ALLEGATIONS of misconduct, made under the Clergy Discipline Measure, against two clerics named within the Makin report is not going to proceed to a tribunal.
Concerning the Ven. Roger Combes, a former Archdeacon of Horsham, who retired in 2014, the President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males, decided that there was “no case for the respondent to reply”.
Sir Stephen also declined an application to bring an out-of-time grievance against a former chair of the Titus Trust, the Revd Iain Broomfield (News, 24 October 2025).
An announcement from Church House, Westminster, on Wednesday said: “This determination brings the matters to an in depth.”
A CDM grievance was lodged by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) after Archdeacon Combes was named within the Makin report on the abuse by John Smyth (News, 28 February 2025). The Archdeacon told the Makin review that he had been handed a report on Smyth’s abuse in 1982, but didn’t open it, believing that “the victims could be embarrassed if he knew the small print.”
The Titus Trust is the successor organisation to the Iwerne Trust, which had been chaired by Smyth. The Makin report records that, around 1998, Mr Broomfield informed a young priest that there was a “previous issue” regarding Smyth and that “something bad” had happened at Winchester College.
Mr Broomfield was not interviewed throughout the Makin review because he was, on the time, suspended as Vicar of Christ Church, Bromley, after complaints about his behaviour, including concerns regarding safeguarding.
These had been the topic of a CDM process, under which he received 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 Iwerne camps.
