Son of the Church of England’s ‘most prolific abuser’ Jon Smyth opens up about his horrific childhood and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation

The son of the Church of England’s ‘most prolific abuser’ has spoken about his own trauma as one of his father’s first victims.

PJ Smyth, who now lives in Texas, tonight described his father John as ‘barbaric, monstrous’ and a ‘grand narcissist’.

His comments followed an independent review published earlier this month that said John Smyth’s ‘abhorrent’ abuse of more than 100 children and young men was covered up in the Church for years.

The review, headed by former social services director Keith Makin, also singled out Justin Welby, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, for failing to report Smyth’s abuse to police, finding that he and other CofE leaders ‘could and should’ have in 2013.

Last Tuesday, Welby quit as the head of the Anglican church, admitting ‘shame’ over his failure to act to stop the sickening excesses of Smyth.

Smyth, a top barrister and lay church reader, sexually, physically and psychologically abused as many as 130 boys in a campaign of brutality in the UK and South Africa spanning five decades before his death in 2018.

In an interview with Channel 4 News tonight, PJ expressed his ‘respect’ for Dr Welby’s decision to resign following the backlash.

PJ also recalled how his father would ‘mentally and spiritually’ abuse his children by recording ‘wrongdoings’ in a black book.

These would be read out before PJ was taken by his father to a shed at the end of the garden of their Winchester home.

There, he was subjected to ‘extremely painful’ beatings at the hand of his father.

The worst he could recall consisted of 36 lashings – six for each bad school report he had received.

PJ said both parents would become caring again once he returned from the shed.

He would be offered bandages and creams by his mother Josephine – who was ‘at the epicentre of this magnetic field of my father’s control’ and ‘the closest victim to him for all her life’.

The physical abuse stopped after four years, when PJ was 11.

With hindsight he realises this is when ‘courageous’ victims had blown the whistle – though this was covered up.

Regretting the lack of action, PJ told Channel 4 News: ‘I’m so angry, so disappointed. Countless lives would’ve been different.

‘It [the Makin review] cemented my father as the most prolific Church of England abuser. It cemented the Church of England as needing rapid changes in responding to abuse.’

Instead, the Smyth family fled the UK for Africa. PJ said his father claimed to feel ‘calls as a missionary to Zimbabwe’.

‘That was his big lie and I swallowed that hook line and sinker,’ he added.

Remarkably, that was not the end of Smyth’s emotional abuse of his son.

As an adult, PJ was diagnosed with cancer. He was visited by his parents in hospital and Smyth told him: ‘We have seven ways that you have dishonoured us, and we believe that this is why you’ve got cancer, and that you will get better from cancer if you repent of dishonouring us.’

So in the thrall of his father was PJ, that he accepted that and said he would ‘consider’ what he had heard.

Contrastingly, PJ’s wife stormed out of the ward. ‘I think she was a victim herself and I regret I didn’t protect her more from my dad,’ PJ wept, adding: ‘I regret that I didn’t protect my sisters more. He was not kind to her.’

He did eventually confront his father, who was finally exposed in 2017 – though he died a year later having never faced justice.

‘It went terribly,’ he recalled. ‘You couldn’t critique him without complete rejection. ‘Stop being disloyal,’ he said. ‘it’s lies, it will pass’.’

PJ said he was ‘relieved’ when his father died, but added he too feels no ‘closure’ due to the lack of responsibility being taken in his father’s life.  

The Archbishop had tried to hang on to his throne after a damning report found his failure to act more than a decade ago meant that ‘abhorrent’ serial abuser Smyth was never brought to justice.

But he quit last week after senior colleagues joined criticism and more than 12,000 people signed a petition calling for him to resign, and PM Keir Starmer pointedly refused to back him.

After he announced his decision to quit, there were calls for others criticised in the Makin Report, which branded Smyth ‘arguably the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England’, to quit or be forced out.

The House of Survivors, which was set up by two survivors of Church of England abuse to help others, said: ‘We expect more resignations to follow. The Archbishop must not be the scapegoat. The list of clergy in the ”circles of awareness” is staggering.’

Those facing calls to go include the current Bishop of Lincoln, Stephen Conway, who has apologised for not taking ‘further action’ in 2013, when he was the Bishop of Ely.

Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives.

A lay reader who led Christian summer camps, Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was ‘never brought to justice for the abuse’, the review said.

Mr Welby knew Smyth because of his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence that he had ‘maintained any significant contact’ with the barrister in later years.

The archbishop said he had ‘no idea or suspicion of this abuse’ before 2013.

In a statement, Dr Welby said: ‘Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury.

‘The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.

‘When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.

‘It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.’

Dr Welby added: ‘The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England.’

Sir Keir declined to give Dr Welby full support after a senior Bishop called for him to resign, instead saying that it is a ‘matter really for the church’.