A NEWS report that said that survivors of John Smyth’s abuse wouldn’t be eligible for redress payments from the Church of England has been described as “misleading” by the Archbishop of York.
A report on Channel 4 News on Thursday evening said: “We understand that, while victims have received an apology, they won’t qualify for financial compensation.”
A member of the Archbishops’ Council, the Revd Dr Ian Paul, had told the programme: “One of the things that’s a bit strange about that is that this is just not abuse that happened within the Church of England. John Smyth had connections with the Church of England, however the abuse happened primarily in reference to Winchester, with a college there, and in his own residence. So this is just not an issue about abuse that’s happened within the Church of England.”
Asked whether Smyth’s victims would find a way to access the Church of England’s redress scheme, Dr Paul said: “The reason it’s not possible to say blanketly, ‘anyone affected by Smyth will receive funds from this’, is we don’t know what their connections with the Church of England are. The abuse didn’t occur within the Church of England, but people could have connections with or reason from the Church of England why they’re going to be eligible for that.”
A survivor of Smyth’s abuse, Mark Stibbe, told the programme that victims were “up in arms” in regards to the possibility that they may not receive compensation from the Church of England.
A spokesperson for Church House said on Thursday, nevertheless, that Channel 4 had “reported incorrectly that victims of John Smyth ‘won’t receive financial compensation’ from the Church of England’s redress scheme.
“The redress scheme will likely be run independently of the Church, and it’s subsequently not for the Church to find out who will and is not going to receive redress. That doesn’t mean that John Smyth’s victims is not going to receive redress.”
In a press release issued on Friday on behalf of the Archbishops’ Council, Archbishop Cottrell said that the Channel 4 News report had “contained inaccuracies and misleading information”, which had “caused distress to survivors”.
He continued: “It is very important to make clear that, when the scheme opens, it can operate wholly independently from the Church. . .
“The scheme will rigorously consider the unique lived experience of everyone affected by Church-related abuse to make sure that every application is treated fairly and consistently, by trained professionals. Last night’s media report gave a misleading impression of those that may or will not be eligible.”
The National Redress Scheme will find a way to make awards of as much as £660,000 for victims of physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, financial, or spiritual abuse, or neglect (News, 25 April).
The scheme is just not yet operational, but laws to bring it into motion accomplished its revision stage on the July meeting of the General Synod (News, 12 July). It might want to receive final approval on the February meeting of the Synod, and be approved by Parliament, before it launches.
The Measure lays out conditions to qualify for the scheme. It requires that the abuser be someone who “had authority to perform a task within the Church of England”, or whose victim “had reasonable grounds to consider” that that they had such authority.
Furthermore, there must be a “an in depth connection between activities authorised for performing that role and carrying out the abuse”.
The Makin review says that Smyth was a Reader within the Church of England, and that this gave him “a proper position as a Church Officer within the Church of England”.
Although he was not explicitly acting in a capability as a Reader on the Iwerne camps, which were run by the Scripture Union, or at Winchester College, where he groomed a lot of his victims, Mr Makin suggests that this status was instrumental to his campaign of abuse.
“His association with the Church was, subsequently, strong,” his report says. “It added to his credibility within the eyes of those he had dealings with, including Winchester College, officers inside the diocese and, importantly, with the boys and young men he was grooming and abusing.”
A member of the group of survivors involved in formulating the redress scheme, Jane Chevous, has criticised Dr Paul’s comments, and drawn attention to the conditions set out within the redress measure. “The final thing victims need straight away is additional unnecessary distress from inaccurate information,” she said.
Speaking to Channel 4 News, Dr Paul defended his stance: “It’s not about being legalist, it’s about being appropriate by way of the boundaries of our responsibility. We cannot feasibly compensate anyone who experiences abuse in any context.”
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, who chairs the Redress Project Board, was asked in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph about Smyth’s status within the C of E. He said that Smyth had “apparent respectability, not only in Church terms, but socially”.
The Bishop questioned, nevertheless, whether Mr Smyth was actually a Reader, saying that his diocese had no record of him holding that office. “We don’t have any record of him within the diocese ever being formally admitted as a lay Reader. If he was functioning as such unchallenged, that may be a serious concern for us.”
