TEN members of the clergy, including two bishops, may very well be subject to disciplinary proceedings in reference to the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, if the President of the Tribunals permits the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to bring complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) out of time.
They include a former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
The announcement, made by the NST on Tuesday, concludes a four-stage process considering the actions of clergy named within the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse (News, 5 December 2024). The review culminated in recommendations by a panel; and these were reviewed by an independent barrister.
The Church House statement said that the panel had “considered the safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force on the relevant time, the facts of the actual case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there may be sufficient evidence to justify proceedings”. The barrister had concurred with all the panel’s decisions.
Of the ten potential respondents, seven are retired. In total, the Makin review named dozens of clergy said to have known of Smyth’s abuse. The ten listed represent those whose actions have been deemed to satisfy the edge for instituting disciplinary proceedings. Complaints could, nevertheless, still be brought by other individuals. There are two priests named within the report whose actions haven’t yet been reviewed, as they’re subject to other live processes.
In the wake of the Makin review, the dioceses during which the ten reside conducted risk assessments about their safety to minister, coming to different conclusions. Permission to officiate (PTO) was withdrawn from some; some were asked to step back from ministry; and a few have denied knowledge of Smyth’s abuse or its severity.
Lord Carey handed in his PTO within the diocese of Oxford in December, citing his advancing years and time in ministry (News, 20 December 2024). His PTO had previously been withdrawn throughout the compilation of the Makin review (News, 19 June 2020), which concluded that he had been given a report on Smyth’s abuse when he was Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, in 1983. He has denied this.
Bishop Butler, who retired to the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham last yr, was asked to “step back” from ministry in November (News, 28 November 2024). From 2011 to 2017, he was president of the Scripture Union (SU).
During this time, the Revd Tim Hastie-Smith, currently Team Vicar within the South Cotswolds Team Ministry within the diocese of Gloucester, was SU’s national director. The SU didn’t run the camps organised by the Iwerne Trust (chaired for a time by Smyth, who also served as a frontrunner on its holiday camps for young people), but employed three of the staff at Iwerne and supported its operations. Smyth was also an SU trustee.
Mr Hastie-Smith was informed about “non-recent abuse disclosures” in 2014 and has said that he should have been “grotesquely insensitive” or “extraordinarily incurious” to not have known in regards to the abuse earlier. He told Bishop Butler in 2015. Bishop Butler told the Makin review that he was not supplied with any detailed information in regards to the abuse, and that he played an “advisory and never managerial” part.
The Revd Sue Colman was asked to step back from her ministry as an NSM at St Leonard’s, Oakley, within the diocese of Winchester, in November (News, 15 November 2024). From 1989, her husband, Sir Jamie Colman, chaired the trustees of Zambezi Ministries, the charity overseeing Smyth’s activities in Zimbabwe, after the opposite trustees resigned when warned about Smyth’s abuse within the UK. The Makin review concluded: “It is probably going, on the balance of probabilities, that each Jamie and Sue Colman had significant knowledge of the abuses within the UK and Africa, given their positions as Trustees.”
The Revd Nick Stott’s PTO was withdrawn by the diocese of Gloucester in November. In 2001, he assumed leadership of the Zambezi camps from Smyth. He told the review that “it was not his place to go investigating rumours and, in hindsight, he wishes he had done so.”
In November, the diocese of Gloucester confirmed that PTO had been withdrawn from the Revd Hugh Palmer, a former Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place, in London (News, 22 November 2024). Mr Palmer told the Makin review that he didn’t know of the abuse until 2017, despite having visited in hospital a Smyth victim who attempted to take his own life in 1982.
The Ven. Roger Combes, a former Archdeacon of Horsham, who retired in Chichester diocese in 2014, is listed within the Makin report as one in every of the recipients of the Ruston report, a document compiled in 1982 and detailing the abuse perpetrated against 22 young men. He told the Makin review that he had “held this unopened on his knee, realised the seriousness and the character of the report and selected to not read it”, believing that “the victims can be embarrassed if he knew the main points.”
Canon Andrew Cornes, who retired within the diocese of Chichester in 2015, learned of the abuse in 1982 when a victim confided in him. There isn’t any evidence that he took motion to answer this. He told the Makin review that he thought that the matter was being handled. He is a member of the Crown Nominations Commission and the General Synod. As of November, he retained his PTO.
The Makin review said that concerns about Smyth were raised with the Revd Paul Perkin, then Vicar of St Mark’s, Battersea Rise, in 1994 by a pair aware of allegations of abuse. Their concerns went unheeded — a conclusion disputed by Mr Perkin, who told the review that he had no knowledge of the severity of the abuse until 2017. He is licensed as house-for-duty Team Vicar of St Andrew’s, Limpsfield Chart, within the diocese of Southwark,
PTO was withdrawn from Prebendary John Woolmer, who retired in 2007, by the diocese of Leicester in 2022, throughout the compilation of the Makin review. As assistant chaplain of Winchester College from 1972 to 1975, he led the Christian Forum throughout the time when Smyth addressed it and met lots of his victims. The Makin review reports that he became concerned about Smyth’s influence.
As a curate of St Aldate’s, Oxford, since 1975, he was approached in either late 1981 or early 1982 by a student at Oxford who was fearful about something “very serious”, which involved abuse. The Makin review says: “John Woolmer didn’t pursue this and has reported to Reviewers that he has regretted that since. . . He has stressed to reviewers that he was told of this under a strict understanding that he must not pass this on.”
IT IS now years — in most instances, many years — because the ten are said to have first learned of Smyth’s abuse. The National Safeguarding Director, Alexander Kubeyinje, will bring an application to the President of Tribunals for the complaints to be brought outside the one-year limit. Each application might be considered individually. Decisions are expected inside the subsequent eight to 10 weeks.
The CDM states that the President of Tribunals may give permission “if he considers that there was good reason why the complainant didn’t institute proceedings at an earlier date, after consultation with the complainant and the respondent”.
Under the CDM, if permission is given, a criticism is laid before a priest’s diocesan bishop or, within the case of a bishop, the archbishop of the province. The criticism could be dismissed, or other courses of motion could be taken, including no further motion and penalty by consent. In the absence of consent, the bishop may direct that the criticism is to be formally investigated, which can lead to a disciplinary tribunal. Penalties vary from a rebuke to removal from office, limited prohibition, or prohibition for all times.
Failure to report allegations of abuse, as set out in statutory guidance (Managing Allegations), is prima facie misconduct, as defined by the CDM. Whether proceedings are initiated is determined by a variety of things. In the absence of statutory guidance before 2016, this can include what legal duties office-holders had on the time, drawing on relevant case law.
The Makin review states that, while the concept of safeguarding was in its infancy within the Nineteen Eighties, “the importance of protecting of youngsters from physical harm was a widely known societal issue of concern,” and “reliance on the then current legal and cultural framework is just not an affordable explanation for the extent of actions taken, particularly by people who read the Ruston Report.”
The latest Guidance on Penalties, issued by the Clergy Discipline Commission, states that “intentional disregarding of safeguarding policy will likely result in removal from office and a limited prohibition.”
It continues: “Where the cleric has been neglectful or inefficient within the performance of safeguarding duties (no matter how the allegation is framed) it might be appropriate to impose a rebuke. However, account must be taken of the respondent’s age, experience, and seniority. Where the misconduct takes place over a protracted time period and has put others in danger, removal from office and a limited prohibition should follow.”
The 2022 report of the Clergy Conduct Measure (CCM) implementation group concluded that the CDM was not well-equipped to cope with safeguarding-process failures — lots of which might not constitute “serious misconduct”. Under the brand new CCM, a recent “misconduct” track has been introduced.
In 2021, two “core groups” (formed to administer every safeguarding concern or allegation involving a church officer) advisable that no further motion be taken within the case of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Lincoln. All of the ten clergy named by the NST are said to have learned of Smyth’s abuse before the Channel 4 News exposé in 2017.
