THE Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) has sought permission to bring an extra out-of-time criticism 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 searching for to bring out-of-time disciplinary proceedings under the CDM against ten clerics, including two bishops, who had been criticised within 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 press release saying that a recent application was being brought against an eleventh cleric: the Revd Iain Broomfield, a former chair of the Titus Trust, who was also criticised within the report.
The Makin report concluded that the “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse perpetrated by Smyth, who was a Reader within the Church of England, was covered up by “powerful evangelical clergy”. Smyth, who died in 2017 before he might 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 employee on the Iwerne Trust after which the Titus Trust from 1982 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 regarding safeguarding, the diocese of Rochester confirmed on the time. These had been the topic 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 didn’t relate to the camps.
The Makin report says that Mr Broomfield was not interviewed for the review on the time due to his suspension. It records, nonetheless, that around 1999, then aged 24, he was informed 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 yr, 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 wouldn’t be in line with the expressed wishes of the victims they knew of and had spoken with.”
The NST statement on Tuesday explained: “This recent application, the eleventh, follows the completion of other live processes that were ongoing on the time of the review Panel earlier within the yr which had meant that the actions of this priest [Mr Broomfield], criticised within the report, couldn’t be reviewed at that time. There might be no further comment until a choice is made by the President.”
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