The ‘Defrocking’ of Justin Welby

The ‘Defrocking’ of Justin Welby

by TIM HICKS

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In this article, Tim Hicks comments on the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and on the NYE’s work on investigating child abuse and fraudulent misuse of Church of England funds.

Introduction

On 26th June 2017, the NYE published this article “Bishop Peter Ball case and the need for a new offence of failing to report child abuse”, in which I called for the exclusion of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord George Carey, from the clergy. This followed an internal investigation by the Church of England, which found that he had concealed evidence which helped Bishop Peter Ball escape prosecution for multiple sex offences against young men.

Briefly, Bishop Peter Ball used his office as a Bishop in the Church of England to abuse young men. In 1993,  he admitted an offence of indecent assault of one of his young monks, Neil Todd, and accepted a Police caution for it.

In 2015, he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 32 months imprisonment for two offences of indecent assault and an offence of Misconduct in Public Office which involved sexual offences against thirteen victims between 1977 and 1992 when he was the Bishop of Lewes. He served sixteen months in jail before he was released.

He died in 2019.

Very sadly, Neil Todd, who had bravely spoken out against Ball, committed suicide because of the impact Ball’s abuse had on him.

I also called for the implementation of a new offence of failing to report child abuse.

Coincidentally, Lord Carey resigned the next day and no longer had any active role or Permission to Officiate (PTO) in the Church of England.

The Resignation of Archbishop Welby

Now, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has been forced to resign following a Church of England investigation, which accused him of failing to pass on information to the Police in 2013 about John Smyth QC.

Smyth was an active and influential member of a Christian ministry that organized camps for children. He was also a vicious sadist, who used his position to groom young male victims and subject them to physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse. He had a sound-proofed garden-shed where he would beat them with a cane.

Sometimes they were beaten so badly that they needed nappies to control the bleeding.

His crimes started in the 1970s and were known to the Church of England as early as in 1982 but were not reported to the Police. Having been identified in the UK as an abuser, he went to Zimbabwe, where he continued to abuse children. He was arrested over the 1992 death of Guide Nyachuru, whose naked body was found in a camp swimming pool. In this BBC article, which describes Smyth’s abuse of boys in Zimbabwe and then South Africa, his sister Edith states that she holds the Church of England responsible for Guide’s death. It includes a copy of a letter from Archbishop Welby conceding that Smyth had caused the death of Guide.

Smyth was not investigated and died in 2018, having never spent a day in prison or been convicted of anything.

My feelings as a member of the Church of England over this latest scandal are that Welby had to go:

An internal report commissioned by the Church of England (The Makin report) found that Archbishop Welby was informed of Smyth’s crimes in 2013, but no action was taken and this is what has led to Archbishop Welby being forced to resign now.

He had been publicly denounced by Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle (pictured above), and called upon to resign and a petition to force his resignation was circulating – indicating that he had lost the confidence of many clerics.

He had therefore lost the moral authority to lead the Church of England.

I had hoped that his resignation and the recent banning of the former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu from preaching in Newcastle (BBC report here) would deter clergy from covering up abuse in the future and preventing those clergymen that do conceal abuse from evading accountability and punishment.

George Carey since 2017: the Tudor scandal

In 2020, I published this book review of “Basically Innocent” by David Greenwood, which exposed the role Lord Carey played in the Bishop Peter Ball cover up. David Greenwood is a solicitor specializing in child abuse cases and an executive member of Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors https://www.macsas.org.uk/ which assists survivors of abuse by clerics. I contributed to the book with an analysis of the church funds that were transferred to Ball by Lord Carey to pay for his defence against criminal charges and a civil action by Neil Todd. They amounted to about £50,000 plus a fraudulent disability pension to which Ball was not entitled.

I subsequently wrote to the Church of England demanding that Carey was ordered to repay the money on the basis that this was an inappropriate use for Church of England funds. The Church of England refused to process my complaint.

As narrated above, Lord Carey had PTO withdrawn, which effectively removed him from the clergy over his role in protecting Ball from prosecution. However, it was reinstated in 2018 but then withdrawn again in June 2020, when it was alleged that he had also concealed offending by Smyth. Lord Carey denies this. In the latest twist in this saga, Lord Carey’s PTO was reinstated in 2021, despite having been implicated in cover ups into two child abusers.

He finally resigned from the clergy on 17th December 2024 renouncing his PTO and leaving the priesthood forever, after a BBC investigation revealed that he was implicated in another cover-up into the paedophile priest David Tudor.

In my view, PTO should never have been returned to Lord Carey in 2018.

Any clergyman who failed to intervene and protect children from abuse when there was evidence of it cannot remain in the clergy – no matter what. Exclusion must be permanent, as is being cashiered for Officers in the Armed Forces. I would apply the same standard to all other authority figures including teachers, social workers, school governors, care home workers, youth workers, police officers and Councillors.

The David Tudor Scandal: Another Cover-Up

Briefly, Tudor was a Church of England clergyman who was convicted of abusing three children and jailed for six months in 1988. He had previously had PTO withheld for five years, paid a £10,000 settlement to a fourth victim who alleged he sexually abused her as a child and the Church of England made a six-figure compensation payment to a fifth victim. He was only suspended in 2019 when the Police started investigating him over allegations by a sixth victim. His PTO was only withdrawn in 2024.

Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Welby, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey and the current Archbishop of York Lord Stephen Cottrell were all involved in Tudor’s case at various times and failed to act.

BBC article here.

Archbishop Carey Re-visited: More Cover-Up

On 15th December 2024, I wrote to Archbishop Welby, asking for the investigation into Lord Carey to be re-opened, for PTO to be withdrawn permanently and for him to be forced to re-pay the church funds he had misused. He refused to comment and denied he had any responsibility for the decision to reinstate Lord Carey’s PTO.

When I challenged this decision, he ignored my email and did not forward my request to the Bishop that had restored Lord Carey’s PTO – effectively ensuring no action was taken.

I then wrote to Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley. Bishop of Newcastle, again asking for the investigation into Lord Carey to be re-opened, for him to be forced to re-pay the church funds he had misused and asking her to record a complaint against Archbishop Welby for failure to respond to my complaint.

Bishop Hartley, who has been outspoken about criticizing Lord Welby and Lord Cottrell over their failures, also just ignored my email. Bishop Hartley is pictured in the lead illustration – no doubt in full-flow preaching to the rest of us about morality.

So there you are. Child abuse within the Church of England has led to the deaths of two adolescents and hundreds of children being sexually, spiritually and emotionally abused and beaten. In response, three Archbishops failed to take any effective action and the Bishop who has been most vociferous in condemning them for this has also failed to face up to the issue of responsibility for failuring to report abuse.

I am of the opinion that the Church of England is institutionally corrupt and incapable of reforming itself. Put simply, it responds to allegations of abuse by protecting its reputation and those senior members that commit abuse or cover it up. Things will only change when responsibility for regulating the clergy is withdrawn from the Church of England.

The Role of Journalists in exposing Smyth and Tudor.

It was primarily the relentless journalism of Cathy Newman and Channel Four that exposed Smyth, in the public interest. It was a BBC investigation that exposed Tudor. The Church of England at the highest levels took no effective action.

This illustrates the importance of having a free press that will confront child abuse and the officials that conceal it. As the NYE has tried to do since its inception.

If YOU are affected by these issues

If you are affected by the issues raised in this article, you can obtain support from https://www.macsas.org.uk/