Justin Welby has resigned. What happened?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned after a week of mounting pressure following a report into a prolific child abuser that accused the Church of England of a cover-up. Tim Wyatt takes us through the events that led to Justin Welby’s decision to step down  

Following a week in which the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury has faced moutning pressure to resign, Most Rev Justin Welby has announced that he will step down from his position as leader of the worldwide Anglican communion.

It comes after the publication of the Makin report, a damning investigation into an abuse scandal surrounding John Smyth, and a petition calling for Justin Welby’s resignation, which garnered more than 13,000 signatures in three days. Several leading clerics called for him to step down, including the Bishop of Newcastle, who said the archbishop’s position was “untenable”.

So what happened in this fast-moving news story? Decades earlier, a much younger Justin Welby met an influential Christian lawyer called John Smyth…