Last week Chanel 4 broadcast a two-part documentary See No Evil about serial abuser John Smyth. It can be viewed online here, and there is this introduction: Serial abuser John Smyth’s wife speaks for first time in Channel 4 documentary. It has attracted much press interest.
Madeleine Davies Church Times ‘I am so ashamed’ says John Smyth’s widow in Channel 4 documentary
Jayne Manfredi Church Times TV review: See No Evil
Tim Wyatt Premier Christianity See No Evil: This Channel 4 documentary paints John Smyth’s family as his first victims
Barbara Ellen The Observer See No Evil – a too painful story of child abuse and the Church
Tola Mbakwe Premier Christian News ‘I never confused my dad with God’: John Smyth’s daughter speaks about faith and survival ahead of new doc
Fiona Lamdin and Bea Swallow BBC News ‘My dad abused 130 boys – learning the truth was horrifying’
The Church of England issued this press release Statement on Smyth documentary.
On a related matter there is this report in the Church Times.
Madeleine Davies Church Times Bishop ‘correct’ not to act against vicar concerning handling of Smyth reports, tribunal rules
It looks like the NST are out of control.
Tim Hastie-Smith received a disclosure of abuse and passed it on to the relevant safeguarding lead. What else was he supposed to have done?
Why did the NST bring a CDM against him? And why, when the complaint was rightly dismissed, did the NST appeal?
Paranoia. People are desperate to be seen to be doing something, which was surely one of the factors in the Alan Griffin affair.
The judgement is here.
The key paragraph appears very early, at paragraph 9: “It does not appear to me that this necessary clarity [in answer to the question of what what more it is alleged should have been done but was not] was ever provided. So far as I can see, the complainant has not challenged the fact that the respondent did refer these matters as he says.”
Exactly. The National Director of Safeguarding complained that Tim Hastie-Smith didn’t do enough without saying what he failed to do or what he should have done.
And if the National Director of Safeguarding doesn’t know how a disclosure of abuse should be handled, he is in the wrong job!
Reading the judgement very carefully it appears that the National Director was able to bring the appeal from a neutral position, just in case the Bishop might have got it wrong and because it was good to have an independent judicial opinion.This did not stop him highlighting sections where he thought the Bishop had got things a bit wrong…. What an interesting system . The arguments against Tim Hastie -Smith sounded very similar to those well aired on TA and in other places in respect of the former bishop of Ely who faced no action and where there seemed to… Read more »
It’s really important to study and understand the President of Tribunals’ Decision in this case, particularly the concluding paragraphs, Paragraph 18 goes beyond a mere dismissal of the complaint:
“18. In these circumstances I have no doubt that the Bishop’s decision cannot be regarded as plainly wrong. But in fairness to the respondent, I would go further. Having given the matters relied on by the complainant careful scrutiny, I consider that the Bishop’s decision to take no further action on this complaint was clearly correct.”
A common problem with adversarial systems of justice is that the process becomes the punishment: for all the talk of “neutral acts” and “presumption of innocence”, anyone taken through either the courts or the quasi-judicial regulatory and disciplinary systems will have their life profoundly changed. That is often weaponised, and the threat against people to ensure compliance is that the process of establishing their innocence will nonetheless break them.
That the safeguarding function of a Christian church should behave like this is truly deplorable.
Exactly. It should have been obvious from the outset that there was no case against Tim Hastie-Smith.
The NST should not have brought a CDM against him and should certainly not have appealed.
The NST director is not doing his job properly. Who does he report to?
But the President goes much further with a positive statement that he considers the Bishop’s decision was “clearly correct”.
I’ve just read the judgement. It seems very clear. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have an independent process, to which you pass relevant information, and also be blamed for not acting on the information directly (i.e. meddling).
Some people need to get a grip.
No harm in double checking. It does shed the spotlight on the fact that when supposedly “churchy” things are outsourced and reoutsourced, there is no comeback. The lesson for anyone in Rev Hastie-S’s position in future is to avoid uncalled-for involvement in such disreputable organisational functioning within the next generation or so, for others’ sake and not just their own. The “Church Society” has given me the same impression. Is Scripture Union the same organisation that used to publish daily or weekly notes? Was it misusing its reputation in order to get teachers to pressure youths into attending, shaming their… Read more »
As for “double checking” the Decision of the President of Tribunals is tantamount to saying that the CDM should never have been brought, still less the misconceived ‘appeal’ which was dismissed with the most unequivocal words:
“18. In these circumstances I have no doubt that the Bishop’s decision cannot be regarded as plainly wrong. But in fairness to the respondent [the Revd Tim Hastie-Smith], I would go further. Having given the matters relied on by the complainant careful scrutiny, I consider that the Bishop’s decision to take no further action on this complaint was clearly correct.”
I saw both part 1 and 2 of this well presented by Cathy Newman , but it made really shocking Viewing, I hope and pray that at last the Church of England has learnt the lessons from this and will properly implement the recommendations arising from the Makin Review. Jonathan
The interesting aspect was that there was no presenter in the sense of an authoratative narrator. Cathy Newman was one of a number of contributors who spoke directly to camera without an interviewer being seen. Occasionally an interviewer could be heard asking a question. This style worked well as it gave the impression the person speaking was addressing the viewer. Having Mrs Smyth and all three children contribute was a huge coup for Channel 4. What I would like the programme to have explored was the Smyths’ understanding of their marriage. The children explained how Smyth weaponised the 5th commandment… Read more »
“The children explained how Smyth weaponised the 5th commandment to assert that even the mildest questioning was contrary to God’s will.” Well, yes. But there is an interplay between people who assert that they are doing God’s will, and the people who believe them. It is not enough for a man to claim dominance over his wife, it requires some combination of his violence and coercive control and her willingness to go along with it. In the Smyth case, it does sem awfully convenient that everyone alive is painted as an innocent victim of the only player who is dead.… Read more »
I agree, to some degree, but can also conceive how their account may be an accurate one. Many years ago, as a lay person, I was a member of a large and fast growing evangelical Anglican Church. Although, to my knowledge, the leaders were not abusive, the culture could easily have become so. There was an expectation, partly expressed openly and partly set through implicit norms, that a family’s whole life, with the exception of work and school (above primary level), would be lived in and around the Church. There were groups and activities galore for children and young people,… Read more »
Reference the patriarchal authority within marriage question.
This was not mentioned with specific respect to the marriage. But in the first programme about the Iwerne camps it was mentioned that the women helpers had to stay of the way, and stay silent in the presence of the men, which suggests a certain mindset.
The fascinating question the programme raises is not just that were the boys abused, but were the camps and culture also abusive to the women, but emotional not physical abuse.
Presumably the silent complicity of his wife was the demand for silent obedience to the husband? Can this still be practised among evangelical circles?
I don’t know about silent complicity in evangelical circles, but there are issues about silent complicity in the church, and how narratives of silent (or even willing) complicity can be weaponised to cause harm.
Just by coincidence I came across this essay yesterday, about how the complicity of the Virgin Mary to the angel Gabriel’s news was presented, and the questions that narrative can raise.
https://drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/did-mary-really-consent-to-giving
It’s interesting to read the essay and then think again about Smyth’s boys, and Smyth’s family, and what choice they had, and how such Christian narratives can be used to take away choice.
That is a very interesting article, quite right in pointing out that Mary is not a heroine of free choice in the moment of truth but of dedication to a cause. In other respects I think it fails to think the stories out and consider their contexts properly. But the sort of radical critique that the article offers deserves more attention than it gets these days
Male headship a dogma which is promoted in many circles – especially “Reformed” and some Pentecostal/Charismatic – in the USA amongst the churches which are part of Trump’s support base. There are people with such backgrounds, for example Pete Hegseth, in Trump’s immediate senior circle. It tends to associate with varieties of Christian Nationalist views. At the elections in 2016 and 2024, iirc 80% of “white evangelicals” voted for Trump. I’m not so clear on precise dogmas amongst Trump’s corresponding Roman Catholic support base, which would be characterised by the likes of JD Vance and Leonard Leo (who leads the… Read more »
Not the presence of the ‘men’, but their job wasn’t to chat to the teenage boys.
“But in the first programme about the Iwerne camps it was mentioned that the women helpers had to stay of the way:” “Had” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that defence. They could always have walked away and gone and done something else. These were all upper-middle class (at least) people, with significant incomes and extensive family support. The story of abuse in many cases is of powerful people exerting coercive control over people who are unable to escape for reasons of culture, family, finance or otherwise. Let’s say, for example, scandals in Irish mother and baby homes:… Read more »
I find this attitude towards women as being deeply unbiblical and un Christian. Just look at Ruth, Rebekah and all the women around Jesus. They don’t seem to me to be timid and weak.
I don’t know what to make of the mother. It is not in my nature to cast stones. It is only God who can forgive ‘have not done those things which ought to have been done’.
Nigel, the issue is not the bible story, but how Christian tradition has interpreted the bible story over the centuries. It’s the interpretations that are problematic, not the bible texts themselves. Have such interpretations facilitated abusive behaviour? You are right that in recent times there is a move to tell the stories of the more independent women, or to re-interpret other stories in a way in which female autonomy is foregrounded. And I welcome that. But in past times, and in certain parts so today’s church, narratives foregrounding unquestioning obedience and female submissiveness have been common. The annunciation story has… Read more »
‘Just look at Ruth’. Well I would not call her timid and weak but all her actions in the story are shaped by the demands of being a (foreign) woman a traditional patriarchal society. At the key point in the story Boaz can only marry her if he first buys a piece of land. She comes as of a property deal and she has to submit to that.
David, you are right about the patriarchal legal culture, but by focusing on that can one risk losing sight of the resourcefulness and agency of the women, who manipulated such legal circumstances to achieve what they needed. There is also the fact that the supposedly patriarchal legal culture contained within it protections for women and orphans, such as the obligation to provide a widow with a male child to continue her line. It seems to me that Naomi noticed Boaz compassion for and attraction for Ruth and instructed her to stay close to Boaz, and eventually to manipulate Boaz into… Read more »
Hi Simon. My wife was brought up in the Brethren and she always says the women there were good at letting the men believe they were in charge. But it is not really so benign. And why should women have to resourcefully pretend and manipulate at all ‘to achieve what they needed’? Furthermore the story of Ruth sits alongside other narratives in the OT where interacial marriage was banned and those who had intermarried were forced to send their wormen away. Then, as now, it is not one story and the reality can be oppressive. But this is one for… Read more »
Wishing you Grace and Peace as we come to the night where an obscure young woman through fidelity becomes focal at a pivotal moment in the history of our world. On Ruth, how I love this narrative. Thank you for highlighting the women’s social vulnerability in desperate and hard situations. That cannot be glossed over and in many lives even today that still holds dreadfully true. I love that this book is written largely from a woman’s perspective – about women’s situations, women’s solidarity, women’s initiative and determination, women’s relationship with men and their society, women’s relationship with God. Also,… Read more »
I find it interesting that three people, hidden sister, David and I, can look at the same Book of Ruth and each find different messages and emphases within it. We all bring to it our different life experiences. And that is as it should be. On the subject of gender studies and religion, this came into my inbox yesterday and may be interesting to some. It’s about a special issue of the “Religion and Gender” academic journal, with the title “Beneath the Surface: Gender and Agency in Religious Contexts in Antiquity“. The journal is closed access, but the introduction is… Read more »
A less academic treatise, mainly in reply to David concerning women letting men believe they were in charge. Men make all the important decisions, whereas women only consider trivial matters. Men consider the size of the universe, whether the moon is made of cheese or not, how many stars there are, how to end worldwide political strife and wars, whether they saw an alien recently, the nature of God, and whether there is such a thing as original sin. They consider these things every day endlessly, whilst gathering in small groups drinking coffee or beer. They may do a bit… Read more »
As has been said before. I wish TA had a like button. I would press it for this.
For what it is worth Inclusive Evangelicals have a real concern that conservative opposition to LGBT+ inclusion is resulting in a deepening conservatism and suspicion towards women. It is often claimed there that ‘women are more liberal’. I think the question to ask is not ‘why are women more liberal?’, but ‘why are men more conservative?’ We are going backwards (and not just in the church) and it is very disturbing.
David, “why are men more conservative?’ We are going backwards (and not just in the church) and it is very disturbing.” Firstly – and importantly – not all men but certain men. You have described a difficult but important question here, and one that I am looking at in my own research. I started out looking at the history of LGBTQ people in relation to religion, but I realise that needed a wider look, into the history of gender and patriarchy. I can only offer my own thoughts as a way of triggering debate For me the key understanding is… Read more »
There was also a comment from one of Smyth’s daughters about how the two little girls were kept in the house – I think that was while the family was in Africa? – and not allowed to play outside when the young men were there?
You are right, Helen. The son was the “golden boy” and the daughters had to keep out of the way. But this attitude where young men are foregrounded and young women kept in the background is not uncommon. It’s part of culture. I am aware of the recent hit Netflix drama Adolescence. The boy who was the murderer is foregrounded and becomes the star of the show, attracting huge sympathy for the problems faced by boys in today’s world The girl who was murdered was on screen for 20 seconds in a blurred out a focus shot. So the problems… Read more »
I would agree that the culture was also abusive to women. A couple of days ago I responded on facebook to a friend’s post in which I referred to how I myself was treated by a quasi-conservative evangelical organisation (the Church Missionary Society as it was named then) because I did not ‘fit’ the model of ‘wife’ that the organisation seemed to expect. I won’t repeat here all of what I said there – but I will just say that the ‘pits’ came when a senior member of CMS staff rebuked me with the comment ‘We believe in Christian marriage’… Read more »
On reflection, I think the wife was subservient to both her husband and her children.
Maybe subservient to everybody.
I have a serious problem with ‘meek and mild’ versions of Christianity.
They gave the two-part documentary the title ‘See No Evil’. This was apt, because it describes a hideous evil not being recognised, not being named and hiding under the guise of what John Smyth called “The Work”. When Mark Ruston’s Report about Smyth’s abuse and its extraordinary scale was presented to the Iwerne trustees in 1982 they considered it and decided to suppress what it contained, even though they knew monstrous criminality had been committed. This was even after reading first-hand descriptions in graphic detail of the violence victims had endured. Smyth was bundled off to Southern Africa where he… Read more »
Cathy Newman and a number of courageous victims/survivors of Smyth’s criminal abuse (for criminal is what it was, even if the label ‘technical’ was ascribed—in paragraph 3 the1982 Ruston Report—to the beatings being ‘technically all criminal all offences under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 Sec.47″: i.e. assault occasioning actual bodily harm, an offence carrying a potential sentence in the Crown Court of 5 years imprisonment), deserve credit for their part in exposing the scandal. But credit is also due, and in large measure, to Andrew Graystone, whose book Bleeding for Jesus, published in September 2021, chronicled the abuse… Read more »
I’m at a disadvantage as I have not viewed the latest televised documentaries. Possibly the point has been covered, but I wonder whether people commenting here are aware that John Smyth was born in Canada in a family of Plymouth Brethren and, somehow, the family was expelled from that community. Both facts seem to me to be potentially significant. On moving to England Smyth appears to have joined the Church of England. He did not retain that ‘affiliation’ after the move to Zimbabwe. What happened there is explained in detail in the Coltart Report – essential reading for any authoritative… Read more »
One does need to differentiate between various genres of Brethren – some were much stricter (more “Exclusive”) than others. This may have applied to their attitude to women. Certainly I know that, even in the “Open” Brethren, women were not allowed to lead public prayers or “minister” in services.
I didn’t find Mrs Smyth entirely convincing I have to say, her sustained grinning when Smyth is first confronted by Cathy Newman is disturbing to watch. Presumably she will have been interviewed by the police but of course the burden of proof in a criminal trial is high. It’s a world away from my own background but why didn’t these boys families realise that something was terribly wrong with these camps and the injuries to their son’s buttocks. Wouldn’t housemasters, a matron or a school nurse have observed that these young men were wearing nappies when returning from Sunday lunch… Read more »
Those questions were asked at the time of the first television documentary in 2017. There wasn’t, and isn’t, a short easy answer. The only people susceptible to possible criminal proceedings were John Smyth and an accomplice who also administered beatings. The police indicated long ago that they did not intend to take action against Mrs Smyth. So far as the clergy are concerned, their actions (or inaction) have not been criminal. The only possible sanction they might face would be a charge of misconduct under the CDM. Some are all already underway and it is not appropriate for me or,… Read more »
My thought was that it was a rictus smile.
I think it is a myth that matrons or school nurses would have anything to do with the boys, apart from sorting out the laundry. That was certainly my experience. Housemasters could be equally distant.
The group which met in the Carlton Club to consider the report produced for them by Mark Ruston was not a “CofE committee”. It was a group connected with the Iwerne trustees. The Iwerne trustees were a charitable body which included Church of England members from various Evangelical churches but their activities functioned entirely outside normal Church governance structures. At that time, Charity Commission oversight was also much weaker than it is today, so the trustees had no effective outside accountability. I have no doubt that they were scrupulous about having their accounts properly audited but they were like other… Read more »
The Makin Report provides much useful background, Nigel. It is highly critical of the leadership of the Iwerne Camps, but also catalogues their attempts to prevent Smyth participating in or running youth camps in Zimbabwe. That effort began as soon as they became aware he was planning to go there, so the Carlton Club meeting didn’t actually cook up the plan to send Smyth to run youth camps in Zimbabwe – Smyth did. The iwerne leaders did, though, try to limit the number of people finding out about Smyth’s activities, and so he was constantly on the front-foot approaching new… Read more »
Thanks for this. Yes, you are correct about Smyth’s pressure on the trustees. As we know, he was a highly effective QC [nowadays they would approvingly describe him as ‘aggressive’ in barristers’ chambers]. His determined skills in a legal scrap were also brought out in the Channel Four two-part documentary in the interviews they had with the legal officers in Zimbabwe who tried to tackle him after the death of sixteen-year-old Guide Nyachuru when Smyth was charged with Culpable Homicide. Smyth brough allegations against his prosecutor for being compromised by malice and bias. Smyth used the prosecutor’s own brother, who… Read more »
I was going to point this out. Thanks for doing so It is very difficult for the general public to understand that some church organisations operate entirely outside the official Church of England structures. The result being an assumption that this ” is” the Cof E. I believe when the Makin report was commissioned it was to be a joint Titus Trust, Scripture Union and C of E report but the first two backed out leaving the C of E to ” carry the can”. Ask around and you will still find many people who assume Smythe was a C… Read more »
Indeed. Not helped by superficial and sensationalist reporting by some sections of the press. I quote verbatim from ‘Google’ today: “In 2019, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Winchester confirmed there was no official record of John Smyth QC ever being a licensed Reader in the diocese, stating that after reviewing their records, there was “nothing to suggest that John Smyth had had a formal role”. “This statement was made in response to claims by survivors that Smyth had in fact been a licensed Reader, a position of some dispute at the time. The title of “Reader” did appear in the Winchester… Read more »
See the comments about Mrs Smyth’s expression in the surviving church post about this programme https://survivingchurch.org/2025/12/16/see-no-evil-some-comments-on-the-channel-4-programme-on-john-smyth/#comment-26516 (para 2) relating to the original confrontation between both the Smyths and a C4 interview.
Interesting that nobody here has picked up on the point made by Smyth’s son & daughters that when the great & the good decided to ease him out of the country they gave no thought to the safety of his then young family. Clearly he was a monster, & it was no surprise to learn that Smyth beat his own son so badly that he suppressed the memory for decades. That Smyth’s cruelty & abuse of his daughters was not physical makes it no better, & given his known sadism surely the awful expectation should have been that he would… Read more »
I was reading a new edition of my school magazine a few days ago. I find it very strange, full of stories of wondrous people and acts, and lots of obituaries. Can’t really relate. It has an article about John Herbert Parker, who was an ex Father of the House. He wrote an article in 1970 emphasising the barbarity of school life in the 1920’s. ‘the cult of games was dominant in most public schools; it found its most forcible expression under a housemaster who described himself as a muscular Christian. Discipline here was truly spartan. We bathed sensibly without costumes,… Read more »
I have pondered similar things, as when I was at School, that culture (though not as severe by then) was still in its final death throes. To me the crucial difference was one of role. I don’t condone or excuse corporal punishment, but when administered by a staff member of a school, it formed part of a system of discipline within an organisation, was, at least in theory, accountable within that system, and the boys had been entrusted to the care of the organisation by those with legal responsibility for them. Those boys had not been formally entrusted to Smyth’s… Read more »
This thread has produced two very interesting strands of discussion- the efficacy or otherwise of the current COf E safeguarding system and a series of very interesting reflections on the Smyth situation given the latest documentary. It has to be the ultimate irony that the Carlton House worthies’ decision to hush things up regardless of who this decision might harm has eventually lead to Prime Time TV coverage near Christmas and publicity which is not at all favourable to the church. However I think the context provided by Nigel Goodwin and Realist is very useful in respect of the culture… Read more »
Useful, thanks. But one of my main points was that Smyth was not on the extreme end of a spectrum, his torture was existentially different. If schoolboys remember the institutional caning all their lives, how much more do Smyth’s victims suffer?
I don’t think even the most brutal ‘muscular Christian’ headmasters would embrace the victim after beating, half naked, and whisper into their ears. A handshake was the thing to do. Or a glass of sherry.
As a state school chap I’m still incredulous that parents paid for their children to be flogged even if this violence was normalised by a handshake or a glass of sherry.
I don’t think flogging was absent in state schools. Beating was extremely rare at my private school from the early 1960’s.
I hesitated before joining this topic. I attended a State school, a former grammar school which is no longer. There a PE teacher (still called ‘Master’ in those days) abused numerically far more boys than did John Smyth. The abuse was ‘mild’ – touching – but if he lost his temper there were severe beatings, dressed or undressed, and on one occasion an entire class. At other times he targeted individuals for particularly sadistic treatment. This continued until one boy told a parent who informed the headmaster. The PE instructor disappeared overnight, never to be heard of again – a… Read more »
Two things have been said on this thread (as on most discussions of Smyth) that worry me: – that the coverup was not done by the CofE – that what Smyth did was not just an extension of what went on in boarding schools generally but something different. Whatever the factual merits of those assertions (I think in both cases there are things that can be said in both directions, neither is clear cut), what worries me is that they feel like attempts to distance ourselves from our culpability for being part of a culture that spawned these events. Much… Read more »
Smyth may have been a Reader but it was not in this capacity that he carried on his mad career. He operated completely outside any form of organisation, authority or discipline belonging to the Church. His camps were nominally run by the Scripture Union, itself an independent organisation, more really by the Iwerne Trust, which looked for a long time like a fundraising organisation for the SU. The group of clergy who got him to leave for Zimbabwe were not exercising the authority of the Church or acting under that authority. Other scandals have indeed been within the Church, I… Read more »
I am thinking of churches in the Global South wanting to look to Canterbury and the CoE as a whole for some modelling leadership in dealing with these vital issues in a just, equitable, truthful manner. In some dioceses and provinces, these processes are in but early stages of design and implementation.