Church of England directly responsible for John Smyth abuse in Zimbabwe, says victim | Anglicanism

When John Smyth gave a presentation about his Christian holiday camps at their school in 1993, Rocky Leanders and his school friends were impressed.

This is Zimbabwe in the early 1990s; the technology wasn't great. These guys set up a projector with color videos of speedboats rappelling, golfing, tennis, paddle boarding, swimming pools and diving boards, recalls Leanders, who was 15 at the time. We insisted that we had to go.

Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury on Tuesday after an investigation into the Church of England's handling of abuse claims against Smyth found he could have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally reported the abuse a decade ago at the police. Welby says that when he was informed about Smyth in 2013, he was told that the police had been notified and that he believed an appropriate resolution would follow.

However, questions still arise over why senior church leaders in Britain and southern Africa did not stop Smyth from abusing boys in Zimbabwe and possibly South Africa.

Smyth, who left Britain for Zimbabwe in 1984, was accused of beating boys and young men and forcing them to undress. He died in Cape Town in 2018, while the British police investigation against him was still ongoing.

What started as a fun experience for Leanders with about 80 other boys aged 14 to 16 quickly turned dark. During the week-long camp he was hit on the bottom by Smyth 35 times with a table tennis bat or wooden paddle: by the end of the week I was struggling to sit.

There was forced skinny dipping and awkward conversations about masturbation. The boys had to queue naked for the shower while Smyth watched. The next day he joined the queue naked.

It was terrible, Leanders said. [Church of England leaders] categorically should have done more after the initial atrocities were reported before Smyth was exported with open arms to commit the same things in Zimbabwe.

The church is directly responsible for my abuse as a 15-year-old boy.

In December 1992, 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru was found drowned in a swimming pool the morning after taking a naked dip in a camp. Smyth later called it an unfortunate incident.

Smyth was charged in Zimbabwe in 1995 with manslaughter and assault on boys, including Leanders and his brother. The trial began in 1997 but collapsed when Smyth's team successfully argued that the prosecutor had a conflict of interest.

For the Nyachurus family the pain is still immense.

We need closure as a family. We want to know how he died. We want to know if he was beaten to death, said Edith Nyachuru, his sister. I can't even tell my mother because this will hurt her again.

Why was he allowed to be in camps where he abused vulnerable children? she said. Abuse is abuse, whether in Zimbabwe, Britain or Australia.

The fact that corporal punishment was then common and legal in Zimbabwe and the reluctance of parents to involve their children in legal proceedings contributed to Smyth being able to abuse boys in Zimbabwe for so long, says David Coltart, the mayor of Bulawayo.

Coltart, then a lawyer, was commissioned by a group of Bulawayo parents, including Leanders, and ministers to investigate Smyth's abuses: he was a quite arrogant British lawyer, Queen's counsel and quite aggressive. He threatened the pastors and parents with defamation actions.

In 2001, Smyth and his wife Anne, who Leanders said were in the camp, were banned from entering Zimbabwe. The following year they moved to Durban, where they attended a branch of the now defunct evangelical His People church.

Smyth was a respected church elder and provided theological advice to university students.

Nothing was known about his past, in terms of the scandals, said a former church member who was a student at the time. He was strict [but] approachable. And the context was that this is someone very important; the church holds him in such high esteem.

After a few years the Smyths moved to Cape Town. In 2013, the then Bishop of Ely, Stephen Conway, wrote to the now retired Bishop of Table Bay, Garth Counsell, warning him about Smyth.

Counsell was told by St. Martin's Church in Bergvliet that Smyth had worshiped there for a year or two when he came to Cape Town, Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said in a statement. statement.

St Martins reported that Smyth did not counsel young people, and no member had made allegations of abuse or grooming against Smyth. I became aware of the case in 2017, when Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a report on Smyth's abuse.

As no allegations of abuse were made within the jurisdiction of the Anglican Church of South Africa, and Smyth had not worshiped in an Anglican Church in South Africa for many years, there was no disciplinary action by the church or a criminal complaint to the police possible. he said, adding that Zimbabwe was not within his archdiocese.

Makgoba said the church was seeking legal advice on initiating an investigation into whether the Diocese of Cape Town, and I personally, acted in accordance with our obligations to protect our members in this matter.

In February 2017, following the Channel 4 revelation, Smyth was expelled from the non-Anglican church he and his wife attended, Church On Main.

The church said at the time that Smyth had showered with young men and asked them unsolicited about masturbation and pornography, but there was no evidence of crimes or physical contact.