Hi all
This is my first newsletter for the year 2025, so I think it’s still allowable to wish you all a
Happy New Year! I hope you had a good break and have been able to make a productive
start to the term. The crocuses are out in my garden already, and I’m looking forward to
longer days and warmer temperatures.
Just before Christmas, I spent the best part of a day reading a very disturbing and detailed report which focussed on the physical, sexual and emotional child abuse committed by John Smyth. Smyth was a key figure in the Church of England, leading the Iwerne Trust, which ran holiday camps for aspirational young Christians from public schools. He also played an active role in supporting different student Christian Unions (CUs) across the country, and had particularly strong links to Winchester Cathedral School CU, where he lived nearby. These settings provided Smyth with well over a hundred victims in the UK alone. He also abused his own son. The abuse described was certainly disturbing, but what also very upsetting was the account of the abject failure of the hierarchy of the Church of England and other settings (who were well aware of the abuse), to protect children over many years from him.
John Smyth
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Smyth worked as a barrister in London (he represented Mary
Whitehouse in her ‘public decency’ campaigns). During this time, Smyth forged relationships
with student unions, grooming boys who were invariably invited to his home for ‘mentoring’. After a period, boys were introduced to the idea that should atone physically for their sins, a process that involved being stripped naked and beaten severely by Smyth using slippers, canes and other implements. Most of the beatings took place at the bottom of Smyth’s garden, in a specially built shed that was constructed to not allow casual observation from the house and where he could abuse undisturbed. After the beating, Smyth would ‘comfort’ the victim by instigating intimacy, kissing the boys and fondling their genitals. Then the boys would return to the house where Smyth’s wife would administer tea and cakes and wrap the wounds of the boys in adult nappies before they were sent on their way. Smyth’s son was also frequently beaten during his childhood, mainly for minor shortcomings, like not achieving top marks in exams.
At summer camps, Smyth was a frequent visitor, where the pattern of mentoring was carried out with boarders, and subsequent beatings were carried out in the grounds. This abuse resulted in physical injuries that would sometimes take many weeks to heal. In the report, his victims also spoke of the profound psychological harm they were also subjected to, which damaged their self-esteem and their mental health, their ability to form trusted and intimate relationships, their future careers, and their faith. Smyth also exercised coercive control over some his victims for many years, maintaining contact with them and seeking opportunities to abuse them as young adults.
By the early 1980s, disclosures by some boys resulted in an internal report produced by the
Iwerne Trust, the Rustin Report, in 1982 which gave detailed information on exactly what
was happening on their summer camps:
‘…The scale and severity of the practice was horrific. Five of the 13 I have seen were in it only for a short time. Between them they had 12 beatings and about 650 strokes. The other 8 received about 14,000 strokes: 2 of them having some 8,000 strokes over the three years. The others were involved for one year or 18 months. 8 spoke of bleeding on most occasions (“I could feel the blood splattering on my legs – “ I was bleeding for 3 1/2 weeks, I fainted sometime after a severe beating”). I have seen bruised and scored buttocks, some two-and-a-half months after the beating. Beatings of 100 strokes for masturbation, 400 for pride, and one of 800 strokes for some undisclosed “fall” are recorded.’
Failures to safeguard
The Rustin Report was sent to the Church of England. The leadership met in a series of
comfortable rooms at London clubs and worried about how ‘John’ would take the news.
After Smyth accused church leaders of not adhering to Christ’s doctrine of forgiveness and
where the leaders agonised about their spiritual role in the matter, a ‘solution’ was found.
The Church arranged to relocate Smyth to Africa. Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where
in 1986, he set up Zambesi Ministries, which held summer camps for boys from the
country&39;s leading schools. He continued his abuse of boys, including & beating with table tennis bat, enforced nudity, naked swimming, and showering& whilst giving regular lectures about the sins of masturbation up right until his death in 2017.
Like Jimmy Savile, another prolific abuser at the heart of the British establishment who
abused in plain sight, Smyth was allowed to continue with his abuse without every facing a
significant challenge to his actions and without ever facing justice. Winchester College and
the Iwerne Trust also chose not to share the Rustin report with the police in 1982. A notable
failure in the handling of the case was the decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin
Welby, not to share with the police further disclosures made by adult survivors of abuse in
2013, described as ‘an active cover up’ by the 2023 Review. Welby is specifically mentioned
in the Review as someone who had known Smyth before his move to Africa, and who was
very familiar with the accusations made against him. Welby publicly apologised for his role
but resigned only after a petition was drawn up by members of his own General Synod, the
parliament of the Church of England.
To add insult to grave injury, his resignation speech in the House of Lords made light of the matter, insinuating that the reason for his going was merely performative, and suggesting ‘if you pity anyone, pity my poor diary secretary’ who had seen weeks and months of work ‘disappear in a puff of a resignation announcement’ – to much laughter in the house. Victims were horrified, and he was obligated to make yet another apology.
Themes emerging from the Smyth Review
As a safeguarding consultant, I recognised a number of themes emerging from the review
which I have seen many times before in other reports. These are:
1. The tendency of organisations to look inward when there is a problem, allowing
abuse to escalate and for perpetrators to escape justice. Rather than sharing
information in a timely manner and reporting their concerns straightaway to
external safeguarding services like the police, time and again leaders sought to
manage John Smyth within their organisations, favouring preservation of reputation
over the welfare of children. The decision of the Church of England to ship Smyth off
to Africa, where he could further abuse out of sight and unabated, was particularly
appalling.
2. The damaging effect of grooming which is almost always a key factor in child sexual
abuse, ensuring that the victim will tend to blame themselves, keep secrets and
continue to be abused for many years before seeking help. Smyth’s victims were
groomed for years before the abuse was initiated and were usually silent for years
after the abuse stopped. This means that child sexual abuse is regarded as one of the
most under reported forms of abuse.
3. The ability of perpetrators of abuse to ingratiate themselves in organisations where
safeguarding systems are poor and which they know can be exploited to cover up
their misdeeds. Child sexual abusers are known to be notably manipulative, only
acting when they are sure that they are unlikely to be challenged. You could say the
grooming process begins with the person or people leading the organisation (the
people who hold the most power), and then colleagues, long before the actual
grooming of victims. Smyth also groomed his wife to be complicit in the abuse and
other boys to aid with the beatings.
4. The risks to children when they are exposed to informal settings away from their
parents or safeguarding professionals. It wasn’t a coincidence that so much of the
abuse occurred in summer camps, public schools and other informal environments
like Smyth’s own home or his holiday cottage in Cornwall. This allows for interactions
with children that are usually unsupervised and easy to hide from the proper
authorities.
5. One aspect of the review focussed on a form of child abuse that we seldom hear
about, that is religious abuse. All the victims were young Christians with a strong
faith. Their faith was used against them and as a tool for the abuser. Victims were
told that their relationship with God depended on their acquiescence to the abuse.
Unsurprisingly many victims simply lost their faith, which was devastating for many. I
think we all need to understand that abuse so often moves beyond the
straightforward categories of physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect; we need
to be able to recognise different types of harm and how these affect victims.
6. The indifference of some people who fail to understand the profound effects of child
abuse, including those who dismiss the testimony of victims even at first hand.
Research amongst adult survivors of child sexual abuse shows that most victims do
disclose their abuse as children – but they are disbelieved, not taken seriously, or
simply ignored by the adults around them. With Smyth, I was stunned at the number
of people in positions of power who knew about the abuse but who simply didn’t
seem to appreciate the gravity of the issue. This tendency to belittle the testimony of
victims – perhaps because they are regarded as insignificant or even complicit somehow – is something everyone in children’s safeguarding must guard against.
Further reading
To read the John Smyth review for yourself: John Smyth Review | The Church of England
To read more about sexual abuse in the Church of England, which was recently examined by
the Independent Inquiry into Historical Child Sexual Abuse: The Anglican Church
Investigation Report | IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
Smyth’s abuse went beyond sexual abuse, but it is child sexual abuse that has been coming
up in the news (albeit as a political weapon exercised by the Far Right). This recent article
from the experts on child sexual abuse, the Lucy Faithful foundation, has some clear myth
busting information, including the fact that less than 5% of all child sexual abuse is carried
out by grooming gangs: https://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/we-need-to-talk-about-
prevention/
This NSPCC article provides cites important statistics on child sexual abuse, including the
fact that around a third of sexual abusers are actually children (child on child abuse), and
that, whilst boys can be sexually abused, girls are over three to four times more likely to be
victims: https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/snddiv5e/statistics-briefing-csa-child-sexual-
abuse-2025.pdf
The government are promising new measures on sexual abuse, including making it an
offence to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse, with professional and criminal
sanctions; legislating to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child
sexual offences, and making reforms related to the information and evidence gathered on
child sexual abuse and exploitation, including a new performance framework for policing,
more information here:https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/tackling-child-sexual-
abuse.
The government is also responding to political pressure on grooming gangs by promising to
set up local enquiries into child sexual abuse across the country: Survivors of sexual abuse to
be empowered in closed case reviews – GOV.UK
Mandy Parry Safeguarding services
I hope you found this newsletter useful. Remember I can offer inhouse training direct to
your setting, ensuring that the date, venue and content caters exactly to your needs. Do
contact me directly if you want to find out more.
In addition, I am continuing to offer scheduled open courses throughout the year. These are
all coordinated by my partner organisation Delegated Services (DS). DS also offer a diverse
range of other related training). Find out more about the range of services they offer here:
Delegated Services | Home – Delegated Services
Remember I also offer a range of consultancy safeguarding services to settings, including
supportive safeguarding audits, policy writing, a safeguarding subscription service, and non-
managerial safeguarding supervision.
For information on all the courses and services I can offer, please visit my website www.mandyparrytraining.co.uk
Best wishes,
Mandy Parry
Please note:
My next scheduled training course is Advanced Safeguarding for Designated Safeguarding
Leads on Wednesday 5 March 2025 at 9.30am- 12.30pm. Please contact Shelley Brown of
Delegated Services for more details: shelley.brown@delegatedservices.org