Church leaders knew about John Smyth’s child abuse. They covered it up

Andrew Graystone battled for decades to reveal the truth about serial abuser John Smyth. Now as a report confirms Smyth’s abuse was “prolific, brutal and horrific,” Andrew says church leaders must repent of their wilful blindness

As child, if I was caught doing something naughty, my grandfather sometimes used to urge me to “tell the truth and shame the devil”.

The expression originates from a sermon by the 16th century bishop Hugh Latimer. He kept to this principle so faithfully that he was eventually burned at the stake for refusing to deny his faith. 

I thought of this as I read the report published last week by the Church of England into its decades-long mishandling of the revelations of abuse by evangelist and barrister John Smyth. The shameful report records that Smyth’s abuse in England and Africa was “prolific, brutal and horrific.”

If anything could be worse than the abuse of children and young men, it is the industrial scale of cover-up that followed.

Dozens of senior church leaders…