Widow of notorious Christian camp abuser John Smyth feels ‘sorry and ashamed’
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
The widow of the man believed to be the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England said she feels “ashamed” of having stood by him and has apologised to his victims.
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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 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 told Channel 4: “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.”
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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.
Smyth is said to have subjected his victims to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives.
He died aged 77 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and so 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, entitled 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’.
“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?’”
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”.