Justin Welby, former Archbishop of Canterbury: I forgive serial abuser John Smyth

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story? What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:42Hello, I'm Laura Kunzberg, BBC presenter and journalist. This is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. The people who shape our world from all over the world. I will come back to Russia. I will participate in the elections. There's an increase in violence according to the coca crop. There is no place in the world where women are equal. I will give away the vast majority of my money. It's my full-time focus for the rest of my life. In this episode, I speak to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England and symbolic head of the Anglican community, a worldwide body with more than 85 million worshippers.

1:33Justin Welby presided not just over the church, but over some of the biggest events in the Commonwealth of the last decade, including the funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was standing at the door of Westminster Hall, waiting for the coffin, and you heard from the distance the cheers and then as it got closer the sighs, the groans almost. But his tenure was clouded and eventually brought to an end by an abuse scandal that shook the church. Barrister John Smythe, who died in South Africa in 2018, abused more than 100 children and young men in the UK and Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

2:18He met many of the young men he abused at Christian summer camps. By 2013, the Church of England knew at the highest level about Smythe's abuse, including Mr Welby, who'd become Archbishop that year. An independent report suggested if the Church had pursued Smythe more vigorously early on, he could have been brought to justice years before. Days after the damning report was published in November 2024, Justin Welby quit. So welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Justin Welby, the former Archbishop of Canterbury who made history for all the wrong reasons. It's the first time that you've spoken like this since you made the decision to resign.

3:05Why did you go? I went, as I said at the time, out of a sense of both personal responsibility for shortcomings during my time and my own shortcomings and out of a sense of institutional responsibility for the long-term revelations of cover-up and failure over a long period. But when an official report said that you could and should have done more to take action against the abuser in the church, John Smythe, who abused more than 100 young people. At first you tried to stay on, and it was later that you resigned. So what changed your mind? What changed my mind was having been caught by the report being leaked and not really thought it through enough, to be honest.

4:06Over that weekend, as I re-read it and re-read it, And as I reflected on the horrible suffering of the survivors, which had been, as many of them said, more than doubled by the institutional church's failure to respond adequately, it increasingly became clear to me that I needed to resign. What exactly do you think you did wrong? I think I was not sufficiently pushy in a way that I would have been a few years later. I first heard about Smythe's offences in August of 2013. I'd been in post 11 weeks. And safeguarding had been the crisis I hadn't foreseen. I didn't realise how bad it was. And we didn't see all the details till 2017.

5:16I should have pushed harder because I knew enough to know that people very rarely, almost never, abuse once. I should have said, are we absolutely sure there's no one else involved? But why didn't you? I mean, this was 2013. the police had got involved. There'd previously been high-profile prosecutions even of clergy in the 2000s. We're not talking about the 1950s, the 1960s, the kind of era in this country when people just didn't talk about this kind of thing. Why didn't you care enough? I cared. I wasn't curious enough. Well, you said previously, I didn't care sufficiently. You didn't care sufficiently about young people being abused.

6:10On that first report, that's a very fair comeback. So why? On that report, you're right. One thing was the rules of the time said that cases are investigated by the diocese where they're reported. The second thing was the police said, don't interfere. A few years later, I would have pushed harder. That's the technical reason. The other reason was, actually, I was finding that every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn't been dealt with adequately. And this was just, it was another case. And yes, I knew Smythe, but you can't... It was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks.

7:09Now, that's not an excuse. It's a reason, it's not an excuse. But the police had been called over allegations of abuse being carried out by someone you knew. Exactly. You'd been warned years before in a different context that he wasn't a nice man. It was overwhelming. One was trying to prioritise. And we knew with Peter Ball that there were numerous victims and survivors, one of whom, one of the victims had committed suicide. That was so horrific and it seemed so much bigger. But I think it's easy to sound defensive over this. the reality is I got it wrong. I did not do, as Archbishop, there are no excuses.

7:58Being overwhelmed is a reason, it isn't an excuse. Some of the victims of John Smythe think that you were tone deaf. You took years to meet them. You didn't follow up that allegation, even though you knew the police were involved. I certainly, since then, with the victims of Smythe that I'd met, and I'd met them before back in 2020 or 2021 on an online thing because it was COVID. I said sorry. And certainly as I've met the ones who wanted to meet me, I have said sorry very much. And just for the avoidance of doubt, I am utterly sorry and feel a deep sense of personal failure, both for the victims of Smythe not being picked up sufficiently after 2017 when we knew the extent of it and for my own personal failures.

9:07The victims of Smythe and indeed other abusers in the church feel that the culture was significantly to blame for the fact that they weren't taken seriously. And the fact that when you made your speech in Parliament, you cracked some jokes, you talked about being technically in charge when you were in charge, you talked about a head having to roll, that caused profound upset. It did cause profound upset, and I am profoundly ashamed of that, and I apologised within 24 hours and I remain deeply ashamed. It's one of those moments where when I think of it I just wince. It was entirely wrong and entirely inexcusable.

9:59What were you thinking? I wasn't in a good space at the time. I shouldn't have done a valedictory speech at all. Because some victims believe actually the fact that for whatever reason you saw fit to joke about what had happened in public is revealing of the problem all along, is that senior people in the church for many years just haven't got it. And the church tactic is deny, delay, sometimes even denounce the victims. I can absolutely understand why they should think that. It's not the case. a lot has changed. I mean, just, when I first heard about Smythe, what I did do, and the other cases, was to say we must have a system that puts a stop to this.

10:57There's still no mandatory reporting in the church. There's still not a fully independent safeguarding system, which you know many people believe. The only way to put this in order is to say the church can't handle this. You need to get an outside organisation. And you would know from looking back over what I've said that I am entirely in favour of independent safeguarding. And you were the boss for more than 10 years and it didn't happen. It didn't happen because you have to get it through the General Synod. So why don't they want it? Why are they resistant? And I think a lot of people will be wondering not just about what happened in your time in church, But what is it more generally about religious organisations that find problems of abuse when they emerge so hard to deal with?

11:49It's a very fair question. I think, first of all, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the chief executive of the Church of England PLC. You can't make things change by saying this will now happen. Otherwise, we'd have had independent safeguarding when I first raised it in 2016. most vicars are doing a wonderful job, the overwhelming majority. 35 ,000 social projects, which the vicar will be involved in, working every hour that there is, in a growing church. The church has grown over the last few years. And it is very, very hard, and you'd know this from within organisations where you've worked, including your own, You hear something, you think, that hymn?

12:40It's always a hymn, almost. That can't be true. And is that what you thought when you heard about John Smiley? Oh, absolutely not. No. I totally believed that this was... I mean, as is quite well known, I had a fairly difficult upbringing. I'm well experienced personally on the issues of abuse. and I always start that when someone declares abuse, divulges abuse, my rule is you always take it seriously. And yet you've just said you believed it and you knew the police were involved and then yet you still didn't follow it up. That's what makes this so extraordinary. If you have a message from the police saying under no circumstances are you to get involved because you will contaminate our inquiry.

13:37Checking up on what happened next... And as I said, I should have done that. I should have pestered them, to be honest. And I see that now. I mean, you're quite right to raise the point.

13:55You're listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service. People shaping our world from all over the world. With me, Laura Kunzberg. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:42In this episode, I'm speaking to Justin Welby, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church. Let's return to our conversation. You presided over the Church of England for more than 10 years and there were huge changes during that time and a lot of turmoil in this country. And you presided over royal weddings, of course, Her Late Majesty's funeral, and of course, a coronation. I just wonder, what was your most meaningful moment?

15:17I think the late Queen's funeral.

15:25The experience of that week. An extraordinary moment of being aware of the turn of history. Let us commend to the mercy of God, our maker and redeemer, the soul of Elizabeth, our late queen. And particularly the service, and the service at St George's, and the arrival of the coffin for the lying in state, and hearing the crowd sighing as the coffin went past them. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was standing at the door of Westminster Hall waiting for the coffin and you heard from the distance the cheers and then as it got closer the sighs, the groans almost. Coronation, I mean, the greatest privilege one could ever ask for was to be involved in that.

16:23God save the King! God save the King! The most significant moment of that service for me was the anointing, which, of course, was behind the screen. One of us, yeah.

16:40And what went through your mind at that moment? An overwhelming sense of the presence of God by the Holy Spirit and of the weight that we were laying as a nation on the king's shoulders, the weight of responsibility and the need for God to anoint him, to hold him, to strengthen him. You were in charge of the church for more than 10 years. There were vigorous conversations during that time about same-sex relationships. and about women. As we talk today, women can still be refused by some parishes, and gay people still can't have the same kind of celebration in a church as straight people. They can't have a legal marriage in the Church of England.

17:37Or even a service of blessing in every church. Yeah. In what way then can people look at that and think the church reflects the modern UK, where both women and gay people are treated as second-class citizens? The Church of England is one part of 85 million people in 165 countries with over 2 ,000 cultures and languages. The average Anglican is a woman in her 30s, in sub-Saharan Africa on less than$4 a day, a woman. the changes have been enormous. So coming back to the UK, I'm not trying to avoid your question, I'm trying to put it in context. Coming back to the UK, if I were to say to you, do you agree on everything with all of your extended family?

18:35I suspect you'd say no, because I don't know anyone who'd say yes, and be honest. the church is not a self-selecting club it is the family of Christ it is God's family and we disagree amongst each other but that doesn't stop us being family and the role of the archbishop and of the bishops is to allow people to remain in the family without totally dismissing standards that are essential. But in that family, as it stands, gay people and women might be entitled to think they're not as welcome. They're not equal members of the family. And some people also in the church might feel that it was more the Archbishop of Canterbury's role to lead this rather than to fudge it in order to try to keep that family together.

19:37What do you say to that? I would say there's a practical political reason. You have to get it through the General Synod of the Church of England. So are they out of date? I'm not saying that. I'm saying they have very different views. And there isn't a big enough majority to get it through. You need a two-thirds majority under the rules of Parliament said. and we wouldn't have got women bishops through if we hadn't made provision for those who on theological grounds have a different view. Is it disappointing to you, though, as somebody who wanted that to happen? So you left the job disappointed at that?

20:18Yes. Yes. So what does Justin Welby do next?

20:26move house as soon as we get through the process downsize as we throw away 45 years of married clutter and I suppose in my ideal world I would like to focus very much on mediation and reconciliation in this country and abroad, which I've done for over 20 years. I would love to be more involved in that and never after today to be on telly again. In other words, disappear. I'm looking for total obscurity. And let's just end then where we began. Your career as Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior job anybody in your position could have dreamt of, ended in a very public and a very painful way.

21:25But you've mentioned today and you've written and talked before a lot about forgiveness. Would you like the victims of John Smith to forgive you? Obviously, but it's not about me. When we talk about safeguarding, the centre of it are the victims and survivors. I have never, ever said to a survivor, you must forgive, because that is their sovereign, absolute, individual choice. Everyone wants to be forgiven. But to demand forgiveness is to abuse again. and I am so ashamed of my own failure and I am so sorry that I did not serve the victims and survivors and nor did the church, as they should have done and I should have done and that's why I resigned.

22:35The making report, though, the official report into this, does suggest, it says it's really unlikely that you didn't know anything before 2013. I, you can believe it or not, I did not have a clue. You wrote, to forgive is not to pretend that nothing's happened. It's the opposite. It accepts the full weight of the wrong. Do you forgive John Smythe?

23:02Yes. I think if he was alive and I saw him, but it's not me he's abused. He's abused the victims and survivors. So whether I forgive or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant. What matters is, are the survivors... and everyone responds differently to abuse. But are the survivors sufficiently loved by the church and cared for and are enabled, liberated to rebuild their lives? After that, you can start talking about forgiveness.

23:49Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service, the first conversation of its kind, this time with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. If you enjoyed today's episode, do listen to The Interview twice a week, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Until the next time, bye for now.

24:19If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. you