Widow of Church of England’s most prolific sexual abuser John Smyth is ‘ashamed’ to have stood by him – as she points apology to his victims
The widow of the man believed to be the Church of England’s most prolific serial abuser has said she feels ‘ashamed’ of having stood by him and has apologised to his victims.
Barrister and Christian camp leader John Smyth is thought to have abused more than 100 children and young men in his lifetime, but a report last year found his actions were covered up within the Church of England for years.
His wife Anne, speaking for the first time in a new Channel Four documentary, said while she knew about her husband’s beatings and ‘didn’t approve’, she ‘struggled to know what to do’, citing her Christian faith as having taught her to focus on the good.
She said: ‘It was difficult. My faith had shown me and taught me that you have to focus as much as you can on the good.
‘I was married to him, and I knew I had to love the man. Just keep going. Don’t dwell on the things that are so awful. But it was, it was hard, a very hard task.
‘I wish I’d had the wisdom at the time and the strength to have faced him myself.’
Smyth’s abuse, detailed in the independent Makin Review published just over a year ago, spanned five decades in three different countries and involved as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa.
He was said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives.
Anne Smyth, widow of John Smyth, said she feels ‘ashamed’ of having stood by the prolific sexual abuser. Pictured: The couple in 2017 at their home in Cape Town, South Africa,
Serial abuser John Smyth abused more than 100 boys and young men in the UK and Africa
Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury last year over his handling of the case
Smyth was the chairman of the Iwerne Trust, which ran evangelical holiday camps for children. These included abuse of a group of boys he met in a camp in Dorset at his Winchester home in the 1970s and 1980s, where he reportedly subjected his victims to as many as 800 lashes of the cane, causing them to bleed.
He beat boys naked for hours in a purpose-built, soundproofed shed in his garden, leaving them bleeding to the extent that some needed adult nappies.
The family then moved to Zimbabwe where the horrifying abuse continued including forced nudity, beatings with table tennis bats, indecent exposure and groping.
He died aged 77 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was ‘never brought to justice for the abuse’, the review said.
The review’s findings prompted the eventual resignation of then-archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, after it concluded Smyth might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby formally reported the abuse to police a decade earlier.
Mrs Smyth told the documentary, See No Evil: ‘Although I stayed by him all his life, all my life there, it was such a relief that he died.
‘I want, with all my heart, to say, I’m so sorry. I’m just ashamed of myself.’
Asked if there was anything she wanted to say to Smyth’s victims, she said: ‘I am so sorry for what you went through and how actually, I want to put my arms tightly round you and say, “you’re amazing”.
John Smyth’s son PJ Smyth (above) speaks in the programme about how his father abused him
‘I feel desperately sorry for them, desperately sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him, just to say to him: “Why don’t you just stop all this?”‘
She admitted elsewhere that she had attended to the victims’ bleeding wounds and had ‘struggled’ with what she had seen.
Mrs Smyth said: ‘Occasionally he would say to me, “So-and-so’s got a bit of a bleeding mark on his bottom. Could you put some cotton wool and some ointment or something on it?” So I would. I can’t remember asking “Is that sore?” or anything like that. I just did what I was asked for.
‘Although I knew about this, and didn’t approve, I struggled to know what to do about that. I was married to him, and I knew I had to love the man.
‘Just keep going, and don’t dwell on the things that are so awful. But it was hard, a hard task.’
When asked if confronting him might have meant she too faced his anger, she replied: ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
She said: ‘He did have a temper, and that was frightening. If something wasn’t quite right, he’d blast at me, and I would stay silent often.
‘That annoyed him hugely, and he would say, “Say something, can’t you say something.” I got quite good at making jokes of things, so that we could keep it light-hearted, and it wouldn’t get serious.’
Fiona Rugg, the youngest daughter of John Smyth, told the documentary that many believed her mother was his ‘first victim’ and she should not feel ashamed
Her son PJ Smyth, who told the programme he had been subjected to beatings by his father, said his mother had been ‘in an impossible situation’.
He said: ‘My father’s levels of psychological, emotional and spiritual manipulation over 40 years were off the charts. So looking back, my mum never stood a chance.’
John Smyth’s daughter, Fiona Rugg, told her mother she did not need to feel ashamed, adding: ‘I think most of us feel that you were dad’s first victim.’
She added: ‘My mum was the perfect Christian wife because she never stood up to him.’
Following the Makin review, the Church has said it was ‘deeply sorry for the horrific abuse’ and added that ‘there is never a place for covering up abuse’.
See No Evil airs on Channel Four at 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday.
