned by the C of E — found that the “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse perpetrated by Smyth against boys and young men was able to continue in Africa “because of inaction of Clergy within the Church of England”. From 2013, Makin reports, the C of E knew “at the highest level” about the abuse, but failed to refer it either to the police or to the relevant authorities in South Africa. There was evidence that he continued to perpetrate abuse there until his death.
In response to the Makin report, Dr Makgoba commissioned an independent panel to review, at speed, whether he and his diocese had met their obligation to keep people safe in the light of Smyth’s presence in the area. In December, the panel issued a public call for evidence.
Its 29-page report, published on Monday, finds that, although no reports of similar abuse by Smyth from his time in South Africa had been officially recorded, or reported to the panel, “there was a very high risk that these could have happened.
“Although Smyth’s abuses in the UK and then Zimbabwe were [according to the Makin report] known to the Church of England from the early 1980s, no warning was given to ACSA until 2013.”
The panel also finds that the communication between 2013 and 2018 of these concerns “fell short”, and that the protective measures in place at that time “inadequately mitigated the serious risk of such conduct being repeated here by Smyth, or others”.
The Safe and Inclusive Church initiative established by the ACSA in 2016 was, the panel concludes, “insufficiently supported and resourced”, and “the pace of implementation has been too slow.”
IN 2013, the then Bishop of Ely, the Rt Revd Stephen Conway (now the Bishop of Lincoln), wrote to the then Bishop of Table Bay, the Rt Revd Garth Counsell — a suffragan bishop in the diocese of Cape Town — alerting him to Smyth’s abuses. The letter included Smyth’s date of birth, email address, and home address.
He received a letter of acknowledgement, which stated that the Bishop was in conversation with the Rector of the Anglican parish that Smyth belonged to — St Martin’s parish, in Cape Town — and that he would consult Dr Makgoba. The letter said that Bishop Conway would be “kept informed”, but the diocese of Ely has said that no further correspondence was received (News, 10 May 2019).
The panel confirms that, though he purported to have no recollection of this correspondence, Bishop Counsell had received the Ely letter in 2013 and warned St Martin’s about Smyth. The Ely letter, it says, had to be re-sent to the ACSA at the request of Dr Makgoba in 2017, when the allegations of Smyth’s abuse were first reported by Channel 4 News.
At the time of the Makin review, Dr Makgoba’s office confirmed that Smyth had worshipped at St Martin’s for “a year or two” after first coming to Cape Town in 2001, and again, before his death in 2018, this time “on condition that he was not to get involved in any ministry or contact any young person” (News, 15 November 2015).
The panel reports that Smyth was not involved in any ministry in this church, and that no reports of abuse by him were recorded.
It reports that, in 2001, the then Rector of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Durban, “the Revd Michael Skevington, received a troubling call relaying that there were reports of Smyth having been involved in instances of abuse in the UK and Zimbabwe. Revd Skevington and a churchwarden confronted Smyth: his reaction was to threaten them with legal suits should these allegations be further conveyed.”
The panel continues: “It is to the credit of the Revd Skevington and the churchwardens they did not (as the Makin Review unfortunately reflects as the reaction of some individuals and entities, in the UK and Zimbabwe) quail in the face of these threats. The Smyths were immediately suspended from all ministries at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and left the congregation ‘abruptly’,” the panel reports.
The panel also reports that, in January 2014, the Rector of St Martin’s, the Revd Allan Smith, had written to Bishop Counsell, informing him that Smyth had left the church and moved to an independent Cape Town church, Church-on-Main. Smyth did “preach occasionally” and had been involved in the Alpha course at that church, the panel says.
“Bishop Counsell and Revd Smith erred in failing to inform the authorities at Church-on-Main of what they had learned about Smyth from the letter received from the Diocese of Ely,” the panel reports.
It is apparent, the panel says, that, “at its lowest, the risk of repetition of his [Smyth’s] serial abuse perpetrated (on the Makin Review findings) in the UK and Zimbabwe was high and continued until 2016 or 2017.”
The panel goes on to report that, in 2017 or 2018, Smyth and his wife, after attending a funeral at St Martin’s, had approached the Rector, Mr Smith — who reports that they were “looking quite dejected” — to ask whether they could return to St Martin’s as “quiet members”.
The Rector replied that he “could not stop them from coming to worship but that they should not get involved in any ministry while this matter was unresolved”. He reports that Smyth showed signs of rapid ageing, and died about six months later. Smith conducted the “small, simpl[e]” funeral service.
The panel reports that one of the earliest warnings issued to the ACSA were allegations of Smyth’s abuses in Winchester, which were disclosed in the 1980s to the Rt Revd Peter Lee, then a young priest who went on to become the Bishop of Christ the King, Johannesburg.
“It is not to us apparent that he could appropriately have done anything with these,” the panel concludes. “The reports were not first-hand and were not documented. There was no inkling then that Smyth would take up residence first in Zimbabwe and thereafter South Africa.”
Bishop Lee then disclosed these to fellow bishops in 1998, “in compliance” with pastoral standards at the time, the panel says, and, “when Smyth’s name cropped up even before the latter’s arrival in 2001 in South Africa, cautioned fellow bishops against involving Smyth in ACSA activities”.
“The weakness in protection afforded by a general caution to fellow bishops was an institutional weakness: it is only in 1998 that the worldwide Anglican Communion initiated the deliberations which were to lead (in South Africa’s case, only in 2016) to organs such as Safe Church, designed to protect vulnerable members from abuses,” the panel says.
ON THE development of the ACSA’s safeguarding procedures, the panel finds: “Our inquiry, limited as it is to the matters stated in our TOR (terms of reference), does not include a review of ACSA’s dealing with abuse generally. But inevitably it throws some matters into sharp focus. One is the disturbing delay already noted, at least since 2018, in fully implementing measures evolved over two decades to grapple effectively with abuse within the church and church-related institutions. . .
“We do not consider that the Pastoral Standards alone afforded members of ACSA sufficient protection against conduct such as that documented in the Makin Review and Coltart Report [in Zimbabwe], and that there was a serious risk of such conduct being repeated in South Africa by Smyth after his arrival in 2001.
“We consider that the delays in implementation since 2016 of Safe Church are a cause for serious concern, raising the risk that similar or other abusive conduct goes undetected and is not the subject of effective protective measures.”
At the briefing on Tuesday, Dr Makgoba said that trust in the Church needed to be rebuilt, and that this would be his priority before his retirement in two years’ time.
He proposed that, as a matter of urgency, and backed by church legislation where necessary, Safe Church Officers be trained within each parish, and their contact details listed, and that each Bishop inquire and report on whether anyone previously accused of abuse currently worships or holds a licence in their diocese, and whether they meet current safeguarding standards. If this person has moved, this should be reported.
In a statement on Tuesday, the C of E’s lead safeguarding bishop, the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, said that, as with the Makin review, “It is evident that Smyth was allowed to go abroad in the 1980s, with the full knowledge by some in the Church of his abuse. This was wrong and should not have happened.”
She said of the ACSA report: “This is sobering to read. I am glad both that ACSA rapidly commissioned their own review in response to the Makin Review, and that they are now transparent about its findings. We join them in penitence for the failings of our Churches.”