ANNE SMYTH, the widow of John Smyth, the person considered essentially the most prolific serial abuser to be related to the Church of England, has spoken for the primary time publicly, in a Channel 4 documentary broadcast on Wednesday.
“I hated what he was doing,” she says. “My inability, or my whatever it was, didn’t let me intervene. I just didn’t know the way I could. I practised too often not facing as much as things that were unsuitable; and so I started to not see things as wrongly as they really were. Because I believe more of the horror of it’s clearer to me now. Although I stayed by him all his life, all my life, it was such a relief that he died.
“I would like with all my heart to say I’m so sorry; I’m ashamed of myself.”
The two-part documentary, See No Evil, was produced by Passion Pictures and includes interviews each with survivors of Smyth’s abuse and together with his family. His children, P.J., Fiona, and Caroline, describe a materially privileged childhood, but one by which they felt fearful and uneasy about their father.
Fiona, who says that she “hated” her father, recalls: “I don’t ever remember not being afraid. I’d hide behind Mum’s skirts.” Having spent much of her childhood in Zimbabwe and South Africa, she had begun investigating her father’s history upon returning to England. “I actually wanted Dad to be exposed. I wanted there to be some sort of reckoning.”
The documentary features Mrs Smyth recalling her first meeting along with her future husband on holiday in Norfolk, when she was 16. This is in contrast to the chronology set out in Keith Makin’s review of Smyth’s abuse, which describes the couple meeting when she was in her early twenties in Swanage. At least two of the godparents of their children were young men who were also his victims, including Andy Morse — considered one of the documentary’s interviewees.
PASSION PICTURESThe Smyths on their wedding day
Many of the beatings administered by Smyth took place within the garden shed of the family home, Orchard House, to which he would bring boys from Winchester College, often for Sunday lunch. Mr Makin writes that Mrs Smyth “knew of the abuses and assisted with coping with the physical consequences of them. She gave the victims bandages and ointment, in addition to adult-sized nappies, to assist with the stemming of bleeding.”
One victim recalled how Mrs Smyth had explained: “We’re conscious that this can lead to some blood, we don’t want you to must remain like that, we don’t need to be came upon, we don’t want you to have blood in your underpants or your clothes or whatever, so should you put considered one of these on each buttock for the subsequent few days, that may prevent any blood getting onto your clothes.”
One contributor to the review described how, when he visited the Smyth home, Mrs Smyth had told him that her husband desired to see him while he was in the bathtub. Her presence in the lavatory had “made the event feel legitimate”. It also records that, while on holiday, the couple asked that their children’s “misdemeanours” be recorded in a “red book” in order that Smyth could “administer suitable punishments for them on his return”.
Mrs Smyth’s account of her actions within the documentary is given in response to questions from P.J. and Fiona. P.J., who was beaten brutally by his father, asks: “Looking back, I don’t understand why you didn’t bring some sanity to the choices he was making. . . Where were you? Were you unable?”
In her response, Mrs Smyth speaks of realising “something I didn’t realise on the time, and that was that he was two different people, sometimes much more. And, when one other side of him took control, it was shattering; and I didn’t know the best way to break into that difficult person.”
She recalls her husband telling her that a number of the boys who were coming to Sunday lunch were “really keen to learn more concerning the Christian life, but, being young teenagers, plenty of their behaviour might be not pretty much as good because it might be, and I believe they’d appreciate being handled”. He had specified “just having a whack or two”. She had identified that the boys weren’t his own children and questioned whether or not they would really need such treatment, to be told by Smyth that they did.
“And I said, ‘I don’t really go for that and wouldn’t wish to be involved.’ ‘Oh no, no, no, you wouldn’t be involved in any respect.’” She recalls giving boys cotton wool and ointment.
“Although I knew about this and didn’t approve, I struggled to know what to do about that,” she says. “It was difficult. My faith had shown me and taught me that you could have to focus as much as you possibly can on the nice. I used to be married to him, and I knew I needed to love the person; just keep going, don’t dwell on the things which are so awful. But it was hard, a really hard task. I wish I had had the wisdom on the time and the strength to have faced him myself.”
PASSION PICTURESThe Smyth family
In response, Fiona describes her mother as “Dad’s first victim”. She was “the right Christian wife because she never stood as much as him”. Mrs Smyth recalls that Smyth’s temper “was frightening. If something wasn’t quite right, he blasted me, and I’d stay silent often.”
The survivors interviewed are Andy Morse, Dr Mark Stibbe, “Graham”, and Jason Leanders. Mr Morse describes how Smyth, a “father figure”, still appears in his dreams. The shed was “a hell hole”, he recalls. Graham describes “diabolical” beatings, while Dr Stibbe recalls pretending to faint, fearful that he would die. It was Mr Morse’s attempted suicide that prompted the Ruston report on Smyth’s abuse, produced some 43 years ago.
The documentary also explores Smyth’s abuse in Zimbabwe. Jason Leanders, who attended Smyth’s camps there, describes Smyth breaking a bat on him.
In a message to survivors, Mrs Smyth says that she is “desperately sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to get up to him, simply to say to him ‘why don’t you only stop all this?’”
Dr Stibbe says within the documentary that he doesn’t know of any victims who blame Mrs Smyth: “I fully and unconditionally forgive her for what happened all those years ago.”
This week, Graham praised the documentary, which had been done, he said, “with great sensitivity . . . I would like people to observe it and weep.” But he remained unconvinced by Anne Smyth’s account, saying that she was “way more culpable” than had been intimated. While PJ had “shown contrition and turmoil” and was “firstly a victim” his mother’s account didn’t “ring true”.
See No Evil, on Channel 4, is scheduled for 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday.
