Church launches investigation into how Welby dealt with complaints about an alleged serial abuser
This programme can reveal that the Church of England has launched an investigation into how the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, dealt with complaints about a serial abuser of young men.
John Smyth was alleged to have beaten dozens of young men in the 1970s and 1980s.
One of those abused has now written to the Church of England, launching a formal complaint against Mr Welby, saying he failed to act properly when he learnt of the abuse.
George Carey: Former archbishop suspended over abuse inquiry
June 16 2020
Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has had his permission to officiate as a priest revoked.
The Church of England said new evidence linking Lord Carey, 84, to a review into allegations of abuse against the late John Smyth, had emerged.
There are no claims of abuse against him, and in a statement he said he was “dismayed” by the revocation.
Mr Smyth was accused of attacking boys whom he had met at a Dorset Christian camp in the 1970s and 1980s.
The independent inquiry was launched into the Church’s handling of allegations against Mr Smyth, a barrister who died aged 77 last year.
Permission to Officiate (PTO) is required for any Church of England priest to preach or minister.
In a statement Lord Carey said: “I am bewildered and dismayed to receive the news a short time ago that due to ‘concerns’ being raised during the review of John Smyth QC I have had my PTO revoked.
“I have been given no information on the nature of these ‘concerns’ and have no memory of meeting Mr Smyth.”
Lord Carey previously had his PTO revoked after a damning independent report found he had “colluded [with the convicted abuser Peter Ball] rather than seeking to help those harmed”.
He resigned from his post as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford in 2017.
He was later granted a PTO by the diocese in 2018, allowing him to preach at the church where he worships, conditional on no further concerns coming to light.
A spokesman for the diocese said: “A planned independent review into the Church of England’s handling of allegations against the late John Smyth QC is currently under way.
“In the course of that review, new information has come to light regarding Lord Carey, which has been passed to the National Safeguarding Team for immediate attention as per the agreed terms of reference set for the review.”
Lord Carey’s PTO has been withdrawn while the matter is being investigated and he is unauthorised to “undertake any form of ministry in the Diocese until further notice.”
The spokesman added: “However, for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make clear that the new information received relates only to the review currently underway, and that there has not been an allegation of abuse made against Lord Carey.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-53086234
‘Abusive’ vicar who continued to practice after ban keeps Holy Orders despite addition to infamous ‘Lambeth List’
Jonathan Fletcher was banned from his role in the church following accusations that he ‘spiritually abused’ vulnerable men
19 April 2020
An ‘abusive’ vicar who was banned from preaching – yet continued to hold religious ceremonies – has had his name added to the infamous ‘Lambeth List’.
Jonathan Fletcher, 77, a leading evangelical minister was banned from his role in the church following accusations that he “spiritually abused” vulnerable men.
He was unmasked by The Telegraph last year and since then his victims have come forward on condition of anonymity to speak out about how the former vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, south-west London, left them feeling “like a neglected and abused dog”.
They claim they were subjected to repeated sexually inappropriate comments and questions about masturbation, naked massages, beatings on their bare backsides, ice baths, bullying, intimidation and psychological manipulation over a number of years.
A complaint had been lodged against Mr Fletcher under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) in 2017. Only now has it finally been processed.
It can now be revealed that the former vicar has had his name added to the ‘Lambeth List’, also known as ‘the Archbishops’ List’.
The list records information on activities of alleged wrongdoing for “all clerks in Holy Orders” and is kept in Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby. It has never been published.
Church authorities have concluded, however, that Rev’d Fletcher has the right to keep his Holy Orders and still be referred to as ‘Rev’d Fletcher’ despite his inclusion on the list, but he is not allowed to minister within the Church of England.
This is despite him admitting to administering massages and beatings as part of “lighthearted forefeits” in a bid to maintain “healthy and holy living”.
Responding to the long-awaited results of the CDM, one of Rev’d Fletcher’s alleged victims said that the punishment is “a small step in the right direction that Jonathan Fletcher has at long last admitted to offences that have attracted a 10-year penalty”.
However, he criticised this as “a deal done behind closed doors, without due reference to victims and survivors, allowing Fletcher to retain (and continue to misuse) a prestigious title for a job he neither has nor is fit for”.
“A cultural change is needed where wrongdoing in public ministry is brought into broad daylight and dealt with in such a way that all might see justice has been served and those who have suffered are given hope, help and healing,” he added.
The former vicar has previously told The Telegraph that he is “deeply, deeply sorry for the people I’ve harmed” but has denied allegations that he humiliated people and made derogatory comments about their appearances.
Rev’d Fletcher has also said that massages and beatings were consensual and that he never gave ice baths, but did “very, very, very rarely” give “a cold bath”.
“Anything that happened was totally consensual and non-sexual,” he added. “The punishments were a) consensual, and b) mutual.”
In 2017, the Bishop of Southwark stripped the Rev’d Fletcher of his Permission to Officiate (PTO). Yet he continued to hold religious ceremonies.
Not only did he preside at communion administering the elements to two people at their bedside, he also led a committal during a cremation.
The CDM process was introduced in 2003 and is supposed to deal “efficiently and fairly with formal complaints of serious misconduct against members of the clergy”, however the system is currently under review after coming under criticism for “operating largely in the dark”.
The Telegraph understands that Rev’d Fletcher’s CDM was concluded in March. As part of this, he agreed with the Bishop of Southwark to a “10-year prohibition as a penalty by consent” and his name has been added to the ‘Archbishops’ List’.
However this means that Rev’d Fletcher still has his Holy Orders and is a Rev’d, but he is not allowed to minister within the Church of England.
Responding to the conclusion of his CDM, Rev’d Fletcher told The Telegraph: “I have apologised unreservedly to anybody I have hurt and I don’t know what else to say… I have done exactly what the Diocese have asked me to do.”
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Southwark confirmed that following a complaint made under the CDM the Rev’d Jonathan Fletcher accepted a penalty by consent of prohibition from ministry for 10 years.
She added: “This means that his name is added to the Archbishop’s List which includes details of those who are not allowed to minister within the Church of England. After the period of prohibition, there is no automatic return to ministry.’
Canon Judith Maltby about lack of transparency around Titus Trust review of John Smyth case
Titus Trust settles with ‘bash camp’ abuse victims
5 Apr 2020
Boys’ lives were blighted after sadistic beatings by John Smyth more than 40 years ago, successor group admits
A Christian organisation whose forerunner ran holiday camps that led to boys being beaten sadistically has reached a settlement with three men and acknowledged that “lives have been blighted”.
The Titus Trust has expressed “profound regret” for the abuse carried out by John Smyth QC and has apologised for “additional distress” caused by the way the trust responded to the allegations.
The abuse scandal at the so-called “Bash camps” in the 1970s and 80s embroiled Justin Welby, who is now the archbishop of Canterbury, and who worked at the Christian holiday centres in the 1970s.
After allegations of abuse and its cover-up emerged three years ago, Welby said he knew Smyth but had been “completely unaware” of any abuse at the time. He apologised on behalf of the Church of England, which later ordered an independent review into the allegations.
The Christian holiday camps were organised by the Iwerne Trust, whose activities were later taken over by the Titus Trust. Smyth was chairman of the Iwerne Trust from 1974 until 1981.
In a statement posted on the Titus Trust’s website, it said a settlement had been reached with three men “who have suffered for many years because of the appalling abuse of John Smyth”. It went on to apologise for the “guarded language” it used in earlier public statements.
In 1982, the Iwerne Trust commissioned an internal investigation. It found that boys were given “horrific beatings” while naked or semi-naked, mostly in Smyth’s garden shed, but the report was kept secret.
The former QC moved to southern Africa, where he died in August 2018, soon after Hampshire police had requested him to return to the UK for questioning.
In a statement in response to the Titus Trust’s settlement, a group of Smyth’s victims called for the trust to disband. It said the trust had protected its own interests and failed to offer care and support to victims.
The Titus Trust said it had implemented the recommendations of an independent review into its safeguarding practices, and a forthcoming independent “cultural review” would “enable us to look honestly at our culture”.
Titus Trust, John Smyth, and Jonathan Fletcher
The Titus Trust published this statement yesterday:
John Smyth: statement on settlement
The Trustees of The Titus Trust wish to make this statement now that a settlement has been reached with three men who have suffered for many years because of the appalling abuse of John Smyth.
We are devastated that lives have been blighted by a man who abused a position of trust and influence to inflict appalling behaviour on others, and we have written to those concerned to express our profound regret at what happened and also to apologise for any additional distress that has been caused by the way The Titus Trust has responded to this matter.
The emergence of details about the abuse by John Smyth and Jonathan Fletcher has caused us to reflect deeply on our current culture and the historic influences upon us. Although the culture of the camps that The Titus Trust runs today has changed significantly from the Scripture Union camps of the late 70s and early 80s we still want to look hard at our traditions and practices and to invite feedback from those currently involved and also those who are no longer involved.
This reflection includes a number of elements and has led, or is leading to, the following actions:
- A full independent review of our safeguarding practices took place in 2018 by thirtyone:eight and the recommendations have been implemented in 2019 to ensure that we operate best practice across all our camps to protect the children and adults involved in our activities. Among other things, this has included receiving training in pastoral care and supporting survivors of abuse.
- An internal Cultural Review has been carried out that considered aspects of our traditions and practices and identified risks to and ways of building healthy cultures across our leaders teams.
- An independent Cultural Review will begin shortly which will include inviting feedback from a wide range of individuals and organisations to enable us to look honestly at our culture and its impact on individual behaviour.
The Trustees regret that we have not been able to speak out while the legal situation has been ongoing and want to take the opportunity now to listen well to people’s experiences of our camps to inform our future planning. We would therefore invite anyone who would like to share their experience to email safeguarding@titustrust.org. If anyone wishes to contribute to the forthcoming Cultural Review, we invite them to be in touch too, so we can pass their details to the review team once their work gets underway.
We are sorry that the Titus Trust’s earlier public statements were inadequate as explanations of the relevant facts and history and that some of the language the Trust has used in public statements about these matters has prompted anger on the part of some survivors and others. We recognise the impact that this guarded use of language has caused, and apologise if this has contributed in any way to the anguish experienced by the survivors and their families.
The Titus Trust is co-operating fully with the Review into John Smyth led by Keith Makin. Extensive documentation has been provided to the Reviewers and the Trust has met with them and expects to do so again to further assist in the Review.
3/4/20
Today, the following statement has been issued in response:
Statement from victims of the Titus Trust and John Smyth QC
4th April 2020
We call for the Titus Trust to cease its activities immediately, and to disband.
Yesterday the Titus Trust issued a statement following the settlement of three civil claims in respect of abuse by John Smyth QC. The statement comes no less than eight years after a victim of Smyth bravely came forward to inform the trust of the appalling legacy of abuse upon which their organisation is built. It is an astonishing 38 years since the leaders of the Iwerne network were first made aware of the criminal nature of this horrific abuse.
When the abuse came to light, the trustees of the Titus Trust, who now run the Iwerne network, did everything they could to protect their own interests. They did not offer care and support to the victims. They refused to cooperate with an independent inquiry. If the Titus Trust had been open and transparent with what they knew years ago, John Smyth could have been brought to justice. Instead they repeatedly blanked the victims, refusing to speak with us and denying any responsibility. Perhaps we should not have expected them to act with care or candour, since some of most senior members of the network had been complicit in concealing the abuse for 38 years.
In the face of this intransigence we felt compelled to take action against the Titus Trust, so that they would be forced to confront their responsibilities. Even so, the trust has spent eye-watering sums of money fighting our claims – many times the amount they have offered us in settlement. We are pleased that they have finally issued a limited apology for their recent behaviour, but we note that none of those responsible has resigned. They have not acknowledged the historic cover-up. There is no evidence that the culture of moral superiority, exclusivity and secrecy that has pervaded the network for decades has changed in any way.
Those of us who suffered as victims of John Smyth through our contacts with the Iwerne network simply want to uncover the truth. We want an accurate narrative of the abuse and its cover-up, not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of scores of victims of Smyth in Africa, and for the sake of those young people who even today come under the toxic influence of this network. John Smyth is only one of several abusers known to us who have been closely associated with the Iwerne camps network over many years. Events of recent years lead us to believe that there are still some within the Titus network who value their own reputations more than they care about the children they work with. Shockingly, some of those are ordained clergy in the Church of England. Such attitudes should have no place in any organisation working with children.
The Titus Trust has consistently said that they were not prepared to take part in the Church of England’s Makin Review into John Smyth whilst litigation was outstanding. Now that this settlement has been reached, that excuse is gone, and we urge the trustees and all those involved in the Iwerne network to cooperate fully with the Makin Review, and the other reviews being held into abuse by John Smyth and Jonathan Fletcher.
A culture that has resisted reform in the face of overwhelming evidence of damage over many years is beyond reform. It is our wholehearted belief that in the light of these events the Titus Trust and its work should cease immediately.
To those within and beyond the Titus/Iwerne network who have come to understand that they too are victims of abuse, we urge you to take courage and seek help outside the network.
Issued on behalf of victims of the Titus Trust and John Smyth QC
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/titus-trust-john-smyth-and-jonathan-fletcher/
Independent inquiry to probe Church of England’s handling of John Smyth allegations
14 Aug 2019
An independent review is to be carried out into the Church of England’s handling of allegations against the John Smyth QC.
Smyth, who died last year at the age of 77, was accused of severely beating boys at his home in Winchester who had been groomed at Iwerne camps.
The holiday camps were designed to instil an evangelical ethos into young Christians with the aim of raising up future leaders in the Church of England.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby worked as a dormitory officer at the camps as a young man but has said he did not know of Smyth’s abuse. He is expected to give evidence during the review.
The allegations against Smyth were publicly exposed in February 2017 following a Channel 4 News investigation.
Mr Smyth was first confronted about the allegations in 1982 after an internal report commissioned by Rev Mark Ruston and Rev David Fletcher. The report was not passed on to the police.
Mr Smyth then left England for Zimbabwe and had been in the process of being extradited back to the UK at the time of his death.
Fletcher and his brother Jonathan were both part of the Iwerne leadership. Earlier this year, it emerged that Jonathan Fletcher had been barred from preaching by the Church of England as a result of accusations that he had engaged in “physical discipline” that amounted to spiritual abuse.
The allegations were passed on to the police who did not take any further action and in a statement, Fletcher denied any wrongdoing.
The independent review is to be overseen by Keith Makin, a former director of social services, and will consider the response of the Church of England to the allegations.
In addition to considering the actions of officials within the Church of England, it will also hear testimonies of those who have come forward to say they are victims of Smyth.
Commenting on the review, the Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop, Peter Hancock said: “I know for survivors of John Smyth this review into the Church’s response – and the response of others – is vital to them.
“It was their bravery in coming forward that finally brought the abuse perpetrated by Smyth to the attention of the police and wider Church.
“We commend their actions and I pray that with cooperation from the other organisations the review will be comprehensive and that lessons will be learnt both by the Church and all those involved. We recognise that the process of a review can be a very difficult one, and our thoughts remain with the victims and survivors of John Smyth.
“We remain aware that there are others who were victims of Smyth that have not come forward to the Church and we urge them to make contact if they would like support.”
It is 2720 days today, since I approached the Church of England about my abuse by John Smyth. It is 923 days since the Channel 4 broadcast. It is 365 days since John Smyth died. And progress ……zero
Graham @Graham1munro
Jonathan Fletcher is brother of David Fletcher, head of Iwerne camps and Titus Trust Trustee. JF was a frequent visitor at Iwerne, along with @justinwelby
Evangelical minister Jonathan Fletcher ‘gave prayer group naked beatings as light-hearted forfeits’
12 July 2019
An evangelical minister has admitted subjecting a prayer group to naked beatings as “light-hearted forfeits” if they failed to maintain “healthy and holy living”.
The Rev Jonathan Fletcher, 76, was unmasked by The Telegraph last month as the leading Church of England evangelical minister who has been banned from preaching after “spiritually abusing” vulnerable adults.
However further details about the nature of his abuse – specifically “physical discipline” – have since emerged. Mr Fletcher administered physical beatings on men’s naked backsides, gave naked one-to-one massages, withheld chocolate from victims and subjected them to cold baths, it is claimed.
The beatings are allegedly reminiscent of the beatings to which John Smyth QC subjected his young victims. The barrister, who died aged 77 last year, was accused of sadomasochistic assaults on boys in the 1970s and 1980s at Iwerne Christian holiday camps. Mr Fletcher, whose brother David ran the camps, has previously said he knew Smyth as an “acquaintance”.
Mr Fletcher, a former trustee of Reform, a conservative movement which has led the opposition to the ministry of women and homosexuals within the Church, has now admitted that the beatings took place, but described them as “light-hearted forfeits” in a “system of mutual encouragement”.
In response to the latest claims, he told The Telegraph: “I’m reading Psalm 38 [the topic of which is God’s displeasure at sin] daily, making deep repentance and I’m very, very upset if I’ve hurt anybody.”
He refused to elaborate and instead directed contact to the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas.
Massage quid pro quo
In a statement which has been released by the Bishop, Mr Fletcher described the “light-hearted forfeits” to which he subjected young men.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments,” Mr Fletcher writes.
“Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry.”
He acknowledges that he enjoys and benefits from massage, and regularly hires professionals to do it. “However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.”
He accepts that it was “unwise” to involve anyone to whom he was ministering, and apologises “if any have felt pressurised by me to do this”.
After The Telegraph first revealed allegations of Mr Fletcher’s abuse, the Proclamation Trust, an organisation of evangelical Christians, arranged a meeting at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at Westminster Chapel in London where Sarah Hall, Emmanuel Church’s safeguarding officer and women’s worker, read a statement detailing the nature of his abuse.
Discipline and discipling
She said that “concrete allegations” had been made about conduct involving Mr Fletcher as well as other men from late September 2018 and a small number of these allegations were made of “the practice of physical discipline in the context of discipling relationships”.
“One example of this involved men hitting each other on their naked backsides with a trainer for failing to meet personal targets.
“This took place over a period of time; it happened infrequently; the number of hits was small; and we do not believe any physical injuries were sustained, though it has been described as very painful. I am sorry to be specific but I don’t want you to speculate as to what sort of behaviour I include in ‘physical discipline’.”
The statement continued: “Further disclosures since March 2019 have largely related to a different practice of one-to-one massage, ranging from partially clothed massage to massage where both men are said to have been fully naked throughout and to have taken turns to massage each other. Again, this conduct seems to have become a regular part of the relationship between Jonathan and certain men over a period of time.”
Southwark Diocese had confirmed last month that the allegations surrounding Mr Fletcher centred around a “risk of him behaving towards vulnerable adults who may be seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful”. Sources said the allegations were of “spiritual abuse” and not physical or sexual.
The claims surrounding Mr Fletcher – son of Lord Eric Fletcher who was a minister in Harold Wilson’s government – triggered a police investigation, but the Diocese said that the police concluded that there were no grounds for further action.
The exact details of the allegations were not disclosed last month but sources said “there was no evidence from the assessment that Jonathan Fletcher posed a significant sexual or physical risk to children”.
Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon, south-west London, where Mr Fletcher retired as a minister in 2012, last month issued an “unreserved apology to all those affected by these unacceptable behaviours” and the Bishop of Southwark stripped him of his Permission to Officiate in 2017 – a ban which he has repeatedly flounced to preach around the world.
The Church has established a website, entitled Walkingwith.uk, for “those who need support because of the activities of Jonathan Fletcher”
28 June 2019
Fletcher faces allegations of naked beatings
The Revd Jonathan Fletcher, in a 2016 video made by Moore College, Sydney
DETAILS have emerged of the allegations against the Revd Jonathan Fletcher, who was Minister of Emmanuel Ridgway Proprietary Chapel, in Wimbledon, from 1982 to 2012, and an influential figure among Evangelicals in the Church of England.
The allegations involve physical beatings, reminiscent of the beatings administered by John Smyth (News, 13 April 2017; 1 March). Mr Fletcher has admitted that the beatings took place, but on Friday described them as “light-hearted forfeits” in a “system of mutual encouragement”.
Southwark diocese said last week (News, 28 June) that it had removed Mr Fletcher’s Permission to Officiate (PTO) in 2017, after an independent safeguarding assessment had concluded that, while there was “no criminal case to answer”, nor any evidence that he posed “a significant sexual or physical risk to children . . . there was a risk of him behaving towards vulnerable adults who may be seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful”.
At a meeting of the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at Westminster Chapel, London, on Thursday, organised by the Proclamation Trust, a statement was read out by the safeguarding officer and women’s worker at Emmanuel, Sarah Hall.
It said: “Starting in late September 2018, concrete allegations have been made about conduct involving Jonathan and other men. I am not going to say how many disclosures, let alone who made them.
“In late 2018, a small number of allegations were made of the practice of physical discipline in the context of discipling relationships. One example of this involved men hitting each other on their naked backsides with a trainer for failing to meet personal targets.
“This took place over a period of time; it happened infrequently; the number of hits was small; and we do not believe any physical injuries were sustained, though it has been described as very painful. I am sorry to be specific but I don’t want you to speculate as to what sort of behaviour I include in ‘physical discipline’.”
The statement continued: “Further disclosures since March 2019 have largely related to a different practice of one-to-one massage, ranging from partially clothed massage to massage where both men are said to have been fully naked throughout and to have taken turns to massage each other. Again, this conduct seems to have become a regular part of the relationship between Jonathan and certain men over a period of time.”
Andrew Wales QC then explained why the allegations had been taken seriously. He said: “In 2017, Southwark diocese commissioned an independent safeguarding assessment of Mr Fletcher, which “concluded that, whilst there was no evidence of any significant sexual or physical risk to children, there was a risk of Jonathan behaving towards vulnerable adults seeking his spiritual guidance in a manner which may be harmful. The diocese made formal contact with Jonathan to explain this.”
Mr Wales went on to cite other factors which supported “taking the allegations seriously”. They included: “The number of disclosures received”; “their consistent nature, where, for the most part, each person was unaware of what anyone else had disclosed”; and “the identity of those making disclosures, whose testimonies we consider reliable”.
A final factor cited by Mr Wales was that “Jonathan has recently acknowledged involvement in activities of the sort described. He did so only this week to [the Revd] William Taylor [Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate]; and he’s done so to other senior leaders as well.”
Mr Wales went on to say that “all these factors, taken together, led Emmanuel to take the allegations very seriously, even though — and I stress this — nothing criminal or to do with children has been alleged.”
The Rector of St Ebbe’s, Oxford, the Revd Vaughan Roberts, who is director of the Proclamation Trust, said of Mr Fletcher: “Sadly, it seems that he has not yet accepted the seriousness of the situation, despite the efforts of a number of senior Evangelical leaders, who have sought to engage with him, both face to face and in writing.”
After the Church Times contacted him on Friday, Mr Fletcher declined to comment directly, but released a statement via the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Rod Thomas. Bishop Thomas stated: “The fact that I am forwarding this to you does not represent any agreement by me to its contents, any endorsement of it, nor any acceptance that it adequately describes the conduct engaged in. I remain deeply distressed and concerned both about the seriousness of the issues and the effects on victims.”
In his statement, however, Mr Fletcher maintained that the punishments, administered in a long-standing prayer group, were “light-hearted forfeits” if members failed to hit targets of “healthy and holy living”.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments,” Mr Fletcher writes. “Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry.”
He acknowledges that he enjoys and benefits from massage, and regularly hires professionals to do it. “However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.”
He accepts that it was “unwise” to involve anyone to whom he was ministering, and apologises “if any have felt pressurised by me to do this”.
He ends by confirming that he no longer engages in public ministry.
Emmanuel Church has set up a website for “those who need support because of the activities of Jonathan Fletcher”: walkingwith.uk.
The Revd Jonathan Fletcher’s statement in full:
”As part of a long-standing prayer group, I have in the past been involved in a system of mutual encouragement whereby we set ourselves targets in healthy and holy living and then imposed what I thought of as light-hearted forfeits if we failed.
“These included going without chocolate, cold baths and school-type gym shoe punishments. Although at the time we definitely did not think we were doing anything wrong, I’ve seen since that it could have caused much harm both to individuals and to the reputation of conservative evangelicalism for which I am profoundly sorry. Needless to say, this activity has now stopped.
“In addition, a number of people are reporting that I have had naked massages with them. I enjoy massage and benefit from it. To that end I regularly have it professionally administered. However, if I can avoid the cost by finding a male friend to administer, and in return receive, massage, I do.
“These sessions categorically do not have erotic or sexual overtones and I have never coerced or intended to coerce anyone into an arrangement. If any have felt pressurised by me to do this, I apologise.
“Again, I realise that in the position I have held in the past as an incumbent, it was unwise of me to involve anyone to whom I was also ministering and I apologise for doing so.
“I confirm that I no longer engage in public ministry.”
Joining up the dots – the Jonathan Fletcher story
The Internet is a great provider of information. Of course, there are to be found in it lies, rumours and falsehoods. We trust, however, that a reasonably discerning person can detect ‘fake news’ and not fall into the trap of repeating unsubstantiated information. But there is another sort of truth that can be found from scrutinising the net. An individual can pick up information from a variety of separate sources but be able to suggest how these fragments of information are connected. None of the fragments of information I tell below stand as complete stories. However, when they are linked together, they seem to tell a complete story, one that does little credit to the Church of England or its breakaway sections represented by GAFCON and AMiE.
The first section is a statement by Bishop Andy Lines, the clergyman appointed by the breakaway Anglican American group ACNA to act as a missionary bishop for Europe. He is also closely linked to AMiE the group that brings together parishes that have opted out of the Anglican Communion. He recently announced to this group that he was withdrawing from active ministry for a few months, having been a victim of ‘spiritual manipulation’. This highly unusual and unexpected announcement has obviously led to speculation. Who was doing the abusing? Who, in short, had the authority over this powerful figure in the Anglican breakaway world to be able to be able to create what appears to be a major crisis for a respected figure? The only clue we get is from the description of the abuser. Andy speaks of a ‘betrayal of trust by a mentor’. No names are given but looking at Andy’s formation and links over many years with Emmanuel Church Wimbledon, we have to suggest that the Vicar, Jonathan Fletcher, a close friend and teacher, fills the description. It was also Jonathan that was present at some kind of ceremony of commissioning Andy in Emmanuel following a consecration service in the States. Jonathan had been Vicar of Emmanuel Church for 30 years. He was thus a major figure in Andy’s life and in conservative Anglicanism generally. Everyone in that world seems to know him or comes in some way into his orbit of his influence. This Wimbledon church seems to be a kind of central hub for the entire conservative evangelical network within Anglicanism. It is still a centre of great importance, along with such centres as St Helen’s Bishopsgate and St Ebbes in Oxford…
…the publication of a photo showing a programme from one of the Iwerne public school summer camps dating back to 1982. This showed John Smyth as a speaker on the same day as Jonathan Fletcher. These two men obviously knew each other well. Clearly also the networks of people who supported the Iwerne camps and their work were well known in Emmanuel circles. It is hard or impossible to imagine that Jonathan Fletcher was left in the dark about John Smyth’s crimes and the reasons for his sudden departure for Africa. This Iwerne/Emmanuel nexus would have had enormous power and influence. We should not underestimate how much power seems to have accrued personally to Jonathan Fletcher as the man in charge of Emmanuel and a key player in Iwerne circles. Any suggestion of wrongdoing by this superstar of the evangelical universe is highly embarrassing, not to say highly destructive, to the wider evangelical world. Jonathan’s power reached out not only to those who were personally caught up by his charisma but he had institutional power, wielded through his participation in committees and other structures of influence. John Smyth’s crimes have already cast one heavy pall over the legacy of Iwerne and the hundreds who passed their formative years within its orbit. Silence on the part of those who knew about Smyth’s crimes has made the eventual effect of discovery far more serious and painful. A similar silence protecting Jonathan over the same period of years has also been allowed to exist. Whatever Jonathan is or is not guilty of, the silence maintained by many who knew allegations against him has made a bad situation far worse.
A final fragment of this complex story is the suggestion online that Jonathan Fletcher has been a member since 1983 of the exclusive dining club, Nobody’s Friends. This club which emerged into public awareness during the IICSA hearings in March last year has a membership group of 60, all elected by the club itself. Each of the members is chosen from either the church, politics or one of the other distinguished professions. Jonathan’s place among this elite group is no doubt in part the result of being born into a family of eminent politicians, his father having served a member of Harold Wilson’s cabinet. But apart from this family background, someone in the church must have seen him to be an important up and coming church person. Thus, in his 40s, he was honoured to sit among Deans, Bishops, and the like, not to mention the crème de la crème of the political establishment. Perhaps as importantly there was another group represented in the club, public-school headmasters, the supporters of Iwerne camps.
Mention of this dining club, Nobody’s Friends, links us back to the establishment network that played an important part in the Peter Ball story. We catch a glimpse of a well-connected group of people who were able to pull many strings, partly because of whom they knew. Jonathan Fletcher was right there in the middle of it all. In other words, like Peter Ball, he knew and was known by enormous numbers of movers and shakers in British society. Also, as with Peter Ball, if the accusations of ‘spiritual manipulation’ are true, then many people would have been affected. Peter Ball’s world was the high church networks so well represented in the Chichester diocese. Jonathan Fletcher’s world is the evangelical nexus represented by the conservative parishes of REFORM. Here we find considerable wealth, privilege and power. Jonathan’s potential capacity to do good and provide a positive influence was enormous. Equally his ability to create harm was extensive. The story, as we have it, is in fragments but we are hinting that the joined-up version we have now points sadly to the latter scenario. As with Peter Ball’s story, the discrediting of an admired hero in an institution goes far further than simply among those who knew the hero directly. It spreads out to many others who expected the highest standards of their leaders.
http://survivingchurch.org/2019/06/27/joining-up-the-dots-the-jonathan-fletcher-story/
Nobody’s Friends
In 2018 the club was subject of a question in the IICSA hearing into abuse in the Church of England. Lord Lloyd had sent a letter of influence in the Peter Ball case to Archbishop Carey prefaced with the phrase “May I presume on a brief acquaintanceship at dinners of Nobody’s Friends?”[17] When asked about the club in his evidence to the Inquiry, Lord Lloyd described Nobody’s Friends as “simply a club, half consisting of the clergy, members of the clergy, and half consisting of members of the laity, which dine together probably twice a year, very often in Lambeth Palace.”
The IICSA counsel pointed out that the Daily Mail had once described it as “centred on a strong core of bishops, ex-Tory ministers and former military top brass, a highly secretive, all-male group representing Britain’s most entrenched professions and institutions.” Lord Lloyd replied, “That’s a typical Daily Mail description of something they don’t particularly like, but I can assure you that Nobody’s Friends is a perfectly ordinary dining club…” The same article that IICSA drew upon in the hearing indicated that Prime Minister Tony Blair had been keen to join the club in 2003.[18][19][20]
Stephen Parsons commented in an influential blog, following the IICSA hearing, that the forum Nobody’s Friends provided for influence in the Peter Ball case suggested a “toxic masculinity” in the Church of England. He went on to say:
A men-only dining club that meets regularly at Lambeth Palace, known as Nobody’s Friends, appears to be a gathering for socially very well-connected Anglicans. Although originally high church in its origins, the club provides an opportunity for a privileged church group to network and sometimes lobby those in authority in the Church …… The Nobody’s Friends dining group has been described as ‘private’ rather than a secret group, but it still represents an exclusive world of male privilege within the heart of the Anglican establishment. When Bishop John Bickersteth once revealed that his appointment to Bath and Wells followed his being ‘spotted’ at a Nobody’s dinner, we began to get the feeling that the values of our church may incline towards corporate and institutional interests rather than a personal morality based on the Sermon on the Mount.[21]
https://twitter.com/seaofcomplicity/status/1037277505735016448?lang=en
Minister ‘spiritually abused’ the vulnerable
Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon
21 June 2019
One of the Church of England’s leading evangelical figures was banned from preaching after “spiritually abusing” vulnerable adults, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
The Rev Jonathan Fletcher, 76, was stripped of his Church powers by the Bishop of Southwark in 2017 following complaints made to the London church where he used to minister.
However, Mr Fletcher, the former trustee of Reform – the conservative movement that has led the opposition to the ministry of women and homosexuals in the Church – continued to preach around the world.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/21/minister-spiritually-abused-vulnerable/
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-daily-telegraph/20190622/281496457812856
The John Smyth affair two years on. Has anything changed?
Today, February 1, is the second anniversary of the Channel 4 programme about the John Smyth scandal. In many ways this scandal remains the greatest open wound among Anglican abuse scandals that has yet to heal. What went on in a hut in a Winchester garden between 1979 and 1981 has never been properly resolved. Although Smyth acted alone, the way that his actions involved so many others, victims and supporters, is mind-blowing. Although his behaviour was not actively condoned by anyone else, the networks he belonged to allowed him to escape scrutiny and justice for the rest of his life. Those who passively supported Smyth have also been allowed to escape questioning. Although the extent of exactly who knew about his nefarious activities is in dispute, it is apparent that a whole tranche of well-connected Christian individuals did know what was going on. These people are in some cases still alive, but they have never been questioned in a formal way. The common denominator was a link with the camps at Iwerne Minster. Smyth had been chairman of the trustees for these camps, so he would have known and been known by everyone active in this network at the time. As has been stated on various occasions in this blog and elsewhere, the camps at Iwerne in Dorset brought together, as participants or supporters, a wealthy elite within the evangelical world. To this day the Titus Trustees continue this same work, the task of evangelising a privileged sector of English society, public school boys.
When the scandal of John Smyth’s behaviour broke with the screening of the Channel 4 programme, everyone expected that there would be a full enquiry about what had been revealed. While the probing eyes of IICSA have been allowed to dig deep into the Chichester Diocese and the Peter Ball affair, no such enquiry has been conducted into the affair of John Smyth. When Smyth died last year, a press release from the C/E safeguarding bishop, Peter Hancock, was released. He stated that ‘It is important now that all those organisations linked with this case work together to look at a lessons learned review, whilst continuing to offer formal and informal support to those who have come forward as survivors.’ The promised enquiry (and the support for survivors) seems to have vanished into thin air. One of the problems may be that the Titus Trustees, who maintain fierce independence from the wider church when it suits them, may simply have refused to cooperate. There was also a statement from Archbishop Welby which expressed an unequivocal apology for the role which the Church of England played in this deplorable affair. We might have expected that somewhere in the past two years some practical steps would be taken to begin to put right the appalling legacy of Smith’s toxic behaviour. But that does not appear to have happened.
There are believed to be at least 20 Smyth victims in Britain at this time. Based on the comments made on Twitter by one of them, Archbishop Welby has not met with any of them personally. I am not here going to get into the argument about how much the Archbishop himself knew of the activities of Smyth before it came into the public domain; even if he did not, it is quite clear that there was a serious conspiracy of silence among many other leading evangelicals in England about the whole matter. This cover-up and denial have exacerbated the pain of Smyth’s victims. Simultaneously a necessary challenge to the corrupt culture within evangelicalism which allowed Smyth’s toxic beliefs to flourish, has never been properly aired.
What could have happened in the past two years to make the Smyth episode resolve itself in some way rather than fester like a tank of stagnant water? I have a few suggestions.
- The Church of England even though it was not responsible for Smyth in a formal way, should, in the spirit of Welby’s apology, hold an enquiry. This would allow the questioning of key witnesses to establish who knew what and when. Several of the members of Smyth’s network which drew up the Ruston report in 1982 are still alive and none have given any public account of what they knew. The ability of Smyth to flee to Africa subsequently and be financially sustained by a group of wealthy evangelical sponsors, especially the Coleman family, needs to be properly explored.
- The second area, which needs to be explored by an enquiry, is the aberrant theology which undergirded Smyth’s behaviour. The biblical quotations with which Smyth intimidated his victims need to be understood. If there are still any evangelicals who believe such things as painful chastisement being of spiritual benefit, let them come forward and argue these extraordinary notions. If they disagree with these ideas, then that also needs to be heard. We need to know in 2019 that such toxic ideas about suffering and salvation have no place even in the darkest places of the Christian imagination. By allowing Smyth to flee the country and by sending considerable sums of money to support him, parts of the evangelical establishment seem never to have distanced themselves from him and his ideas right up to the time of his death. We need to understand more fully what this long-term support of Smyth by prominent and wealthy evangelicals implies about their own involvement in this dark area of Christian history.
- The third area of action that is needed is for the Titus Trustees to accept some responsibility for the care and support of those who suffered so grievously as the consequence of the incompetence of their predecessors on the Iwerne Trust. It has been noted that the Titus Trustees have control over considerable sums of money. They should be shamed into making a substantial contribution to the psychological welfare of Smyth’s victims. If they do not, their future work and the work of the Iwerne camps will be permanently tainted by their historic association with the activities of John Smyth. Is that what they really want to hand on to the next generation of their campers whom they hope to influence in the future?
Two years have passed since the Channel 4 programme and we are still waiting for some movement to take place. We look to the Titus Trustee as inheritors of the Iwerne tradition or to the Church of England, some of whose members helped to promote Smyth and his dangerous ideology. If nothing is done, one wonders how peace can ever return to the Church. There is still a bitter legacy to be addressed – a legacy involving brutal physical abuse, inflicted in the name of a corrupt theology. We are still waiting for the process of healing to begin.
Approximately 90 survivors of Smyth, so far
The survivors have not had an answer as to why you (Welby) sat on the 2013 disclosure for four years, and as far as they are aware, did nothing?
Gilo @seaofcomplicity
If these Church of England clergy had acted – then this Zimbabwe teenager would be alive today.
https://www.channel4.com/news/christian-lawyer-who-beat-boys-was-charged-over-zimbabwe-death
@JustinWelby @bathwellsbish Will you be asking questions Archbishop? Will you be speaking on the emerging revelations of this cover-up?
The church had a full report on John Smyth’s sadistic behaviour in 1982 Private Eye magazine, 24th February, no1438, page 8, supplements the thorough investigation by Channel Four News, in a report under the headline ‘The C of E and the Sado-Evangelist’
Welby claims not to have known about Smyth Speaking on LBC Radio on Thursday, Welby said he had been “completely unaware” of any abuse when he worked at the camp. “I was at that particular camp in the mid-70s. I was young then – 19 to 21 or 22 – and I was completely unaware of any abuse. I never heard anything at all, at any point. I didn’t have the slightest suspicion at all. “As I recall him, he was a charming, delightful, very clever, [a] brilliant speaker. I wasn’t a close friend of his, I wasn’t in his inner circle or in the inner circle of the leadership of the camp, far from it. “And then I went off to work in France in 1978, which is when I am told the abuse began. It may have been earlier or later, I don’t know, and I was abroad during the time the report was done and had no contact with them at all.” The archbishop said he was first informed of the alleged abuse in late 2013 or early 2014. “I was told the bishop of Ely – it fell within his diocese – had been informed by a survivor of what had happened
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/justin-welby-church-england-john-smyth-abuse-claims
The Archbishop has issued this statement in response to the Channel 4 News report.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury was a Dormitory Officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians. The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls. John Smyth was one of the main leaders at the camp and although the Archbishop worked with him, he was not part of the inner circle of friends; no one discussed allegations of abuse by John Smyth with him. The Archbishop left England to work in Paris for an oil company in 1978, where he remained for five years. He began training for ordination in 1989. The Archbishop knew Mr Smyth had moved overseas but, apart from the occasional card, did not maintain contact with him. In August 2013 the Bishop of Ely wrote to the Bishop of Cape Town, informing him of concerns expressed to his Diocese Safeguarding Adviser about Mr Smyth from an alleged survivor. The British Police had been notified. The Archbishop’s Chaplain at the time was forwarded this letter, and subsequently showed it to the Archbishop for information only. The Archbishop has repeatedly said that he believes that the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults should be a principle priority in all parts of the Church, and that any failings in this area must be immediately reported to the police. The Archbishop is on the record as saying that survivors must come first, not the Church’s own interests. This applies regardless of how important, distinguished or well-known the perpetrator is.”
Gilo @seaofcomplicity
Interesting article here that outlines influence of Iwerne upon a sizeable segment of current evangelical leaders within @churchofengland
The aim of the Iwerne Trust: selecting participants from the top 30 “right” public schools who were to become politicians and Prime Ministers and bishops. She is talking about a very exclusive set of people, a group which develops a deep sense of entitlement to rule.
The BBC reported that some of the most influential church leaders of the last century went through these camps. They included the Revd John Stott who became Rector of All Souls Langham Place, the Revd Dick Lucas, Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, and
the Revd Nicky Gumbel, Rector of Holy Trinity Brompton and developer of the Alpha Course. Another person mentioned to me as attending the Iwerne camps is Jonathan Fletcher, Vicar of Emmanuel Wimbledon (who reputedly led Nicky Gumbel to faith). They are all leading conservative evangelicals, and each in their own way has argued from their evangelical teaching in opposing homosexuality in the church.
Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was a Dormitory Officer at Iwerne in the late 1970s, where his role was to be a mentor to the boys. A statement issued on behalf of the Archbishop said that John Smyth was one of the main leaders at the camp and although the Archbishop worked with him, he, Justin, was not part of the inner circle of friends and no one discussed allegations of abuse by John Smyth with him.
Donna Birrell @BBCDonnaB
Aug 21 A group of men who say they were abused by John #Smyth have launched legal action against the #TitusTrust which runs #Iwerne holiday camps. Advocate, @AndrewGraystone says the refusal of the #Titus trustees to offer any help has compounded the mens’ suffering. @Richard_Scorer
Andrew Graystone: “I have personally written to every individual Titus Trustee more than once, pleading for them to do their duty as trustees and as Christians, and help the victims. Not one has responded.”
Victims launch claim against John Smyth camp leaders
VICTIMS LAUNCH CLAIM AGAINST JOHN SMYTH CAMP LEADERS
A group of men who say they were groomed and beaten by the English barrister John Smyth have launched a legal claim against the Titus Trust, which runs the notorious Iwerne holidays network.
One victim, who did not wish to be identified, said “The abuse we suffered as a consequence of attending Iwerne camps has had a devastating effect on all of our lives. We have been compelled to take this course of action because of the unwillingness of the Titus Trust to accept any responsibility for what happened.”
Since John Smyth’s abuse came to public attention in February 2017, Titus Trust has consistently refused to speak to the men, to help identify other victims or to provide for the counselling they all need. Victims’ advocate Andrew Graystone said “I have personally written to every individual Titus Trustee more than once, pleading for them to do their duty as trustees and as Christians, and help the victims. Not one has responded. The refusal of the trustees to offer any help to Smyth’s victims has massively compounded their suffering.”
The victims have instructed Richard Scorer of Slater and Gordon Solicitors to pursue their claim against Titus Trust. Scorer has frequently represented victims of abuse In a church context. He said “No reasonable person could believe that the Titus Trust is anything other than the legal successor to the Iwerne Trust. If the current trustees of the Titus Trust persist in claiming that they bear no responsibility, we will be forced to launch additional claims against the individual surviving trustees of Iwerne, namely David Fletcher and Giles Rawlinson.”
Titus Trust is the legal successor to the Iwerne Trust, which continues to run camps under the Iwerne brand. Iwerne provides a programme of intensive Christian discipleship based around activity holidays. The programme has run continuously since 1930. The most recent Iwerne holidays were held this month.
John Smyth QC was the chair of the Iwerne Trust from 1975 to 1982. He resigned when the trust became aware that he was using the network to recruit young men for abuse. Smyth died at his home in South Africa on 11th August, just eight days after Hampshire Police had summoned him for formal questioning in connection with the offences.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/victims-launch-claim-against-john-smyth-camp-leaders/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Revd Jonthan Fletcher, the long serving vicar of Wimbledon, was elected to “Nobody’s Friends in 1983. He was responsible for the spiritual formation of many young clergy, including Justin Welby and Nickey Gumbel, developer of the Alpha Course.
Jonathan Fletcher
Jonathan James Molyneux Fletcher was the incumbent of Emmanuel Church Wimbledon for 30 years until his retirement at the end of 2012. Previously, he had served as curate at The Round Church in Cambridge and St Helen’s Bishopsgate. He now lives in Wimbledon and enjoys an itinerant ministry speaking and preaching around the world. He is not married, has no children
https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/authors/jonathan-fletcher
Jonathan James Molyneux Fletcher
co-director at Stowe school in 1992 along with convicted paedophile /Nick Clegg’s former headmaster Roland Peter Wright
Roland Peter Wright, 83, of Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, abused boys aged between eight and 13 at Caldicott Preparatory School from 1959 to 1970
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-26073155
https://companycheck.co.uk/director/900855064/REVEREND-JONATHAN-JAMES-MOLYNEUX-FLETCHER/companies
Rev. Jonathan Fletcher retired after 30 years as minister of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon. Prior to that he served as a curate in Cockfosters as well as at the Round Church, Cambridge and at St. Helens, Bishopsgate, under Dick Lucas. Jonathan has a wide-ranging Bible teaching and evangelistic ministry, both in this country and overseas.
http://www.derbybibleweek.org.uk/past/styled-12/page18.html
Graham @Graham1munro
Jonathan Fletcher is brother of David Fletcher, head of Iwerne camps and Titus Trust Trustee. JF was a frequent visitor at Iwerne, along with @justinwelby
Gilo @seaofcomplicity
Who knew about ‘Nobody’s Friend’? Secretive Lambeth Palace dining club which most had never heard of until mentioned at IICSA. Isn’t it time these all-male secret societies had their day? Hasn’t this culture enabled much coverup? @lambethpalace @JustinWelby
https://twitter.com/seaofcomplicity/status/1037277505735016448?lang=en
Rev.Dr Jonathan Fletcher – a ‘patrician’ figure with an international reputation for Bible teaching and evangelism. Jonathan came to Emmanuel in 1982.
http://archive.southwark.anglican.org/thebridge/9807/page06.htm
Jonathan Fletcher – vicar at Emmanuel Wimbledon and another Iwerne camper, I have been told, is a stickler for punctuality and for people not parking in the public lots outside his house and fairly proud of his ability to read the Bible in the original languages and of his tennis hand (he regularly beats much younger men at the game).
This uniqueness could merely be a function of being an Englishman from a certain era, or being shipped off to public school at a tender age (Stott was at Rugby and Fletcher at Repton), the Iwerne influence, or being lifelong bachelors. I
https://ponderouspilgrim.wordpress.com/tag/jonathan-fletcher/
http://www.stpetersbarge.org/trust.html
Jonathan Fletcher Ruston’s curate 1972-76
Welby was involved in the camps as an undergraduate and again as a theological college student in the early 1990s.
Jonathan Fletcher was converted at the age of 12, and nurtured through Scripture Union camps. Through the writings of JC Ryle and Griffith Thomas, he became an ‘Anglican by conviction’, and trained for the ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. He has pastored an independent Anglican church in Wimbledon with an evangelical foundation for the past 25 years.
http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2008/03/evangelicals-then-and-now/
John Smyth dies – just as the CPS gives police go-ahead for his extradition and prosecution
August 12, 2018
John Smyth, who was accused of the sadistic beatings of young men under the guise of Christian discipleship, has died at his home in Cape Town.
This brings to an end one aspect of a case that began in the 1970s/80s and has many unresolved questions to this day. The accusations against Smyth were many: he has been described as the Jimmy Savile of the Church of England, and, like Savile, the full story only seems likely to come out after his death, following which we will learn how people who ‘saw’ didn’t ‘see’; how dots were not joined up, and how wilful blindness descended on institutions which felt that confronting the truth when it needed to be confronted was too painful and too inconvenient for them. Never mind the victims; that’s the way of the world.
Before Smyth’s death, we all had to tip-toe around the allegations, mindful of legal propriety. I, who have argued for proper process for Bishop George Bell, am especially mindful of that…
In Smyth’s case, like Savile’s the allegations were corroborated by a consistent modus operandi, evidenced by something like 26 known victims in the UK including a serving Bishop, and maybe 70 more victims in Africa. It can now be revealed that as I wrote my last piece on Smyth the police had just been advised by the CPS that the evidence had reached the required threshold for a prosecution to be commenced and extradition sought. After many intervening years, that is a high evidential bar to be cleared, and it was.
Whether Smyth knew, and whether this news contributed to his demise directly or indirectly, is not known.
…the problem was exported and flourished in Africa, where there was an even lesser chance of Smyth’s activities being identified and stopped.
… the Ruston report surfaced in as yet unclear circumstances again in 2012/13, when the re-branding of the Iwerne Project saw the Titus Trust and the Church of England presented with an opportunity to address the problems and implications of the scandal within their own ranks, yet they failed even to begin to address the full implications. A public apology only emerged in 2017 after Cathy Newman put the story before the general public on Channel 4 News. That, in itself, is a major indictment.
While the institutions involved were able to hide behind the excuse of ‘ongoing investigation’ in relation to the substantive issue of Smyth’s legal guilt or innocence, there was a secondary and entirely feasible area of investigation concerning how the Ruston report, and the implications of it, were handled – or rather mishandled.
… the Church of England finally did reach out to Africa, but after writing a few letters without response the belated effort to warn the local church of the risks to which they and their young were exposed appear to have petered out rather ineffectually.
http://archbishopcranmer.com/john-smyth-dead-cps-extradition-prosecution/
Secrets, Transparency and the Age of the Internet
This new 21st-century era of readily accessible facts means that institutions need to operate in a new way. If any group wishes to hide evidence of wrong-doing in the past they need to take into account that there are countless press records available on the Net. When a public figure makes a statement about some past event, a check can be quickly made to see if what is said is corroborated by contemporary press accounts.
I can give a live example of a serious discrepancy between the recent public declaration of The Titus Trustees about the death of John Smyth and what is revealed by a newspaper cutting. One of the comments to my post about John Smyth drew attention to a story written by Anne Atkins, the broadcaster and columnist for the Daily Telegraph.
In a column dated October 29th 2012, at the time of the Savile scandal, Anne revealed her discomfort at hearing about the case of abuse against another individual and her unwillingness to do anything about it. She then went on to mention knowing about John Smyth (not mentioned by name in the article but clearly identifiable) and his abusive activities in the garden shed at Winchester. He was apparently a family friend and she had known him since she was a child.
Some of Anne’s friends were due to go out to see Smyth in South Africa but Anne kept her mouth shut about his behaviour as she did not want to be accused of ‘malicious gossip’. The whole way the story is told implies that many people in Anne’s social circles also knew the facts about his abusive behaviour in both England and Africa. She does not indicate that it was in any way secret information at the time.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how even a hint of this story would have reached her column if Anne had ever thought it had to be kept under wraps. She tells the story as though she had learnt the details soon after 1982 when the Ruston report was produced. She and others also knew about the cloud that was attached to Smyth over the subsequent Zimbabwe death. We may conclude that among the circles of well-connected evangelicals, of which Anne is one, the Smyth story was well known.
It was embarrassment, not secrecy that prevented Anne sharing her knowledge to these other friends who were off to see Smyth in South Africa.
How are we to square up this publicly available information from 2012 with the claim that the Titus Trustees were only informed of the facts of Smyth’s crimes in 2014? All the Trustees both of the Iwerne Trust and its successor, the Titus Trust were prominent members of exactly the same social and church circles as Anne Atkins and her family. It stretches credulity to think that the revelations of 2014 could have been fresh news to such a prominent group of supporters of the Iwerne camps.
One person, here a humble blogger, can, by consulting the internet locate awkward facts which call into question the veracity of statements being made by official bodies. I am not going to push this point any further. I just hope that this discrepancy about when different individuals learnt the facts of Smyth’s behaviour will be resolved by some future enquiry. The ease through which this discrepancy was uncovered suggests that anyone making statements to the Press need to take far more care that their claims will not be undermined by an act of checking the internet to see if they are credible. The Titus Trustees statement of the 13 August has already made several survivors extremely distressed and angry as they know it is based on a falsehood. They see it as an attempt to distance the Trust from any responsibility. So how should the Church or a Trust behave when faced with credible information of past abuses?
At the IICSA hearing in March we heard that one way of dealing with the past abuses is to physically destroy files. The bonfire in the Chichester Deanery garden remains a vivid metaphor of the way that some parts of the Church have attempted to deal with awkward past episodes. The Deanery bonfire took place in 1999.
http://survivingchurch.org/2018/08/17/secrets-transparency-and-the-age-of-the-internet/
The Today program reports that It is now known there are at least 87 victims of Smyth’s beatings.
The Today programme reports on the damaging ‘blanking’ of abuses by Church of England and the Titus Trust, formerly the Iwerne Trust
The Iwere network could have stopped Smyth anytime in the last 36 years.
ABC has still not spoken to victims of #Smyth‘s abuse. The @churchofengland default of blanking abusees is very damaging. A report was written for the Iwerne Trust by vicar Mark Ruston in 1982 detailing the abuse perpetrated by #Smyth who was allowed to leave the country /2
The Iwerne Trust became the Titus Trust in 1997. It continues to run elitist camps presumably for the same strategic reasons mentioned in the article. #MandatoryReporting is vital in such settings 3/3
Archbishop apologises for historic ‘abuse’: the full story 2/2/17 | ABC has not spoken to any of #Smyth‘s victims. Why not? Perhaps a newspaper will inform us this week? #WhereisWelby?
https://www.channel4.com/news/archbishop-apologises-for-historic-abuse-the-full-story … …
Christian camp leader John Smyth suspected of abuse dies
A leading barrister suspected of physically abusing boys who attended Christian summer camps has died.
11 Aug 2018
John Smyth QC, 77, had been wanted for questioning over abuse claims concerning boys at Winchester College during the 1970s and 1980s.
In a statement his family told BBC News the cause of death appeared to be a sudden heart attack following a heart procedure last week.
They asked to be “left alone” to grieve in private.
Mr Smyth was previously a senior member of Christian charity the Iwerne Trust and died at his home in Cape Town, South Africa on Saturday.
Victim advocate, Andrew Graystone, said Hampshire police informed victims the CPS had asked them to summon Mr Smyth back to the UK for formal questioning with a view to possible charges last week.
The CPS said it was “not in a position to comment at this time”.
Mr Smyth also previously worked as a barrister representing the moralising campaigner Mary Whitehouse and ran camps in Dorset for young evangelical Christians during the 1970s and 1980s.
He and his wife Anne were excommunicated by Church-on-Main, in Cape Town last year.
Officials said he had been “evasive, combative, non-compliant and generally unwilling to work with us” when the abuse allegations surfaced.
The investigation came after a report by the Iwerne Trust from 1982, which was not made public until 2016.
It found Mr Smyth identified pupils from leading public schools like Winchester College and took them to his home near Winchester in Hampshire, where he carried out lashings with a garden cane in his shed.
It said eight of the boys received a total of 14,000 lashes, while two more received 8,000 strokes between them over three years.
The Iwerne Trust called the practice “horrific” but the claims were not reported to police until 2013 – more than 30 years later.
‘No justice’
Mr Smyth refused to comment on the allegations, which were reported to have happened while Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, worked at some of the camps as a young man in the 1970s.
He said he knew nothing of the abuse until it was reported to police.
The Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson, has also said he was abused by Mr Smyth.
Mr Graystone said a number of alleged victims expressed their sympathy for his family in their loss.
He added: “They are, however, angry that the police and the Church of England have failed to respond to their disclosures for the past six years. As a direct result they will see no justice, and more importantly they will not get answers to their crucial questions about why this was allowed to happen.”
A spokeswoman for Hampshire Constabulary said: “We are in the process of speaking with the victims of the non-recent abuse allegations, to update them on the news that we have heard around the suspect’s death.
“Until those conversations have taken place, and until we have spoken with the CPS and the suspect’s solicitor, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45161316
It’s been over a year and nothing further published on the John Smyth QC investigation, likewise the Jamie Colman & wife Sue Colman one…
Richard Scorer @Richard_Scorer
“I haven’t met a single Iwerne person who thinks it’s credible that Justin Welby didn’t know that Smyth had left the country under a cloud”
The Anglican Church has been embroiled for most of this year in a scandal involving decades-old abuses that occurred in elite Christian holiday camps for boys where Justin Welby worked in his 20s, before eventually assuming his current post as the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury.
The archbishop has said that he knew nothing of the abuse until 2013, when the police were informed about it, and he apologized in February for not having done more to investigate the claims further.
But now the grown men who were victims of the abuse as boys are coming forward to challenge the archbishop’s version of events, casting doubt on his claims of ignorance.
The archbishop, 61, was working abroad in 1982, when an internal investigation by an influential Christian charity supported allegations of sadistic practices by John Smyth, a prominent lawyer and evangelical leader who ran the camps.
The results of that investigation were never made public, and the allegations were dismissed when they were first reported to the British police in 2013 because Mr. Smyth had moved to Africa and was no longer in the country’s jurisdiction. It was not until Channel 4 news disclosed the accusations in a report earlier this year that a criminal investigation was started.
The 1982 inquiry, by Mark Ruston, a close friend of the future archbishop who has since died, was conducted on behalf of the Iwerne Trust, the Christian charity that oversaw the camps. The trust, which was chaired by Mr. Smyth, was a part of a network of camps inspired by the Anglican clergyman E. J. H. Nash, who recruited boys from Britain’s elite schools in the hope of evangelizing them.
The report accused Mr. Smyth of subjecting at least 22 teenage boys to savage beatings in his garden shed, with the intent of purging them of perceived sins such as masturbation and pride.
Mr. Smyth, 75, who is keeping a low profile in South Africa, told Channel 4 news that the claims were “nonsense” and declined to comment further.
Although Mr. Ruston concluded that a criminal act had been committed, the trust decided not to refer Mr. Smyth to the authorities. Instead, he was banished first to Zimbabwe in 1982 and ultimately made his way to South Africa, where he faced new accusations in both countries about mistreated boys.
The report was filed away, and members of the trust, including Mr. Ruston, went on to assume influential positions within the Church of England and vowed, one trust insider said, never to speak about the matter publicly.
For decades, the victims suffered in silence, too ashamed to go public with their stories. All the while, they say, the main concern of officials was to protect the reputation of the trust rather than helping them.
“If this came out earlier, Iwerne would have been finished and its members wouldn’t have been able to rise up the ranks of the church in the way that they have,” said one of the victims, Andy Morse, who added that he attempted suicide twice because of the trauma he said was inflicted by Mr. Smyth.
Archbishop Welby, the principal religious leader in the Church of England, says it was not until one of the victims reached out to the church in 2013 that he learned of the accusations against Mr. Smyth. He said he was working in Paris between 1978 and 1982, when the alleged abuse was taking place, and had not kept in touch with his colleagues at Iwerne.
Although no one has produced proof that Archbishop Welby knew about the beatings at the time they were occurring, his account has been contested by several victims and former Iwerne members.
As an officer of the trust, they say, Mr. Welby was close to other senior members of the group and almost certainly would have been briefed on Mr. Smyth’s absence and the reason behind it when he came back to visit Iwerne after he graduated from Cambridge University.
While Archbishop Welby claims to have fallen out of touch with Iwerne members during his years abroad, an Iwerne event program shows that he came back to give a talk at the trust’s library in 1979.
Moreover, the archbishop and the investigator, Mr. Ruston, were extremely close, as friends and colleagues, the victims and some church figures say, adding that it strains credulity to think that they would not have discussed the matter.
Mr. Ruston was the vicar of the Round Church in Cambridge, England, from the 1960s to the early 1980s, and the archbishop lodged there during his final year at the university in 1978.
Reflecting on their relationship in a magazine article in 2013, Archbishop Welby wrote that, “Mark was someone whose personal holiness shone out in every aspect of his life. We prayed together regularly, talked together a great deal, and I was continually inspired by him to seek to follow Christ more closely.”
A Church of England spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Welby had paid for lodgings at Mr. Ruston’s rectory during his time as a student at Cambridge University, but denied that they had been close friends or that they had remained in contact after he left for Paris in 1978.
“He was certainly not aware of any report or the allegation
Yet a senior Church of England figure who has questioned the archbishop’s account said that many people had heard about the accusations against Mr. Smyth at the time, but they knew to keep it “hushed up.” He withheld his identity because he was not permitted to comment on the issue while the police investigation was ongoing.
The Iwerne insider, who was friends with Mr. Ruston during those years, said that all the senior members of the trust, including officers like Archbishop Welby, had been made aware of the allegations against Mr. Smyth, even those who had been abroad.
Another church figure, Alan Wilson, a Church of England bishop who is friends with former Iwerne members, said that he found it hard to believe the archbishop’s denials.
“I have no evidence, but I haven’t met a single Iwerne person who thinks it’s credible that Justin Welby didn’t know that Smyth had left the country under a cloud connected to his behavior toward boys who had been on Iwerne camps,” he said.
“Smyth was the chair of the trust, and just the fact that he suddenly dropped his law career and went to Africa would have raised questions,” he added.
The matter lay dormant until 2012, when Graham, one of the victims who withheld his last name to protect his privacy, came forward, demanding that the church provide him counseling.
“This whole affair has, I believe, cast a deep shadow over many aspects of my life, affecting my ability to do many things,” he wrote in an email to a member of the Church of England. “I have not worked now for 20 years. I want you, within the church, your circle, your elders, to find someone.”
In addition to counseling, he said, he was looking for justice, acknowledgment and assurance that Mr. Smyth was not committing the same abuses in South Africa that he is accused of in Britain.
It took six months before he received a response, which said there “might be someone who could help.” It was another 10 months before he received another email saying that the person they had in mind was “too busy.”
Graham said it was only after he accused Archbishop Welby of knowing about the abuse and threatened to go to the news media with his claims that he was assigned a therapist.
In response to his concerns over Mr. Smyth’s activities in Cape Town, Graham was told that the Bishop of Ely in Britain had written to the relevant bishop in South Africa but had not received a reply.
“I know this will be of no comfort to you and I’m sorry I have nothing more positive to say,” he was told. “I am hopeful that you may at last find a way to move on from that dreadful experience, in time.”
Many of the victims have asked why the archbishop did not reach out to them immediately after he says he learned of the abuse.
“The silence has been deafening,” Mr. Morse said.
The archbishop earlier broke his silence on a different abuse case by issuing a personal apology to a survivor for failing to respond to 17 letters that had sought his help,The Guardian reported on Sunday. The archbishop had written a letter to an abuse victim, saying that he had been aware that they had been “in communication” over a period of time and he apologized for the way in which the victim’s correspondence had been handled.
While the victims acknowledge that the church has made progress in its understanding of abuse in recent years, they have labeled Archbishop Welby an “observer,” a term that denotes a person who knew about the abuse but did not report it appropriately.
After more than seven months of silence, Mr. Morse received a phone call from Mr. Welby’s office last month asking what could be done for him and other Smyth victims.
Mr. Morse requested that the archbishop give a public interview on the matter and allow the victims to present him with evidence that shows the Titus Trust, which took over from the Iwerne Trust in 1997, lied to the police when the allegations were reported in 2013.
“Leave it with me,” the officer said. “I will make sure it happens.”
He is still waiting.
Follow the money – Insurers/church
Justin Welby apologises to sexual abuse survivor for C of E failings
Archbishop of Canterbury writes personal letter to survivor known as Gilo for his office’s failure to respond to 17 letters
Former Caldicott Headmaster, Simon Doggart, died early on Sunday morning, 23rd July.
In due course, Caldicott will hold a memorial service to celebrate Simon’s extraordinary contribution to the school.
Malcolm Swift
Chair of Governors
http://www.caldicott.com/SimonDoggart.aspx
Not one msm news outlet (except for the Times – below) has published news of his death despite Doggart being a very newsworthy individual. He seems very protected by the establishment.
Published in The Times on Aug. 2, 2017
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thetimes-uk/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=186257144
Another victim, Andy Morse, described how, to continue the beatings, Mr Smyth recruited boys from among victims to take over while he watched. These were often more brutal than Smyth’s attacks. Mr Morse named Simon Doggart as one of these substitutes. “The strokes he gave me were probably the equivalent of three of John’s. Simon was completely brainwashed. I think even then I sensed that it wasn’t my friend beating me: it was actually John Smyth beating me, using my friend to carry out his abuse.”
Another victim spoke of Doggart’s strokes as “far, far worse than Smyth. There was no discussion, no emotion, I recall, just a fit sportsman using all his force.”
The alleged beatings took place in a shed, equipped, Mr Morse said, with dressings to be applied after the beatings. “John Smyth had every single bandage, dressing, iodine, anything that had been invented, but even though he had all that equipment and, I would call it, paraphernalia, we were bleeding everywhere. Even with these dressings on, wearing these adult nappies, we bled all over his house. . .”.
The beatings stopped in 1982, when Mr Morse tried to take his own life.
One survivor who has come forward is the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson (News, 10 February), who described the beatings as “abuse perpetrated by a misguided, manipulative, and dangerous man.
Graham @Graham1munro
Elders of Cape Town church expel alleged abuser John Smyth
09 June 2017
JOHN SMYTH, the Evangelical Christian camp leader accused of savagely beating young men during the 1970s and ’80s in his garden shed (News, 13 April), has been formally expelled from his church in South Africa, where he now lives.
In a lengthy statement, the elders of Church-on-Main, Cape Town, where Mr Smyth and his wife, Anne, have worshipped since 2013, announced that the Smyths would be “excommunicated, with all its scriptural implications”, because of Mr Smyth’s refusal to engage with the church leadership about the allegations.
The statement explains that the church was aware that some had criticised Mr Smyth’s holiday-camp ministry in Zimbabwe when he first joined Church-on-Main, four years ago, but had been assured that this was nothing more than jealousy at the ministry’s success.
Last September, however, the church elders found out that Mr Smyth was regularly meeting young men from Church-on-Main at a sports club, playing squash before showering together and then questioning them about “pornography, masturbation, and other sexual matters”.
They then discovered that Mr Smyth’s Zimbabwe camps had been involved in a court case. The elders’ statement said, however, that whenever they attempted to discuss the matter with Mr Smyth, he became defensive, and attacked the elders’ leadership of the church.
After the allegations first surfaced in the UK in February (News, 10 February), the elders said that they had urged Mr Smyth to return to the UK to work with the police, and told him not to attend Church-on-Main meetings or contact any other church members.
Because he has refused to engage with the leaders, or follow their advice, he has now been excommunicated from the church, the statement says.”
Our counsel has always been for John to present himself to the UK authorities for whatever consequences he could face, admitting, if necessary, to any accusation that holds substance, and to apologise, asking for forgiveness and mercy,” it says.”
If our having had John as a leader of a discipleship group, or his role in any form of ministry has led to hurt or risk to anyone, or to bringing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ into disrepute in any way; for this we apologise.”
Channel 4 News, which first broke the story in February, has broadcast new details that appear to suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury continued to be involved with Iwerne Trust camps at the same time as Mr Smyth.
Archbishop Welby was a dormitory officer at the holiday camps in the late 1970s, when Mr Smyth was one of the leaders. A statement from Lambeth Palace, issued after the Channel 4 programme, said that the Archbishop had worked with Mr Smyth, but that no one had discussed the allegations with him.”
I was completely unaware of any abuse,” the Archbishop told LBC radio in February. “I never heard anything at all, at any point. I never had the slightest suspicion that there was anything going on.”
Last week, Channel 4 News reported that the Archbishop’s name appeared on a speaker roster for an Iwerne Trust camp in 1979, as did Mr Smyth’s, and he remained on the camps’ mailing list, despite then living in France.
Archbishop Welby denied that these documents implied that he was connected to Mr Smyth. “I left to work and live in Paris in 1978 — as I understand it, a year before the abuse was to begin — and did not return to work in the UK until 1983,” he said in a statement this week.”
As I have previously stated, I was not one of the inner circle of people surrounding John Smyth, or in the leadership of the camps. A talk on reading the Bible, which I did as a one-off in 1979, does not make anyone a member of an ‘inner circle’.”
A spokeswoman for the Archbishop declined to comment on Mr Smyth’s expulsion from Church-on-Main.
Archbishop of Canterbury changes account of his involvement with summer camps led by John Smyth
The Archbishop of Canterbury is facing questions tonight over his links to an evangelical Christian under police investigation for beating young men.
Following revelations by this programme four months ago, Justin Welby admitted he had worked with John Smyth at Christian holiday camps, but insisted he had “no contact at all” with the camps after 1978. New evidence now challenges this account.
John Whittingdale: was a student (aged 14-18 yrs old) at Winchester College 1973-1977 when sadomasochist John Smyth was beating students
^ From the Trust Servant – Trusty Servant. This is the major publication of Winchester College Society and is primarily written for Old Wykehamists
https://www.joomag.com/magazine/trusty-servant-nov-2015-no120/0386364001447424078?page=18
A former headmaster of Winchester College has spoken of his regrets over not alerting police to allegations that an evangelical Christian barrister had violently abused pupils at the school.
John Thorn, said he also felt to blame for acting “too slowly” before he banned John Smyth QC from entering the school or contacting its pupils.
His admission follows an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the church’s failure to report allegations of sadomasochistic attacks by Smyth on boys from Christian summer camps in the late 1970s. Welby, 61, worked at the camps, which were run by the Iwerne Trust, headed by Smyth.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/headmaster-i-wish-id-told-police-of-smyth-abuse-fears-cc55lmhhq
Mr Thorn wrote in The Road to Winchester, published in February 1989: “I was told the extraordinary news that the neighbouring barrister had gained such personal control over a few of the senior boys in the group, and had kept it after they left the school, that he was claiming to direct their burgeoning relationship with girls and was, with their consent, punishing them physically when they confessed to him they had sinned.
“The World of Conservative Evangelism was reft in twain. Absurd and baseless rumours were circulated that he was an unhinged tyrant, the embodiment of Satan. He must be banished. And – quietly but efficiently – he was.
“He left the Winchester district and then the United Kingdom. He departed for Africa with his family and, by me, has not been heard of since.”
John Leonard Thorn (born 28 April 1925) is a writer and educational consultant. He was headmaster of Repton School from 1961 to 1968 and then of Winchester College until 1985. He was Chairman of the Headmasters’ Conference for 1981.
He was a director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1971 to 1976; a Trustee of the British Museum from 1980 to 1985, and of the Winchester Cathedral Trust, from 1986 to 1989; Vice-Chairman of the Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust from 1989 to 1992, then its Chairman until 1996; for some years he served on the Executive Committee of the Cancer Research Campaign. He was Chairman of Governors of Abingdon School from 1991 to 1994 and was also a Governor of Oakham School and of Stowe School during the 1980s.[1] Thorn continued to teach including A-level Philosophy classes at King Edward VI School in Southampton in the late 1990s.
In 1989 he published an autobiography, The Road to Winchester. Now in his nineties, he is a member of the Garrick Club[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thorn_(headmaster)
Family of lawyer accused of beating boys demanded he stopped working with children
Family members of a barrister accused of subjecting boys to savage sadomasochistic beatings tried to stop him working with children, it has emerged.
John Smyth QC, a friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is accused of abusing teenagers in both Britain and Zimbabwe, having run Christian holiday camps in both countries.
The Daily Telegraph can disclose that his brother-in-law and sister-in-law both resigned from the trust that oversaw his mission in Zimbabwe, in protest at his refusal to stop working with children.
Mr Smyth’s brother, Christopher, is also said to have told the barrister to stop his work with young people after becoming aware of the beating claims.
The part-time judge moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, after allegations emerged that he had beaten 22 young men in his garden shed in Winchester, having persuaded them it would help purge them of their sins.
After moving to Africa, Mr Smyth set up the Zambezi Trust, which was modelled on the work he had carried out in Britain and ran holiday camps for boys from the nation’s elite public schools.
In 1989, the headmaster of Winchester College published a book in which he referred to the beating allegations involving Mr Smyth, identifying him only as the school’s “neighbouring barrister”.
Mr Smyth immediately wrote to the trustees of the Zambezi Trust, who included Janet Brooks, sister of the barrister’s wife, Anne, and her husband, Jonathan. He claimed he had been “completely dependent on sleeping pills” at the time of his “extraordinary aberration of judgment”.
Minutes from the Zambezi Trust show that Mr Brooks, a leading gynaecological surgeon, and his wife joined the other trustees in writing back, saying they would quit unless he withdrew from “direct personal involvement in youth work” in Zimbabwe.
It is understood that the Brooks had a meeting with Christopher Smyth, also a barrister and part-time judge, and his wife, Jayne, who agreed that Mr Smyth should stop working with children. However, Mr Smyth rejected the trustees’ ultimatum and the group resigned en masse.
A friend of Mr and Mrs Brooks said: “It was extremely difficult for them, and they were very courageous. Both Jonathan and Janet are very principled people and were not prepared to be involved with something where there might be a risk of unsavoury activities, and that’s why they resigned. They thought he needed treatment.”
In 1997, Mr Smyth was charged with culpable homicide after a 16-year-old boy was found at the bottom of a swimming pool in 1992. Several boys then came forward to claim he had beaten them with bats and forced them to swim naked as he watched, although both cases against him collapsed.
The Sunday Telegraph yesterday printed a letter from Mr Smyth to parents of boys due to attend a Zambesi Trust camp in 1993. In it, he wrote that he would shower with the boys and planned to use a wooden bat “fairly liberally” in the event of misbehaviour.
The barrister also wrote how he would encourage the boys to skinny- dip. He added: “It is all part of the all-boys-together fun of camp”.
Christopher and Jayne Smyth did not return requests for comment, and nor did Mr and Mrs Brooks.
Further Inquiries into Abuse by British Barrister, John Smyth QC
Further questions are being asked in relation to an alleged cover up of child abuse which was endured by teenage public school boys at the hands of a British barrister, John Smyth QC, in the 1970s and the 1980s.
On behalf of the Iwerne Trust, John Smyth ran religious summer camps in the 1970s and early 1980s, which were attended by boys from elite public schools. It is alleged that Smyth subjected the school boys to horrific beatings in order to purge them of their “sins”.
Allegations of abuse emerged back in 1982 after one of Smyth’s alleged victims attempted to commit suicide. In response, the Iwerne Trust commissioned an internal inquiry into the abuse which was conducted by Mark Ruston, a Church of England vicar. The report detailed the prescribed punishments for “sins” such as masturbation and pride, 100 and 400 strokes respectively. It was reported that over a three year period, eight boys had received 14,000 lashes between them, with two of the boys being whipped 4,000 times each. The report also stated that these beatings were carried out while the boys were either naked or semi-naked in order to “increase humility”.
Pupils of Winchester College were among the alleged victims and the allegations of abuse were disclosed by the Iwerne Trust to the college in 1982. In response, the headmaster of Winchester College at the time met with Smyth and made him undertake that he would never again enter the college or contact its pupils.
Like the Iwerne Trust, Winchester College failed to disclose the abuse to the police.
The survivor of abuse whose suicide attempt had prompted the inquiry fairly acknowledged that “everything could have been stopped” if the police had been informed.
The failure to report and prosecute John Smyth in the UK allowed him the opportunity of a fresh start when he moved to Zimbabwe in 1984. In Zimbabwe, Smyth founded the Zambesi Ministry, a series of Christian summer camps for boys from top public schools. It is alleged that at these summer camps, Symth abused teenagers in a similarly brutal way as he had done in the UK.
In 1997, Smyth was arrested and charged with killing a 16 year old boy named Guide Nyachuru, who was found dead in a swimming pool at one of the summer camps in 1992. It was also alleged by five other boys that Smyth had subjected them to abuse, including savage beatings. In 1998, the case of culpable homicide was dismissed against Smyth after it was claimed that prosecutors had overstated the claims and failed to follow procedures.
In 2002, Smyth moved from Zimbabwe to South Africa where he became a campaigner against gay rights.
The Church of England claims that it reported the abuse to the Cambridgeshire police in 2013, and again in February 2014, after an alleged victim came forward. However, because the allegations were non recent and there were difficulties with respect to the extradition of John Smyth from South Africa, no investigation was launched. In 2014, the allegations were separately reported to Hampshire police. However, the fact that the reporting party would not provide details of other victims or further information again prevented the police from opening an inquiry.
Last month Hampshire police initiated a formal investigation into the non recent allegations of sadistic abuse by John Smyth. They are appealing for anyone with any information about the events detailed above to get in contact with their investigation team, quoting Operation Cubic.
The leading QC John Smyth is accused of having brainwashed 22 young men Britain’s oldest public school, Winchester College in what victims now describe as a “cult”, persuading his victims the beatings could purge them of their sins.
Among them was Andy Moorse, who was 14-year-old pupil at Winchester College in 1975 when he was groomed. In less than two years, Moorse was accepting regular and violent beatings in Smyth’s garden shed, he told the BBC.
John Whittingdale likes to be beaten and is into torture porn…
….and John Whittingdale’s older half-brother, school teacher, Charles Napier, was part of an elite paedophile ring and a member of PIE – Paedophile Information Exchange
Paedophile Charles Napier deliberately got a job at a boarding school so he could prey on pupils aged eight to 13.
In 1972, Napier was found to have indecently assaulted pupils at a Surrey school where he was working. After being banned from teaching, he left the country.
John Whittingdale 1992
Back in England, Napier was jailed for nine months in 1995 for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy he’d lured to his home in the 80s.
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=484671
Charles Napier was born in 1947 and John Whittindale in 1959. – Paedophile Charles Napier was 12 yrs-old when little half-brother John was born.
Was Charles Napier a mentor to younger half-brother, John?
John Whittingdale’s father died in 1974 when John Whittingdale was 15 yrs old.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1612147/pdf/brmedj02000-0085.pdf
Both brothers have remained close to their mother. Charles Napier was living with their mother when he was arrested.
http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/4682762.display/#
Mr Whittingdale is perfectly positioned to talk about the measures he and his family took to alert the relevant authorities whenever Napier took up a new post with access to children.
Mr Whittingdale will have the crucial insight into the family or environmental background that creates such a monster.
When letters arrived from Sweden, Cairo and Turkey to family members during a period when Napier was banned from teaching and Mr Whittingdale was firmly embedded in Non 10, what dilemmas did the family face, how did they deal with family loyalty as opposed to public duty expected of a powerful public figure.
The Guardian
(London, Greater London, England)
28 Aug 1996, Wed • Page 27
“Charles is such a trial to my mother. Every time he gets sacked, she asks him why he can’t find some work which doesn’t involve children. And then after being on the dole for awhile, he rings her up in great excitement and says ‘ Marvellous news, mummy, I’ve got a new job -it’s in a youth club…'”
Half-brother of Tory MP John Whittingdale jailed for historic abuse
John Whittingdale business links:
Ukranian Society along w/ LORD RICHARD JOHN GRENVILLE RISBY –
Henniker- Major (British Council) – his ex- son-in-law Risby– who was involved in a threesome
Henniker-Major –
Paedophile friends of Charles Napier – Peter Righton and partner Richard Alston were allowed to live on and have children visit, Henniker’s Thornham Magna Estate.
https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/operation-clarence/
2012 Algerian President Bouteflika (left) shakes hands with Lord Richard Risby
Risby was a director at THE BRITISH SYRIAN SOCIETY LIMITED along with Tim Pendry, (Exaro) Lord David Steel, Sir David Alwyn Gore-Booth
Spring subsequently served as PPS to to Nicholas Soames [13]
https://alchetron.com/Richard-Spring,-Baron-Risby-436515-W
Nicholas Soames is a very close friend of Prince Charles and the royal family.
Abuse scandals probe : The man who may hold key to UK’s biggest paedophile network ever
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/charles-napier-arrest-half-brother-tory-1998917
Charles Napier could provide vital evidence for police investigating a child abuse scandal spanning three decades
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paedophile-scandal-charles-napier-could-1430365
3.04.17
Child abuse survivor wins out-of-court settlement, giving evidence against establishment figures
In his diaries, Righton scored children according to how far the abuse went. This practice was revealed to Parliament by Tom Watson MP, whom Mr Briggs consulted after reading about Righton in a newspaper article.
It was following discussions with Tom Watson that Mr Briggs gave a statement to the police, as part of their Operation Fairbank into a high level paedophile conspiracy operating from Westminster.
Mr Briggs also approached specialist child abuse lawyer Tracey Emmott of Bedford-based Emmott Snell.
Cyril Smith and Lord David Steel
He was taken by Righton in his car to London, to meet a man he later recognized as Cyril Smith, the leading Liberal politician. Smith was later revealed to have been a serial paedophile.
Righton also boasted of other friends in high places, including the late Leon Brittan, who was home secretary at the time.
Brittan has come under scrutiny in several child abuse investigations, though has been cleared of involvement in at least one. His widow has received an apology from the police.
But Righton claimed Brittan could influence judicial procedures in his favour should Mr Briggs ever find himself in trouble.
Mr Briggs recalls that Righton was known as ‘the general’ among his friends who called at the flat and in telephone calls.
Charles Napier and Peter Righton
Charles Napier, another convicted paedophile and friend of Righton and Alston, also visited the flat to gain access to Mr Briggs and his friends.
Napier was convicted and sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment in 2014 for sexually abusing boys between 1973 and 1983. He was the treasurer of PIE.
http://emmottsnell.co.uk/news.php?id=1492076761
Sir Jimmy Savile and Freemason & PIE member Keith Harding
Clockmaker Keith Harding played vital role in Britain’s biggest child sex ring
“Leon Brittan and Cyril Smith were both regular visitors to the shop.
Usually they would come in via the side door, other times they would ring the bell at the front entrance and come in.
“They’d straight away ask for Keith who would be coming down the stairs.
“Then they would then either go up to his office for a private meeting or they’d go out for several hours.”
The former worker added: “The shop had many high profile customers, including the Royals.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/576187/Keith-Harding-MPs-Leon-Brittan-Cyril-Smith-Jeremy-Thorpe
Knowl View School Cover-Up
Knowl View: Report into abuse at Rochdale school ‘suppressed’
Where Cyril Smith and others abused children.
One former pupil called Peter says he was abused by a staff member on the first day he arrived at the school at the age of 11.
He said the “worst nights” were when people were brought from outside the school.
“We were raped. There was a flat. We were taken there and plied with drink and raped.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27687351
Charles Scott Napier was born into the very heart of the British Empire’s military and intelligence establishment.
The only son of John Whittingdale FRCS[4] and Margaret née Napier,[5] via his mother Whittingdale is in distant remainder to the lordship of Napier.[6]
At the time of his paedophile offences one of Napier’s distant cousins was married to Sir Peter Hayman, a senior MI6 officer who was later himself exposed as a paedophile though never prosecuted.
How did Charles Napier manage to continue teaching even after his first conviction for indecent assault in 1972?
http://thameshouse.net/2014/11/18/charles-napier-related-to-fellow-paedophile-in-mi6/
In 1981 – on National Institute for Social Work headed paper – Righton wrote a letter to DoE:
In my view, Mr Napier is a gifted teacher of both adults and children. I believe that, during the years since his conviction, he has acquired a knowledge and disciplined mastery of himself which would justify the conclusion that he no longer constitutes a sexual risk to children in his charge. It would give me great pleasure – and cause me no anxiety – to hear that the Secretary of State had reviewed his decision of 24 November 1972, in Mr Napier’s favour.
https://scepticpeg.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/operation-clarence/
More here
Claims John Smyth recruited victim – now head of top prep school – to help him carry out beatings
“John Smyth beat me first, appallingly, with his usual force. Then Simon Doggart took over while John watched”, said one victim who wished to be anonymous.
“I recall immediately the absolute brutality of his beating – far, far worse than Smyth. There was no discussion, no emotion that I recall, just a fit sports man using all his force.
“Then it was over, this was going to be the new regime,” he told the BBC.
The leading QC is accused of having brainwashed 22 young men Britain’s oldest public school, Winchester College in what victims now describe as a “cult”, persuading his victims the beatings could purge them of their sins.
Among them was Andy Moorse, who was 14-year-old pupil at Winchester College in 1975 when he was groomed. In less than two years, Moorse was accepting regular and violent beatings in Smyth’s garden shed, he told the BBC.
He revealed the boys would “bleed everywhere” from the beatings and when the beatings became too physical for Smyth to carry out alone, he claimed recruited Doggart to his cause.
The BBC said it had spoken to Doggart’s victims and had been handed nine hours of recording left unheard for years which reveal the full extent of the abuse. On one occasion, a victim was beaten for 12 hours.
Simon Doggart attended Horris Hill 1969-1974
Simon Doggart’s great-uncle: James Hamilton Doggart – member of the establishment and secret society – The Apostles – members included Soviet spies Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=James%20Hamilton%20Doggart
Andreas Baader @stop1984
Blunt had the very best insurance, not only did he know about VIP Paedophiles,also knew how close to Hitler, Edward the VIII was.
King Edward VIII: Uncle who encouraged young Queen’s Nazi salute ‘plotted with Adolf Hitler to regain throne’
The Apostles came to public attention again following the exposure of the Cambridge spy ring in 1951. Three Cambridge graduates with access to the top levels of government in Britain, one of them a former Apostle, were eventually found to have passed information to the KGB. The three known agents were Apostle Guy Burgess, an MI6 officer and secretary to the deputy foreign minister; Donald MacLean, foreign office secretary; and Kim Philby, MI6 officer and journalist.
Writers have accused several other Apostles of being witting Soviet agents. Roland Perry in his book, The Fifth Man (London: Pan Books, 1994) makes a circumstantial case against Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild, who was a friend to both Burgess and Blunt.
Jimmy’s work required him to spend weekdays in London where he spent many evenings with friends at the Garrick Club.
A painting still hangs there, depicting a trip by Garrick members to the Derby. Jimmy is portrayed rapt in conversation with a colourfully dressed gypsy woman. …he seems unaware that a smudge-faced child, possibly the son of the gypsy, is sneaking his little hand into his pocket.
Order of the Knights of St. John
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Apostles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hamilton_Doggart
Simon Doggart’s cousin Sebastion Doggart –
Sebastian Doggart is the grandson of the eminent ophthalmologist and writer James Hamilton Doggart; son of the author/development economist Caroline Doggart and the international financier and philanthropist Anthony Doggart;[62] brother of the conservationist Nike Doggart;[63] nephew of the cricketer and educator, Hubert Doggart; and cousin of the headmaster, Simon Doggart.
Sebastian Doggart examines corporal punishment in the US and elsewhere.
Simon Doggart attended Horris Hill
Denied The Chance To Love: Examples Of Abuse In British Boarding Schools
By Benjamin Fry
2014
Ho
There has been a huge response in the press to the journalist Alex Renton’s courageous article about examples of abuse in british boarding schools, which you can read here: Abuse in British boarding schools – why I had to confront my demons
He was writing about his experiences at Ashdown Prep School and the appalling abuse that the children suffered there.
As he says at the end of the article:-
“I thought of those others .. who wanted to speak up. I thought of the children in council care homes, in borstals and mental institutions, who over the years were left in thrall to adults without protection. I thought of .. the great swathe of collateral damage that psychological trauma leaves. I thought of all the kids taken from their homes too early and thus denied, as the writer David Thomas once put it, the chance to love”.
I think Alex Renton’s article is timely as, despite some increasing openness, people in positions of power undoubtedly still feel they can get away with abuse, and proper deterrents are not in place. It is important that there is a strong message in our society that causing sexual harm to children will not go unpunished.
Benjamin Fry at the age of 18, modelling for Mario Testino
Mario Testino, who turned out to be one of the most famous photographers of our generation, and Lady Diana’s favourite.
Fry, Benjamin. How I F***ed Up My Life And Made It Mean Something (p. 10). Khiron Books. Kindle Edition.
To give you a case in point, a teacher whom I knew at prep school, up to the age of 12, was prosecuted in 2001 following complaints against him by six former pupils. He was acquitted, which shocked me. You can see why in the extract below from my 2004 book, ‘What’s Wrong With You’.
You will see that I am fairly certain that there has been miscarriage of justice. I hope that Alex’s brave article will go some way to helping to correct the culture which has facilitated that.
Case Study: Hot Rod
It turned out that there were four pedophiles teaching at my prep school. That’s quiet a lot among the staff for only one hundred and fifty boys.
‘Men Who Are Attracted to 13-Year-Old Boys Make the Best Teachers’ – Director of Kent Social Services ’74-’85
The Confessions of Rev. Nicolas Stacey
In the archives of the British Library are five tapes which should be a cause of concern to us all. Much of the interview with Rev. Nicolas Stacey relives his action-packed adventures at war, his unlikely turn as an Olympic athlete, and his time in the Church of England. Some of the content of the tapes have caused victims of Kendall House sexual abuse to call for an immediate inquiry.
Nicolas Stacey was the Director of Social Services for Kent from 1974 until 1985. The position was relatively new and had only been created three years prior. Nick had made a sideways move from being Director of Social Services for Ealing from its inception in 1971. On the tapes, Stacey says “They started these social service departments, and I thought that this could be something that I could do. Although I was neither a social worker, nor local government officer.”
He goes on to explain, “I think the Chief Executive thought, ‘Look, I’m going to upstage Keith Joseph’ (the then Secretary of State for Social Services) by persuading the council to put up somebody who would be turned down again, because I was not, simply not, qual… ‘cause in general, almost all the people that were appointed had some social worker training.” Stacey was obviously unsuitable for the role but by 1974 he was in charge of six thousand staff across Kent, and responsible for over one hundred thousand potential service users.
If we rewind the tape at this point and go back to Nicolas Stacey talking about his school days, we can begin to see why he was so inappropriate for the role.
Billy Williamson
I was amazed to hear Rev. Stacey talk of his old Deputy Headmaster at Wellesley House Pre-Prep School, Broadstairs, Kent. I had already heard of the fiendish Billy Williamson whilst investigating Ashdown House Prep School, the Sussex boarding school where Boris Johnson was a student. After his time as Stacey’s deputy head in Broadstairs, William Glynn Williamson became the headmaster of Ashdown House and his reign of terror was unforgettable to the students whom he ruled. He was known for bare-bottom flogging of teenage boys, harsh corporal punishment, and a short fuse. William Glynn Williamson had married the mother of a Wellesley house pupil, Laura Violet Morton, and used her fortune to acquire Ashdown House boarding school for boys.
In Alex Renton’s book, Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes, and the Schooling of a Ruling Class, we can see examples of Billy Williamson and his behaviour towards children. Renton writes, “Billy Williamson had taken over Ashdown shortly after the Second World War. One of his pupils in the early 1940s, when he taught at a school called Wellesley House, was publisher Anthony Blond. In a memoir, he described Williamson as a ‘magic man,’ a brilliant teacher. Blond says Williamson was ‘in love, as teachers have to be (without being practising pederasts) if they are to stay sane, with the concept of ‘boy’ – and some specimens more than others’.” Williamson was a keen flogger of their “bare bottoms,” but the pupils liked their master no less.
Rev. Stacey was good friends with Anthony Blond, who also published his autobiography Who Cares? in 1971. Nick Stacey describes on the tapes how Blond was a “very colourful man” and goes on to say, “He married and then I think he got divorced, and he lived with the most ‘beautiful boy’ in London, called Andrew McCall, and that split up. And then he married a very upper class girl. And much younger than him. And I said to Anthony when he got engaged to her, what do her parents think about this and he said, ‘They think I’m an elderly bisexual Jew.’”
Nick Stacey would also describe Billy Williamson in a peculiar manner on the recordings. “Willie Williamson, who went on to be headmaster at Ashdown Forest where Princess Margaret sent her son, was a genius with bright, attractive 13-year-old boys… and absolutely never did anything that was the least bit improper — but I mean he was really an example of [how] people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.”
Williamson would also employ Martin Haigh, the teacher who in 2017 was convicted of sexually abusing four boys during his time teaching at Ashdown House. Billy Williamson’s brutal abuse of young boys would continue unabated until he stepped down as headmaster of Ashdown in 1975.
Rev. Nicolas Stacey frequently used terms like “bright attractive 13-year-old boys,” “beautiful boys,” and made statements like “people who are attracted to boys of that age are the most brilliant teachers.” If those statements were to be made in an interview for the Director of Social Services for Kent today, what would happen? I would suggest the result should be a public inquiry.
Stacey’s Blanket Silencing
The third and fourth tapes contain damning evidence of neglect, cover ups, and a systematic culture of ignoring children that went right to the top of Kent Social Services. Stacey became relaxed speaking to the interviewer, Louise Brodie. After hours of stating his early triumphs, Nick begins to speak of his tenure as the Director of Kent Social Services. At times, he makes more statements that cause concern.
“It’s terribly sad when you’re sexually orientated towards children,” he said, while defending a Canadian child sex offender who was a church organist. Stacey describes how he frightened the other Directors of Social Services because he was “a different beast.” But his tone becomes almost sinister when talking of rules he set down with his six thousand member staff about dealing with accusations of abuse. “Nobody was to go to the police about accusations against staff without my approval. And it is incredible the way times have changed. I could never begin to do that now. But children, especially children in care, are incredibly manipulative.” Nicolas Stacey should never have been director of Kent social services.
Children were physically pinned down in Kendall House, drugged with excessive doses of controversial medications, beaten regularly, mentally abused, sexually abused, and in some cases raped. Nicolas Stacey states, “I never once went to the police. This was because I never felt that we had a serious case and never in the eleven years I was there did a scandal occur. I mean no scandal that I know of, or none that got out in the public.” Louise Brodie cuts in on the recording and asks Stacey, “No scandal about your staff?” Stacey replies, “About my staff. Now what I did do, I said ‘Look, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to resign. I am going to have you put on the register of “at risk”.’” A clear admission by Rev. Nick Stacey that he had covered up abuse whilst head of the Kent Social Services. This was Stacey’s “Frost-Nixon” moment. “I would try and get them to go to counselling, had it emerged, you know, that… rampant abuse of kids had occurred, you know.”
Nick Stacey openly admitted on tape that there were cases of abuse, but that he had not informed the police, and instead offered voluntary counselling to the abuser. No mention of the abused at all. But the shock confessions don’t stop there. Stacey went on to say, “A member of staff once hit a child very hard and we had to go to the police. But I went into the dock. I got one of the best QCs. In fact, he was a son of Canon John Collins, you would know from your South African experience. And I went to court and spoke. I said you’ve got no idea how these children wind care staff up. You know, we sit comfortably at our home, we expect care staff with small pay to look after some of the most admittedly tragically deprived. It’s not their fault that they wind people up, and they’re aggressive. Once somebody loses their cool and they do hit somebody then, you know, you say they should be locked up. And I got them off.” Stacey seemed to be very focused on his staff and never on the service users in his care. How many other cases of abuse did he cover-up?
The Survivors
For Stacey it was always about winning, but for the former residents of Kendall House during his term as Director of Social Services for Kent, life had been about loss. The tapes, which were recorded in 2006, were discovered by one of the survivors. Teresa Cooper had once been locked in a room for over a hundred and sixty days in Kendall House. That was one of the many various illegal punishments that the teenage girls living in the care home endured.
My initial thought whilst listening to the Nicolas Stacey tapes was of the various survivors of Kendall House during his tenure as director. I spoke with Teresa Cooper and I asked how it felt when she first discovered the tapes. “I was shocked,” Mrs. Cooper told me, “and then I cried because I didn’t know who to tell as no one listens to me.” I could only imagine the range of emotions that Teresa Cooper experienced. She went on to tell me “I can’t describe how shocked I was. Mortified is an understatement because when you listen to the recordings you realise what you are up against.”
What’s clear from listening to the seven hours of interviews, is that Nicolas Stacey was very much a part of the establishment. Rev. Stacey admitted to hiding cases of abuse while he was responsible for the safety of the children in care homes around Kent. This admission should be enough to deserve a public inquiry into Kent Social Services during his reign as well as the Kent Police force’s response to the recorded confessions. Nick Stacey is a perfect example of the culture that existed in the United Kingdom during the 70s and 80s, where the cries of victims were ignored. Instead, Stacey routinely protected sexual predators and child abusers in general. It is important for all of us to understand what went wrong during that period of systematic child sexual abuse. Kent Police and Kent Social Services refuse to take any responsibility for their inaction even after the facts have surfaced.
There are still hundreds of people who suffered abuse, whilst in Kent care homes, who remain unrepresented. Their extreme experiences and ongoing related sufferings have been ignored by the current Kent establishment. And yet, before Nicolas Stacey’s death in May 2017, he was honoured as a speaker at the Kent Legend’s Association dinner. His various obituaries in the major British newspapers praised him as a man who helped revolutionise the care industry. His sympathy for and aid to paedophiles has been completely ignored.
Teresa Cooper talks about her experience of abuse at Kendall House.
Simon Doggart / Caldicott School
Update:
More claims emerge of alleged abuse at Christian camp
It has been claimed a man at the heart of a child abuse scandal in the Church of England recruited one of his victims to help him carry out beatings.
Simon Doggart
Alleged victim Andy Moorse told the BBC that barrister John Smyth QC convinced Simon Doggart to join in committing the sadomasochistic abuse at Winchester College in Hampshire during the mid-1970s.
He alleged that the boys would “bleed everywhere” from the attacks.
Mr Doggart, who has been the headteacher of Caldicott preparatory school in Buckinghamshire for the last two decades, is said to be critically ill and unable to respond to the allegations, the broadcaster said.
There is no suggestion that any pupil at Caldicott Preparatory has ever suffered harm at the hands of Mr Doggart.
Hampshire Police says it is investigating.
Survivors said abuse undertaken at Christian camps run at Winchester College – the oldest public school in the country – amounted to a cult, with victims being told the violence would purge them of their sins.
Two years after assault allegations first emerged in 1982, John Smyth – a leading barrister – moved to Zimbabwe where he founded several Christian camps at which it is claimed he abused youngsters.
The Bishop of Guildford Rt Rev Andrew Watson came forward in February 2017 to claim he survived one occasion of abuse at the hands of John Smyth.
John Smyth is still living as a free man in South Africa.
https://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/More-claims-emerge-of-alleged-abuse-at-Christian-camp
Caldicott School: Child Sexual Abusers and Timeline
Pupils at Caldicott School, Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire suffered child sexual abuse over a number of years and a number of abusers. It is now a charity [4], as are many “public” schools. It is not known what the status of the school was when child sexual abuse offences were being committed by its teachers and covered up by the school.
Known abusers so far were
- Peter Roland Wright, former Caldicott pupil [23], was finally charged and convicted in 2014. Previous attempts to indict him failed in 2003 due a Judge deciding it was too great a the length of time since offences and the defendants health. A stay on that indictment meant he only faced charges from new victims who came forward. He was sentenced to 8 years. He was tried with offences from 1964-1970 [3]. Victims were mainly 11-13 years old [3]. He was at the school from 1952 -1993, the last 25 years as Headmaster. Wright, and when Headmaster covered up Marton Carsons abuse [1] See also Court Appeal Roland Peter Wright 5 August 2014 Court of Appeal[3] Peter Wright still lived at a cottage overlooking the school after he retired, before his recent vacation in prison.
Peter Roland Wright – Serial Child Abuser
- Hugh Edward Henry admitted 13 counts [3] including two counts of incitement to gross indecency and eleven counts of indecent assault [9][12]. He is thought to have been at Caldicott between 1958-1963 and offences on one boy were from 1962-63 [12]. He committed some of his offences at his bedsit and on a school skiing trip with Peter Wright. He was also charged with offences at Gayhurst School, Gerrards Cross. Little else is known of his offending, where else he worked and any other possible offences. He killed himself by walking in front of a train before sentencing. [12]
- John Addrison, another former Caldicott pupil [34], was charged in 2012 with offences at Caldicott between Jan and July 1978 and at Moor Park School, Ludlow between 1985 and 1988 and sentenced to roughly 5 years. It is also not clear what he did straight after leaving Caldicott; when he started at Moor Park school or what he did after being dismissed from Moor Park School in 1988, although he was teaching in 2010 [2]. It is not known if he committed further offences after 1988. Also see Government UK National College for Teaching and Leadership Mr John Addrison: Professional Conduct Panel outcome Panel decision and reasons on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education [2] pdf download, and reproduced in Appendix 1 below
- Martin Carson, a science teacher, was found to be committing child sexual abuse offences at Caldicot in 1973, but it was covered up by the school and he received just a 5 year ban from teaching [6]. Carson was charged with two charges of buggery, eight charges of indecent assault and one count of possessing indecent photographs. He pleaded guilty in 2003 and was sentenced to just 2 years in prison. Details are lacking of offences, when employed at Caldicott. Carson resumed his career in 1980 at prep school in Eastbourne where he was appointed Head of Pastoral care [38] and he taught at Harrodian School, Bath, at the time of the video Chosen in 2008. It is not known if the committed further offences at these school or elsewhere [6].
- David Keith Geddes, another teacher, was acquitted of offences between 1975-77 after a retrial [14][28]
- George Hill Peter Wrights deputy in the 1970s killed himself which probably saved him from facing charges [33]
There is a good summary of legal outcomes on the Mandate Now website [28]The Caldicott Trials and Outcomes [28] where there is also a video interview of Tom Perry with Jon Snow.
the boarding school that British politician Nick Clegg attended as a child; Caldicott School
| Caldicott Preparatory School became a charitable trust in 1968 under the Headmaster at the time Peter Wright.
Today there are around 250 boys. The present headmaster, Simon Doggart, was appointed in 1998; he came from Eton College where he taught history and was master-in-charge of cricket. He is a member of IAPS and the school’s governors include past parents, old boys and headmasters of public schools. |
| On 30 September 2008 the school was the subject of a feature documentary, Chosen, transmitted on More4 as part of the “True Stories” strand, about the sexual abuse that went on at the school during the late 1960s and early 1970s.[2] The headmaster Peter Wright was active in this, as well as a number of other teachers, targeting boys good at sports and, to a lesser extent, in the choir. In The Guardian published on the same day, a former parent alleged that Lord Justice Scott Baker former Chairman of the Board of Governors, and Simon Doggart the current headmaster, mishandled a case of alleged sexual abuse of their son by a teacher in the early 2000s.[3] Martin Carson was dismissed for sexual abuse of a pupil in 1972, and went on to teach at the Harrodian School. He was subsequently prosecuted and found guilty of indecent assault and possessing indecent images of children in 2003.[4]link |
Caldicott Summer Fete
The Headmaster, Simon Doggart finished off the fete with a very popular raffle.
Thank you to everyone for coming along and supporting the school fete. It was a great success and all the money raised by the boys will go to The Prince’s Trust.
http://www.friends.caldicott.com/news–photos
Simon Doggart’s father, Hubert Doggart OBE (b-1925), taught at Winchester College until 1972
Hubert Doggart was educated at Winchester College and King’s College, a Cambridge blue in five different sports and captain in four.
He taught at Winchester College (1950-1972) while maintaining a successful amateur cricket career for Cambridge University and Sussex Cricket Clubs. Doggart has held many offices in sports administration, such as President of the MCC (1981-1982).
http://www.cricketingwinchester.co.uk/winchester-college-cricketing-legacy/hubert-doggart-obe-1925/
Sue, Vic and Hubert Doggart
Hubert Doggart– Bishop Bell/Bell Society
“allegations against Bishop Bell by the Church”
Hubert Doggart pursued the issue: Chichester’s Dean & Chapter failed to use the word “alleged” when making pronouncements on Bishop Bell’s guilt. Could we not insist on their retracting from this stance?
Peter H replied the word “alleged” was used in the Diocesan statement of October 26 2015.
Mr Doggart doggardly pressed on : Could we not isolate our Dean and Chapter from the Diocese?
Peter H replied that the Diocesan lawyers appeared to him out of their depth, especially unable to respond adequately to the legal minds of the George Bell Group. However, he did not think it appropriate or feasible to attack the Dean and Chapter at this point – reiterating the need to concentrate on Bell’s reputation – and its restoration. That is what he is fighting for.
Caldicott…under the current headmaster Simon Doggart, another incident of alleged child sexual abuse was reported in the late 2000s. The headmaster and the chairman of the board of governors, Lord Justice Scott Baker, suspended the teacher (who did not return) but failed to report the incident to the police or social services, contrary to the school’s written policy on this matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/sep/30/publicschools.childprotection
In early February it was announced that Simon and Antonia Doggart would step down from leading Caldicott at the end of the Summer Term 2017 after 19 years.
Unfortunately due to ill health Simon is no longer able to lead the school.
http://www.caldicott.com/Welcome.aspx
Justice Scott Baker
When Lord Justice Scott Baker walked into the Paris Ritz hotel this week, with the jurors from the Diana, Princess of Wales, inquest, he would have experienced a sharp sense of deja vu.
It was two years after the death of the princess that Mohamed Fayed’s hotel dominated the other famous court case that Scott Baker has presided over.
The Appeal Court judge, hand-picked to finally bring the curtain down on the death of the princess, jailed Jonathan Aitken, the former Tory Cabinet minister, for 18 months for perjury. Aitken had lied on oath about who paid for his suite in the hotel on the Place Vendome.
Baker quickly adapted to his first role as a coroner which enabled him to give an opinionated summing up at the start.
In his opening remarks, which ran to 138 pages and lasted almost two days, he dedicated himself to a methodical and meticulous debunking of the conspiracy theories which have grown up around the car crash in the Alma underpass.
He is the fourth to take up the coroner’s baton in an inquest that has become mired in endless delay and remains at the centre of deep seated suspicions of an Establishment cover-up that the jury’s verdict is unlikely to change.
The Oxford-educated judge, who has more than 40 years experience, comes from a distinguished legal family. His father was a High Court judge and his brother, Michael Findlay Baker, QC, is a circuit judge.
He was called to the Bar in 1961, became a Recorder in 1976, a High Court Judge in the Family Division in 1988 when he was knighted. He transferred to the Queen’s Bench Division in 1992. In 2002, he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal.
Scotty Baker, as he is known to his contemporaries, was chosen for his latest role by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, after discussions with colleagues including the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke.
A keen cricketer, he served on the Cricket Council’s appeals committee for two years and he has a home adjoining a golf course in Scotland. At weekends he is often to be found relaxing with friends at Denham Golf Club, Bucks.
In the 1980s he served on the ground-breaking Warnock committee on the ethics of embryo science and, in 1997, the year that he jailed Aitken, he dismissed charges of corporate manslaughter against Great Western Trains after the Southall train crash which claimed seven lives.
In 1988, he ruled that a woman mental patient with the mind of a child could be sterilised without her consent.
In March, he struck a blow against the insidious rise of the compensation culture when he rejected a claim by a woman who broke her leg in a hole left by a maypole on a village green. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1565798/Profile-Lord-Justice-Scott-Baker.html
Archbishop’s QC friend ‘allowed to commit abuse after evangelicals failed to report him’
It has now emerged that a number of senior figures at high-profile evangelical organisations were told of the claims but did not alert the authorities.
26 February 2017
A barrister at the centre of a child abuse scandal committed a series of sickening assaults against young men after leading evangelical groups failed to report him to the police, it is claimed.
John Smyth QC, a friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is accused of carrying out sadomasochistic attacks on boys he met at Christian camps in Britain and Zimbabwe.
The assaults first came to light in 1982, when a victim attempted suicide after being summoned to a beating in the shed of Mr Smyth’s Winchester home.
But both the Iwerne Trust, the Christian group that Mr Smyth chaired, and Winchester College, the school attended by some of his alleged victims, did not report the claims to police.
The part-time judge then moved to Zimbabwe, where he founded a series of summer camps at which it is alleged he again abused young men.
In 1997 he was charged with culpable homicide after a boy was found naked in the swimming pool of one of his camps.
It has now emerged that a number of senior figures at high-profile evangelical organisations were told of the claims but did not alert the authorities.
David Fletcher, a Iwerne trustee who oversaw an investigation into the alleged assaults, said he told the Church Society, a powerful voice on the evangelical wing of the Church of England, about the claims in 1982.
David Jackman, then a senior minister at a leading evangelical church also admitted he was told about the allegations at the same time. Mr Jackman went on to become head of the Proclamation Trust, which helps train evangelical preachers,
The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, the legal charity of which Mr Smyth was a member, is also named in Iwerne documents as having been informed.
Separately, the Charity Commission has announced that it has launched an investigation into a charity established by Reverend Sue Colman, a trustee of the Holy Trinity Brompton, which oversees the Alpha Course, the evangelical movement backed by celebrities such as Bear Grylls, after she admitted sending thousands of pounds to Mr Smyth via her personal charity.
Mrs Colman’s husband Jamie, the heir to the Colman’s Mustard dynasty, is already under investigation by the Charity Commission after funneling hundreds of thousands of pounds to Mr Smyth over a thirty-year period, despite knowing about the abuse claims in Britain and Zimbabwe.
Mrs Colman apologised for the donations but said her husband had not told her about the claims against Mr Smyth.
Dr Lee Gatiss, the director of the Church Society, said the group had examined its records but had “no reason to believe that Church Society was aware of any abuse allegations of the kind referred to, or indeed that Mr Smyth had any involvement with Church Society”.
Mr Jackman, who is a director of Keep Marriage Special, a group launched by the Church Society that claimed that letting same sex couples marry would lead to the legalisation of incest, said he believed he had acted correctly in not notifying police.
He said: “I assumed that the matter was being dealt with by the authorities concerned.”
Mark Barrell, executive director of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, said the group’s records suggested that, contrary to the Iwerne Trust documents, it had not been notified of the allegations involving Mr Smyth until 2003.
A spokesman for the Charity Commission said that as a matter of best practice the group should have made an incident report to the regulator once it was informed, but Mr Barrell refused to reveal whether the organisation had notified authorities.
He said: “His membership was terminated that year and he had no further involvement with the LCF.”
@Graham1munro
The Iwerne Camps were endorsed by Lord Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Iwerne Minster Summer Holidays 1983
Leaders
David Fletcher, Peter Wells, Mark Bishop, Simon Brignall, Ian Gilmour, Nick Harris, Mike Keep, John Knight, Richard Knight, James Nairne, Mike Neville, Rod Pellereau, Sandy Russell, William Taylor.
Lord Coggan, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of Norwich, Michael Alison MP, Prof Sir Norman Anderson OBE, Sir Frederick Catherwood, Sir Maurice Dorman, Admiral Sir Horace Law, Judge Ruttle expressed their appreciation and warm support of previous holidays
Sue Colman
The Archbishop and the oil sharks: A ‘slick’ young Justin Welby, the shady ‘Monsieur Africa’ and a £6billion mission to snap Nigeria’s oil riches – with catastrophic results
- Archbishop Justin Welby says he only heard ‘rumours’ of corruption at Elf
- He worked there for five years alongside Andre Tarallo, who was later jailed
- Part of £6billion ‘carrot’ deal to deter Nigeria from nationalising oil industry which never went ahead
The Archbishop of Canterbury has always played down his past life as a young oil company executive.
Throughout this period, the French state-owned company – which later became synonymous with corruption and scandal – was allegedly committing human rights abuses against the people of the oil-abundant Niger Delta.Mr Welby, who made regular visits to the country’s capital for meetings at the time, strenuously denies being aware of the claims – or the true motivation for the Bonny LNG project.
Soldiers paid by Elf seized land from tribesmen in the region, often using violence. And locals say police officers were paid to arrest those who resisted.
During Mr Welby’s five years at Elf he worked, as a member of Elf’s financial department,under the Corsican-born oil executive Andre Tarallo, dubbed Monsieur Africa.
Tarallo, who was in charge of African operations, would later feature in a massive fraud inquiry that tore the company apart in the Nineties. He was jailed for four years in 2003 for paying millions in bribes to African leaders in return for oil contracts.
‘Some of my other colleagues had contact with Tarallo and they were caught with their pants down,’ said Mr Welby’s former boss, Kjell Skjevesland.
‘Justin would have had direct contact with him. Justin would have been in the meetings with him, probably as the only non-French guy in there.’ However, Mr Welby denies meeting Tarallo in person.
Elf’s headquarters was in Paris near the Champs-Elysees. But, for the Bonny LNG talks, Mr Welby usually travelled to the Nigerian capital Lagos as the company’s sole representative. ‘He made a meaningful contribution,’ said his boss.
Mr Welby, now the spiritual head of more than 80 million Anglicans worldwide, insists that, while he was aware of rumours of corruption during his time at Elf, he never encountered evidence of it.
When he joined the company in the late Seventies, the Nigerian government was planning to nationalise the country’s oil fields, something Elf, Shell, BP and others were desperate to prevent.
They attempted to talk the government out of it by dangling a giant carrot – a promise to invest £6 billion between them in a project that involved shipping natural gas from Nigeria to Europe.
But Bonny LNG collapsed before it began, just as the ‘investors’ knew it would. ‘Everyone was scrambling for crude at the time and everyone wanted to please the Nigerians,’ said Mr Skjevesland. ‘This project was way, way off and unrealistic.’
He said that the oil companies were simply ‘playing games’ with the Nigerian government to ensure they could ‘still get the crude out’.
Thomas Knutsen was another Elf finance executive who worked with Mr Welby. Asked if the project was designed to trick the Nigerian government into believing it would go ahead, when in all likelihood it would not, Mr Knutsen replied: ‘I think that is a good assumption.’
Asked if Mr Welby was aware of the tactic, Mr Skjevesland replied: ‘Yes, of course he was.’ But the Archbishop insists he ‘believed it to be a genuine project . . . and nothing [he] learned about it at the time suggested otherwise’.
Unlike the Archbishop, Mr Skjevesland has conceded that he himself was ‘probably’ aware of the human rights abuses committed by Elf.
After Bonny LNG’s demise, the plan to nationalise the industry was halted, ensuring the oil companies’ Nigerian interests were saved. They enjoyed massive profits, while the majority of Nigerians continued to lead impoverished lives.
Mr Welby left Paris in 1983 and the Elf Group the following year.
Welby was directly involved in an attempted hostile takeover of an American oil company, Kerr-McGee. Hours before it was due to go ahead, the takeover was halted after the intervention of the French prime minister who feared it would damage French-US relations.Before it was stopped, Mr Skjevesland recalled Mr Welby was instructed by Elf’s group treasurer to transfer $2 billion. ‘One morning Justin came in to the office and told me, “I got a phone call from New York last night. We’re going to go ahead with the acquisition.”
In those days [1980], instead of having huge syndicated bank loans we went to the biggest banks in the world and borrowed say £100 million to £500 million from each.
‘For this root money he [the group treasurer] called up Justin. He didn’t bother to call anyone more senior because he had confidence in him.’ The Archbishop says his role in the deal was exaggerated, but does recall being instructed to draw ‘all the maximum funds… on pre-arranged credit lines’.
Home for Mr Welby and his wife Caroline was a duplex apartment on the banks of the Seine in the French capital’s smartest district, the 16th arrondissement.
Along with the rest of the finance team, Mr Welby often dined at the temples of Parisien gastronomie. Mr Skjevesland, 67, who now lives in Switzerland, said: ‘The banks invited us out all the time.’
Abuses were being carried out in Elf’s name in the Delta.
At the time of Mr Welby’s visits to Nigeria on behalf of Elf, corruption within the country’s government reached its zenith. Its people received precious little of the oil profits, despite revenues accounting for four-fifths of the nation’s income.
It is estimated £250 billion has been stolen by corrupt government officials since oil was struck – leaving 70 per cent of Nigerians currently living on less than 65p per day.
Ibama Ibegwuru, 80, has lived for 40 years in the Egi region where Elf had a major onshore operation. He says he was imprisoned by Nigeria’s military junta after protesting against the alleged human rights and environmental abuses committed by the company.
‘When the Land Use Act came in [which allowed the military to seize land] nobody could stop Elf,’ said Mr Ibegwuru. ‘The military used force and some youths were killed; some had their legs broken to intimidate the indigenous people.’
He said the same soldiers taking part in the violent land grabs were also defending Elf’s property.
The oil companies’ role in the military’s abuses has been acknowledged by the Nigerian government through the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission. In 2002, it reported that the protection given to oil companies led to ‘systematic and generalised violations and abuses’.
Archbishop Welby said in a statement last night: ‘During my time at that company [Elf] I worked in a junior finance capacity on a project in Nigeria, travelling to Lagos from Paris.
‘To suggest that I was in some way responsible for making strategic decisions, or that I was even aware of any alleged dubious confidential strategy by Elf, is absurd given my youth and lack of seniority.
Justin Welby’s family connections with the English establishment – His mother, Jane Portal, a former secretary to Winston Churchill who became Baroness Williams of Elvel, links the future archbishop to Rab Butler (PIE Paedophile Information Exchange linked)
Jane Portal, Justin Welby’s mother, was the deputy Prime Minister Rab Butler’s favourite niece.
An Oily Scandal
A seven-year probe into former French oil company Elf-Aquitaine has brought forth a wide-reaching maze of high-level corruption. One of the biggest judicial inquiries in French history also includes ties to Germany.
Investigators in France have wrapped up their probe into the kickbacks scandal at formerly state-owned oil company Elf-Aquitaine. The inquiry lasting over seven years unraveled a web of corruption among top politicians and managers.
The main accusation is that Elf-Aquitaine gained economic advantages both in France and abroad through bribery payments. Between 1989 and 1993, it’s estimated that the company misappropriated some 610 million euro ($530 million) in funds.
Political leaders among the accused
The list of suspects reads like a “who-is-who” of France’s political and economic leadership.
http://www.dw.com/en/an-oily-scandal/a-435550
The 56-year-old former oil executive is the first resident of Lambeth Palace to have found God through rock music and group therapy.
I’ve come to Brompton to meet Nicky Gumbel, vicar of HTB and chief architect of the Alpha Course. If Welby is the Church of England’s new leader, Gumbel is his spiritual father. The two men share remarkably close stories, having known each other for more than 40 years. At 57, Gumbel is roughly the same age. Both attended Eton and Trinity College Cambridge, before pursuing high-powered careers which they gave up for the church.
Gumbel: “I’m so biased because obviously he is a friend, and we love him.” This is Gumbel’s first interview since his friend became archbishop, and he is keen not to claim the appointment as an HTB victory.
…. there is something sinister about a church that, as part of its worship, encourages its members to lose control and “speak in tongues”.
…..Gumbel is quick to point out that many of his friends are gay, showing me a photo of him with a group of his squash partners. Among them is the adventurer and Alpha convert, Bear Grylls.
Archbishop Welby’s biological father –
Sir Anthony Montague Browne – one of Winston Churchill’s private secretaries
Montague Browne was then seconded to the Queen’s Household for two years. Thereafter he worked in the City of London for various companies, including International Life Insurance and Gerrard and National. He was a founder member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, established in 1965, and served as chairman.
In 1995 he published Long Sunset: Memoirs of Winston Churchill’s Last Private Secretary.
He was appointed OBE in 1955, CBE in 1965 and KCMG in 2000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9982839/Sir-Anthony-Montague-Browne.html
Montague Browne and Portal were 9th cousins once removed, both descending from John Erskine, Earl of Mar (1558–1634): Sir Anthony, by his second wife, Lady Mary Stewart (daughter of Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox), and Jane, by his first wife, Anne Drummond.
They were also 11th cousins twice removed, by their shared descent from James V of Scotland: Sir Anthony by his mistress, Euphemia Elphinstone, and Jane by his second wife, Mary of Guise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Montague_Browne
We were both at the Iwerne Trust Christian camps at the same time, although I was there as a boy, you were there as an Iwerne Officer. Crucially, however, we both personally knew John Smyth.
He was my abuser. The man who beat me in the horrific detail that was exposed.
You have described John Smyth as ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’.
I first met John Smyth when I was 14 years old. I was at Winchester College at the time.
I was beaten by John on a 4-6 weekly basis from the age of 16 to 21. I was ‘in’ at the beginning and ‘out’ at the very end. I actually brought about the end of the beatings in the UK when I tried to commit suicide because I couldn’t face the ‘special’ beating that he had planned for my 21st birthday. By then, for me, it had been over four years and thousands and thousands of lashes. My body couldn’t take it anymore. My mind was frozen in trauma. I was ready to die. Death would have been a relief.
That was in 1982.
Winchester College – informed of the abuse in 1982 by the Iwerne Trust. I say the College, because it was actually the headmaster of the College, John Thorn, who was informed by David Fletcher on behalf of the Iwerne Trust. I know that the Headmaster confronted John Smyth and drew up an undertaking for Smyth to sign, to prevent him from ministering to young children again. One of my parents saw that undertaking. Other victims’ parents too. But they never saw that document signed by John Smyth. And I know crucially that the promise at the bottom of the document that the Headmaster, John Thorn, made as his own personal ‘undertaking’ – a promise that he would distribute to all future headmasters was not kept. I know this for certain.
British Prime Minister Edward Heath (1916 – 2005) with his father William (1888 – 1976) and his stepmother Mary at Knoll Farm, Aldington, (Home of Lord and Lady Aldington) UK, 21st June 1970.
Lord Toby Aldington’s business career included serving as chairman of the General Electric Company, Grindlays Bank, Westland Aircraft, Sun Alliance and London Insurance.
He won the seat of Blackpool North.[2] He served as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Supply 1951–54 and Minister of State at the Board of Trade from 1954, becoming a Privy Counsellor.[2]
He joined the BBC general advisory council, and became chairman of Sun-Alliance and the Port of London Authority.[2] In 1972, he became co-chairman, with Jack Jones, of the joint special committee on the ports industry. He became chairman of Westland in 1977.
https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1979/1979%20-%200245.PDF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Low,_1st_Baron_Aldington
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/02/world/lord-aldington-86-libeled-for-1945-yalta-repatriations.html
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the Croix de Guerre and the American Legion of Merit.
He had developed an excellent rapport with Edward Heath, then the Government’s chief whip.
In 1959 Mr Heath became Minister of Labour and Low was appointed deputy chairman of the party, in charge of its organisation.
Aldington became chairman of the committee of management at the Institute of Neurology, of the BBC General Advisory Council, of the Independent Schools Joint Council, of the Kent Foundation, of the Brain Research Trust and of the trust that runs Leeds Castle. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent, held the TD and clasp, and in 1999 was one of some 19 hereditary peers to receive life peerages.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1377426/Lord-Aldington.html
Leeds Castle Foundation
HRH Princess Alexandra Ogilvy, Patron of Leeds Castle Foundation
Rothschild firm: Sun Alliance Assurance which Nathan Mayer Rothschild founded in 1824 – Chairman Lord Aldington
Jillings Report/Bryn Alyn/ Sun Alliance
Royal Sun Alliance, child abuse victims and the legal decision that shames Britain
The insurance company Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group spent £750,000 pounds in legal fees to prevent paying out £200,000 to the victims of the abuse despite knowing that the claims were true:
The State placed the children in Bryn Alyn Community childrens homes and paid for the children to be abused by Allen and Staff and VIP paedophiles.
Since then the State, the Courts and all the people involved have made the children suffer further abuse and relive their childhood abuse over and over again whilst giving them nothing but grief in return.
“… General Electric of England not only has direct connections to the Rothschild interests, but also to the throne itself.
The directors of General Electric Co. of England include Lord Catto, previously mentioned as chairman of Morgan Grenfell Co., the Morgan bank of London, Lord Aldington, also mentioned as director of Citibank, and the Rothschild firm, Sun Alliance Assurance; Sir Robert Clayton, who has served since 1983 as chairman of the prestigious government Monopolies and Mergers Committee; Lord Nelson of Stafford; Lord Weinstock, managing director of GE of England; Sir Robert Telford, chairman of the Marconi Co.; and Sara Morrison, daughter of Viscount Lang and the Duchess of Marlborough.
She is a director of the influential program, 4th Channel TV, and one of the principal organizers of the Conservative Party. She is a close confidant of the present Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. She is married to Charles Morrison, son of Baron Margadale.
General Electric Co. of England recently merged with Plessey Co., a giant defense supplier which is also controlled by the Rothschilds. “
http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/mullins/merger.html
Aldington … close to the deputy Conservative leader, RA “Rab” Butler, in the early 1960s, and a friend of Edward Heath.
He was a friend and backer of Edward Heath (and was happy to praise him when I was writing Heath’s biography in 1971-72).
King’s Royal Rifle Corps / Deputy lieutenant of Kent
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/dec/09/guardianobituaries.obituaries
Aldington (deputy chairman of the Tory party during the Vassall and Profumo affairs
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/007448.html
Lord Aldington married, in 1947, Araminta Bowman (nee MacMichael), daughter of Sir Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief for Palestine in the Second World War.
Both Lord and Lady Aldington sat on committees with Princess Alexandra – who, along with her her husband Angus Ogilvy was very close to prolific establishment paedophile Sir Jimmy Savile.
Jimmy Savile and Princess Alexandra
Police cover up Savile’s claims to be friends with Queen’s cousin: Paedophile ‘visited school at centre of abuse allegations with Princess Alexandra’
Sir Angus Ogilvy, Princess Alexandra’s husband (left) with Jimmy Savile. All mention of the former DJ’s claims to friendship with the royal was initially omitted from police transcripts
Lady Aldington founded the Jacob Sheep Society in 1969 along with a small group of fellow Jacob enthusiasts & right up until her death, she played an active role in the development of the Society
The Society was founded in 1969 by a small group of dedicated breeders who were concerned at the reducing numbers of pure bred sheep.
Debo Mitford
The first President of the Society was the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire “debo” – Prince Charles and Jimmy Savile’s friend)
Elvis crooning. An honour guard from below stairs. Debo departs in fine style: Charles, Camilla and her ex mourn beloved Duchess
After her death was announced, Prince Charles paid tribute to his close friend, saying: ‘My wife and I were deeply saddened to learn of the death of The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, whom both of us adored and admired greatly
The cortege set off from Chatsworth House, the place to which the Dowager dedicated her life.
Deborah Devonshire interview: Elvis, Hitler and the Mitford sisters
In this 2007 interview, ‘Debo’, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, talks about her relationships with her famous sisters and her love for Elvis Presley
Jimmy Savile was friends with Elvis Presley (who also had a very close relationship with his mother and liked young girls)
1964 Elvis on the “Roustabout” movie set with Jimmy Savile
Jim: I used to go over when he was making a film, and I would spend a week on the set with him and I was on the set of Wild in the Country, Viva Las Vegas…
I was his pal and the colonels pal for the next 10-12 years.
Elvis was presented with Gold Award by Jimmy Savile for ‘Its Now or Never’ – went multi-platinum – 9 million sales by On the set of ‘Wild In The Country’
Inside Wild In The Country Page 3 – On set & Location 1960
Elvis with young Jimmy Savile who work at British television. here on the set of Wild in the country (fall 1960)
Savile – the famous child procurer with Elvis
\
1964 Elvis on the “Roustabout” movie set with Jimmy Savile
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Known to her family as “Debo”, Deborah Mitford married Lord Andrew Cavendish, younger son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, in 1941. When Cavendish’s older brother, William, Marquess of Hartington, was killed in combat in 1944, Cavendish became heir to the dukedom and Marquess of Hartington; in 1950, upon the death of his father, he became the 11th Duke of Devonshire.
The Duchess is the maternal grandmother of the fashion model Stella Tennant and a maternal aunt of Max Mosley, former president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).
From Jimmy Savile’s auction..
A collection of Christmas greetings cards, including from members of the Royal Household, four from Princess Alexandra (1936- ) The Honourable Lady Ogilvy and Sir Angus Ogilvy (1928-2004); and two handwritten postcards from Deborah (1920- ) Duchess of Devonshire, signed ‘Debo’ (approx. 30)
Provenance: From the estate of Sir Jimmy Savile. OBE, KCSG, LLD (1926-2011)
more on the Cavendish, Morrison, Mitford families
Unity Mitford:
Unity Mitford staged Nazi orgies as a gift of love to Hitler: She lost her virginity to Oswald Mosley on a billiard table… Then she targeted the Fuhrer
- Unity Mitford’s scandalous liaisons are unveiled in a new biography
- Aristocratic family tried to paint relationship with Hitler as youthful fancy
Lady Aldington and Ted Heath
https://issuu.com/jacobsheepsociety/docs/journalspring2012-1-1
The Society is a registered charity No 1026687 and became a company limited by guarantee in 1979. Its aims are to foster the breeding and promote interest in the Jacob sheep both in the United Kingdom and abroad.
The Society is honoured to have HRH Princess Alexandra, the Hon Lady Ogilvy, KG, GCVO as our Patron.
http://www.jacobsheepsociety.co.uk/organisational_structure.htm
Jaclub – the charity has children involved
Reece Fenton even managed to spread the Jacob message to Royalty. He chatted away to Prince Charles at The Great Yorkshire Show whilst competing in the Young Handlers Class. I am not sure if Reece managed to sell the Prince any sheep- if he has his Grandad’s (John Fozzard) selling skills then I am sure Prince Charles is putting in his order now!
http://www.jacobsheepsociety.co.uk/JACLUB.htm
Lord Charles Aldington, whose father was a close friend of Sir Edward, and who knew him from childhood, also questioned the decision of the police to appeal for “victims” to come forward.
Lord Charles Aldington Senior Advisor at Deutsche Bank London and Chairman of Stramongate Ltd, a private investment company.
His early career was with Citibank and Grindlays Bank in New York, Hong Kong, Düsseldorf and London.
He is also Deputy Chairman of the Royal Academy Trust, a Trustee of the Institute for Philanthropy, Vice President of the National Churches Trust, a member of Oxford University’s Court of Benefactors, Chair of the New College Development Committee, and a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation.
Lord Aldington was educated at Winchester College; New College, Oxford
http://nyustern.imodules.com/s/1068/GroupBus/3col.aspx?gid=2&pgid=2094
Ditchley Foundation – Boateng, Bottomley, Rifkind, Mandelson etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditchley_Foundation
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey visiting Sir Peter Bottomley’s local Sunday school group
2nd Baron Aldington, of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool
Title created: 1962
Age: 69
Education: Winchester College
Who? Charles Low, son of Lord Toby Low, who once successfully sued Nikolai Tolstoy for libel, winning £2 million.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/parliament-life-aristocrats-election-men-10737575
Charles Low is a member of the Business Advisory Council to the Said Business School
Saïd Business School is named after its chief benefactor Wafic Saïd, a Syrian-Saudi Arabian billionaire arm dealer and financier, who has donated £70 million to date.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Low,_2nd_Baron_Aldington
As a British army officer in Austria at the end of World War II, Lord Aldington — then known by his given name, Toby Low — oversaw the repatriation of thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav refugees [ Ed. … and, of course, the ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states] . Many were subsequently killed or interned in prison camps.
At the libel trial, Lord Aldington agreed that the refugees’ fate was “ghastly”
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=214
Jamie Colman
Rev Sue Colman – has safeguarding role
The heir to the Colman’s Mustard dynasty has admitted funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to a barrister at the centre of a child abuse scandal, despite knowing he had brutally beaten teenage boys.
Jamie Colman, who will become a baronet upon the death of his father, Sir Michael Colman, used a charitable trust to send donations of up to £12,000 a year to John Smyth QC, who is accused of abusing teenagers in Britain and Zimbabwe.
The Charity Commission yesterday launched a probe into the Zambesi Trust, which Mr Colman began chairing in 1989, after he admitted it funded Mr Smyth for nearly thirty years, despite Mr Colman knowing that the barrister had admitted beating boys and showering naked with them.
Colman, a partner at Plexus, a London law firm, is also being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, over claims that he failed to act with integrity and undermined public trust in the legal profession.
Mr Smyth, who ran holiday camps attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the late Seventies, is being investigated by Hampshire Police over claims that he beat 22 teenagers he met at the gatherings.
He moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 after victims reported the assault claims to Church leaders, and founded Zambesi Ministries, which ran Christian camps that are also the subject of abuse allegations.
Mr Colman admitted that he had been told about the British claims in the late Eighties, and said he was informed in the early Nineties that Mr Smyth was “using corporal punishment and engaging in nudity with teenagers” at the Zimbabwe camps.
The Telegraph has seen documents showing that Mr Colman flew to Zimbabwe to meet the parents of alleged victims, in July 1993.
Minutes of the meeting show that he accepted that Mr Smyth had beaten boys with a wooden bat, showered with them, and encouraged them to swim naked.
The documents, now disputed by Mr Colman, record him saying that “the beatings and nudity were justified in the context of a weak church; Zambesi Ministries was aimed at portraying Christianity as a rugged, manly religion”.
He also told the parents that Zimbabwean authorities had “a different attitude towards beatings” to British police, and tried to persuade them not to involve lawyers, citing passages from the Bible indicating that “complaints against a Christian should be addressed within the Church”.
Mr Smyth was charged with culpable homicide in 1997 after a 16-year-old boy was found at the bottom of a swimming pool. Several boys then came forward to make abuse claims, although both cases against him collapsed.
Mr Colman admitted that when Mr Smyth cut his ties with the ministry, after leaving Zimbabwe in 2001, the charity “continued to make small grants to him and his wife Anne for their personal expenses”.
The most recent trust accounts appear to show direct funding of around £12,000 per annum from the Zambesi Trust to John Smyth, until 2001. Thereafter around £6,000 per annum up until as recently as February 5, 2017.
Mr Colman said the trustees only decided to stop funding Mr Smyth on February 5, after the allegations against him were finally made public by Channel 4 News.
He said: “It goes without saying, I hope, that I would fully cooperate with any authorities who thought I had information that would assist them in their enquiries.”
Mr Colman was an Eton contemporary of the Most Rev Justin Welby,
Justin Welby
Sir MICHAEL COLMAN Chairman, Reckitt & Colman plc
First Church Estates Commissioner
Jamie Colman’s father, Sir Michael, oversaw the Church’s investment portfolio between 1993 and 1999, holding the post of First Church Estates Commissioner.
He was subsequently awarded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Cross of St Augustine.
A Charity Commission spokesman said: “We have opened a case into the Zambesi Trust, to determine how the charity applied its funds in the past, and to determine what safeguarding procedures the charity has in place to protect any vulnerable beneficiaries.”
A spokesman for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said: “We are aware and are investigating these allegations.”
On Friday night, Mr Colman told the Telegraph: “I consider I have met my obligations and duty of care both as a solicitor and as a trustee.”
Colman’s became part of Unilever’s Van Den Bergh Foods in 1995 when it was purchased from Reckitt & Colman PLC.
As part of the acquisition, Unilever (Leon Brittan/Malcolm Rifkind) acquired the dry sauces, condiments and mustards sold under the Colman’s brand name.
Jamie Colman’s wife Sue was an independent adoption and fostering panel member for her local authority.
She oversees a ‘Hospitality’ project, which encompasses the sharing of community lunches to the opening of our homes to vulnerable and at risk children and adults.
Churches across London welcome 28 new clergy
A British army infantryman, the MD of an accounting firm and a worker from the charity Kid’s Company were among the graduates of theological colleges and courses who have followed their vocation to serve the church as parish priests.
Among the ordinands was Adrian Teare, a former infantryman who served in Afghanistan and will now be joining the church of St Paul Tottenham, David Green, a Managing Director and part–owner of an accountancy firm, who joins St Martin’s Ruislip, and Sue Colman, who has worked with vulnerable children at the charity Kid’s Company and will be joining St Augustine Queensgate.
http://www.london.anglican.org/articles/churches-across-london-welcome-28-new-clergy/
Safeguarding | HTB Church
We have appointed Jo Davies and Sue Colman as our safeguarding links and Emma Keeling as our Church Safeguarding Officer (CSO).
Leadership Team | HTB Church
Sue Colman Curate
Services | HTB Church
Sue Colman Service Pastor
Leadership Team | HTB Church
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Sue-Colman/2006841707
Sue Colman
https://www.htb.org/media/speaker/Sue+Colman
Home for Good – Sue Colman involved with adoption of children
Revd Sue Colman
Sue has worked in pastoral leadership in her local church, developing counselling, healing and pastoral resources. More recently she was employed by a charity to support vulnerable young people, integrating spiritual and therapeutic wellbeing. She is now one of the clergy team at Holy Trinity Brompton Church, and works as a chaplain at St Mellitus College. Sue is a wife and a mother to four grown-up children. She was adopted, and was an independent adoption and fostering panel member for her local authority.Sue is particularly passionate about encouraging post-adoption support from the Church.
http://www.homeforgood.org.uk/about-us/whos-who
St Mellitus College
Revd Sue Colman is part of the Pastoral and Social Transformation team at Holy Trinity Brompton, where she oversees a ‘Hospitality’ project, which encompasses the sharing of community lunches to the opening of our homes to vulnerable and at risk children and adults. She is particularly interested in issues around adoption and fostering, serving as a trustee for the UK charity Home for Good. As a chaplain, Sue hopes to offer a ‘hospitable space’ to students, where they can feel supported in their personal, spiritual journeys through their time at the college. Sue is married to Jamie and they have 4 grown up children.
The Commission is called to account
WHAT does John Major have in common with the Lord Mayor of York; Michael Howard with the Vicar of Ealing; and the Bishop of Durham with the Chancellor of the Exchequer? They are all Church Commissioners, the shadowy body which is held responsible for the Church of England’s financial crisis.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-commission-is-called-to-account-1395338.html
Sir Michael Colman – in business with Sir Evelyn Rothschild
| Director | 14/11/92 | 24/09/96 |
THE SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESS INITIATIVE
co-directors Sir Evelyn Rothschild and Harry Frederick Oppenheimer and son Nicky Oppenheimer
Lynn with her husband Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2003
EVELYN DE ROTHSCHILD ” In 1989, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, for whom he serves as a financial adviser. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Robert_de_Rothschild
Harry Oppenheimer was a benefactor of the WATERFORD SCHOOL TRUST
Its emphasis is on disadvantaged students
Trustees – LADY JANET BOATENG
http://opencharities.org/charities/313908
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/29/southern-africa-first-multiracial-school-50
Janet had been the chair of Lambeth social services during a period in the 1980s.
http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/lambeth-child-abuse-hanged-boy-top.html
Colman family close to the royal family
‘Personal friendships are so important to the Queen
Another whose friendship has been increasingly important is Lady Mary Colman (née Bowes-Lyon), niece of the Queen Mother), 86, a cousin of the Queen and wife of Sir Timothy Colman, of the mustard family.
HM the Queen Elizabeth and Lady Mary Colman leaving Sandringham Church after attending morning service
They live in Norfolk and are regular guests at Sandringham.
Prince of Wales & Lady Mary Colman
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen cousin’s Lady Mary Colman
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042348/Queen-s-weekends-suburbia-private-friend-circle.html
Jamie Colman:
Jeremiah Michael Powlett Colman1
Mr Colman and his wife Susan, a former spiritual director of the defunct charity Kids Company
Kids Company staff ‘knew about sex abuse incidents’ but failed to act – ex-employees
The charity’s founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, dismissed the accusations, saying she had “absolutely no awareness of it.”
Kids Company was forced to close down this week.
We would queue up and sign our names down and get an envelope with £30 and an Oyster travelcard.
Company Prince Charles meets Ms Batmanghelidjh during a visit to the charity’s south London home in 1998
Prince Charles plays table football at The Kids Company in Camberwell
A catastrophic charity collapse. Two inquires that hit the buffers. As a musical lampoons the fiasco… Will Kids Company Camila and her BBC stooge EVER face the music?
- Stage production depicts the hugely publisised fall of Kids Company charity
- Comes two years after the controversial charity met its demise amid allegations
- Inquiries are ongoing but there is not indication of when they might conclude
- Camila Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography, due out this year, is similarly delayed
Alan Yentob, BBC creative director, throws up his arms in despair. he sings: ‘Michael Gove even said it was an inspirational charity!’
The real Mr Yentob — rather than the actor playing him in this stage production — really did say it.
The BBC bigwig himself became embroiled in the scandal surrounding the collapse of the Kids Company charity of which he was chairman.
First, there is the title: ‘The Public Administration And Constitutional Affairs Select Committee Takes Oral Evidence On Whitehall’s Relationship With Kids Company.’
Then there are the lyrics, taken verbatim from the Hansard transcript of the testimony given by two witnesses who appeared before that committee of MPs on October 15, 2015.
One was Mr Yentob. The other was enigmatic charity supremo Camila Batmanghelidjh.
The pair had been summoned to the Commons to explain how Kids Company, the charity of which Ms Batmanghelidjh was founder and CEO, had gone bust amid allegations of financial irregularity and sexual abuse, having received almost £50 million of public money.
That was almost two years ago. And while the musical is opening this week, the public still awaits a definitive official explanation of the charity’s controversial modus operandi and dramatic demise.
The select committee had no powers to act on its own damning findings of an ‘extraordinary catalogue of failures’. Two statutory bodies that do have such powers — the Charity Commission and the Insolvency Service — were supposed to deliver their own reports on Kids Company last autumn. They did not.
Both bodies say inquiries are ‘ongoing’ but there is no indication as to when they might end. Ms Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography, due out late last year, is similarly delayed.
And so the extraordinary saga rumbles on.
The woman at the centre of it all, Camila
On a rare outing last summer, she was photographed as she went to lunch with representatives of a foreign government ‘which is having to deal with a lot of young refugees’ at the Michelin-starred Pied a Terre restaurant.
This showbiz mecca has been going strong for over 25 years and is probably the showbiz venue with the longest staying power.
Head chef Andy McFadden (centre) with owner David Moore and Louis Theroux (friend of Jimmy Savile – right)
Known for it’s discreet touch with their celebrity clientele, Pied a Terre has some of the biggest names in entertainment coming and going through their stylish doors.
Louis Theroux, Kayne West, Brad Pitt …Robert De Niro, Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, David Giroud and Tony Blair are all faces at the upmarket venue.
The world’s oldest billionaire, American David Rockefeller celebrated his 101st birthday with a lavish dinner in the private dining area at the restaurant with family and friends. The eaterie has had a who’s who of world famous chefs working at the cult three-storey restaurant
http://www.aol.co.uk/travel/2017/03/09/best-london-restaurants-for-spotting-celebrities/
The charity, which started in south London and supports deprived young people and their families, is one of the most high-profile in Britain and regularly hosts leading politicians
Labour’s acting leader Harriet Harman said the government needed to maintain its pre-election funding promise to Kids Company, which is based in her Camberwell and Peckham constituency, and angrily defended Ms Batmanghelidjh, saying she was a “charismatic, inspirational leader”.
(NCCL – PIE Paedophile Information Exchange- linked) Harriet Harman said Kids Company was “doing a very good job”
Ms Harman wrote a letter to Chancellor George Osborne asking “urgent financial assistance” for the charity.
The government has repeatedly resisted attempts by Newsnight and BuzzFeed to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain correspondence between the prime minister and either Ms Batmanghelidjh or the charity’s chairman, Alan Yentob, the BBC broadcaster and executive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33376467
Harriet Harman is pictured visiting the charity in April
Government sources said the closure was triggered after the Cabinet Office demanded the return of a £3million grant it gave last week.
Kids Company has been providing services commissioned by a council.
https://companycheck.co.uk/company/03442083/KEEPING-KIDS-COMPANY/companies-house-data
In on it at from the beginning…Baron Jan Otto Wilhelm Stahl Von Holstein Director 01 Aug 1998 01 Dec 2008
Staël von Holstein Family
the family which originated from ancient Rhenish-German nobility, came to Sweden from Livonia during the 17th century via the Polish Major Hildebrand Staël. The family was naturalized as Swedish Nobility on 14 October 1652, and the family was introduced at the Swedish House of Knights on 20 September 1675.
So who are Prince William’s schoolfriends?
Tomas Stael von Holstein has set up a company offering meditation retreats
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/300528/So-who-are-Prince-William-s-schoolfriends
Prince Williams’ Eton friend, Tomas von Holstein, worked for Kid’s Company and a Jan von Holstein was a director
13. Tomas Stael von Holstein
12: Tomas Stael von Holstein A tubby schoolboy, Tomas went on a gap year to India. He returned several stones lighter, having decided to devote his life to yoga and meditation.
After a stint working for Kids Company, the London charity run bu Camilla Batmanghelidjh, he founded The Art of Meditation, a firm which runs meditation retreats in France and the English countryside.
A few years ago, Tomas appeared on Gordon Ramsey’s F-word TV show with Harry Walsh, cooking in a team of old-Etonian amateur cooks who were dubbed ‘posh gits’ by the irascible Michelin starred chef.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20150209/281633893661912
Jan Stael von Holstein and his designer wife, Franka – friends of Ava Gadner
1982
http://www.bizdb.co.uk/company/frankacouture-boutiquelimited-00863777/
With the Prince of Wales in 2008 and Grayson Perry in 2013 – Daughter of a millionaire and privately educated at Sherborne
Her father, a hugely rich Iranian businessman, was owner of a luxury hotel frequented by the wealthy elite. Her formative years were spent being chauffeured between her palatial home and the hotel by police bodyguards.
http://www.thiswayupezine.com/inspiring-lives/354-209
Kids Company handed at least £46m of public money despite officials’ concerns
Public Accounts Committee chairwoman, Meg Hillier says it is ‘unbelievable’ the money was handed over to the charity ‘with little focus on what it was achieving’
Kids Company had received public funding for at least 15 years, with at least £42m in central government grants – including £28m from the Department for Education (DfE) and its predecessors – around £2m from councils and £2m of lottery money.
The report found that despite the huge sums being handed over, until 2013 the Government relied heavily on Kid’s Company’s self-assessments to monitor its performance.
Ms Batmanghelidjh was a figurehead for governments’ work with charities and the report noted Kids Company was able to lobby for funding whenever it seemed taxpayers’ money may be cut off.
MAY 14: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales receives an award from founder Camila Batmanghelidjh at a Kids Company dinner on May 14, 2008 in London, England.
At the age of 25, she got a part-time job as a family therapist through the BBC’s Children in Need
Batmanghelidjh found that there was a demand for children’s psychotherapy only in the private sector, and she worked in Hampstead with patients she refers to as “the children of the wealthy”. When she was 25, she saw an advert placed by the BBC Children in Need charity, looking for a part-time therapist. “I applied, got the job, and it was under the auspices of the Family Service Unit, funded by Children in Need. I ended up at a family-service unit in Camberwell, south London.
Patterns
The BBC is familiar with National Audit Office reports. The BBC’s Creative Director will be pleased that “Yentob” doesn’t not come up on a word search of their latest report, on the Government’s funding of his charity, Kids Company.
The NAO does note one serial behaviour as part of its key findings.
We observed a consistent pattern of behaviour each time Kids Company approached the end of a grant term. We are not able to comment on causality, but in 2002, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2014:
• Kids Company lobby the government for a new funding commitment. If officials resisted, the charity would write to ministers expressing fears of redundancies and the impact of service closures. Around the same time, Kids Company would express the same concerns in the media.
• Ministers ask officials to review options for funding Kids Company.
• Officials would award grants to Kids Company, whether through a wider grant programme or – from 2013-14 onward – as a direct grant award.
Dr Felicity de Zulueta, who heads up the Traumatic Stress Service at London’s Maudsley Hospital, is acting as a liaison between the Institute of Psychiatry and Kids Company.
She says the government’s approach to tackling violence among young people is inconsistent because, while it has allocated Kids Company nearly £13m over the next three years, it talks in public of “cracking down” on problem youngsters and their parents.
She first started working with vulnerable children and the age of 14 and founded her first organisation, The Place To Be, in her early twenties.
http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1152381/in-profile-camila-batmanghelidjh
Camila first started working with vulnerable children and the age of 14 and founded her first organisation, The Place To Be, in her early twenties.
Starting off with a single counsellor in a Southwark primary school, The Place to Be became a recognised charity in 1994 and had expanded to six schools by 1995 when Batmanghelidjh resigned.
http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1152381/in-profile-camila-batmanghelidjh
ThePlace2Be originates from a Family Service Unit (FSU) project in Southwark which was called The Place to Be. This project was managed by Camila Batmanghelidjh
Duchess of Cambridge is the Royal Patron of Place2Be.
https://www.place2be.org.uk/our-story/the-early-years-of-place2be.aspx
Grayson Perry and Camila Batmanghelidjh attend the private view of the Kids Company’s ‘Holding Up Childhood’ exhibition at Royal Academy of Arts on December 16, 2013 in London, England.
Her supporters include Sir Richard Branson, Trudie Styler (Mrs Sting), Cherie Blair and Samantha Cameron
Prince Charles and Grayson Perry – Much of Perry’s work contains sexually explicit content. Some of his sexual imagery has been described as “obscene sadomasochistic sex scenes”.[21] He also has a reputation for depicting child abuse. Patron: Saatchi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grayson_Perry
‘I’m no longer the anonymous pervert walking down the street’
Perry Grayson art
Ms Batmanghelidjh says she is continuing to help many Kids Company children, with the financial backing of donors who stayed loyal.
(It was Batmanghelidjh’s suggestion that we meet at a grand London hotel. This seemed odd, especially when she specified we should meet ‘under the stairs’ near the main dining room.
It turned out that the hotel has given her a space in an alcove where she can continue to meet some of her clients from Kids Company for counselling.)
She and Alan Yentob, the chairman of Kids Company’s board of trustees, had appeared before a parliamentary select committee investigating the circumstances that had led to the charity’s collapse. It was an inquiry that rehearsed all the allegations that had been circulating over the previous two months – about financial mismanagement, about clients at the charity being handed envelopes of cash for spending sprees on drugs and designer clothes, and about the number of people the charity had actually helped.
Ms Batmanghelidjh spent her early years being driven around by security guards, and living a life of wealth and luxury in the Shah’s Iran, where her family had three houses with ‘sweeping staircases, marble floors, and chandeliers’.
In 2013, she told the Sunday Times she enjoyed holidays at a vast mansion by the Caspian Sea
When I was nine years old she used to look after between 70 and 90 children in a nursery in Iran for an hour-and-a-half while their teachers went to lunch.
Confusion also surrounds how her expensive boarding fees at Sherborne were paid.
In 2009, she told the Evening Standard she was indebted to ‘a kindly bank manager’ who she wanted to meet and thank. Three years later, she explained further, saying he paid the bill with ‘his own money’.
Camila Batmanghelidjh’s grandfather was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who built hospitals and hotels. Her great-uncle was head of the Iranian armed forces. Her father, Fereydoon, was a doctor who studied at St Mary’s in London, where he met her mother, Lucile, who was part Belgian and Iranian. They married in London, then returned to Tehran, where Camila was born in 1963.
Camila Batmanghelidjh in her Kids Company office in south London
Batmanghelidjh went on to study psychology and child development at the Tavistock Institute, then to work as a child therapist at the Family Service Unit in Camberwell, before establishing Kids Company in 1996
David Cameron hailed it as a shining example of ‘the Big Society’.
Batmanghelidjh making her point clear with Boris Johnson in 2007
Rachel Johnson (L) and Camila Batmanghelidjh
Queen Rania Visits Childrens Charity
Kids Company founder used charity nurse for private care, staff claim
THE founder of Kids Company scheduled daily appointments with the defunct charity’s nurse for her OWN private medical treatments, according to reports.
Camila Batmanghelidjh would allegedly spend regular time with Spanish nurse Maria Nieto, who was meant to be looking after underprivileged children in the charity’s care.
Money, it has been alleged, was simply handed in brown envelopes to teenagers and young adults who turned up at its offices. It is alleged that tens of thousands more seem to have been used to pay for the boarding school education of the children of Kids Company staff.
Around £5,000-a-month also went on renting a Grade II-listed Art Deco mansion in London, where Ms Batmanghelidjh liked to swim in an indoor pool. And tens of thousands more went on the salary of a glamorous blonde nurse called Maria Nieto, whose duties at Kids Company appear to have involved administering private medical treatments to Ms Batmanghelidjh.
Elsewhere Kids Company’s colourful founder faces financial issues of her own.
A second mortgage was taken out against her London home in 2011 by Blemain Finance Limited, a Cheshire-based firm which specialises in lending to clients with patchy credit histories. And two county court judgments, over around £6,000 in personal debt, were lodged against her in 2013 and remain unsettled.
Asked about a range of apparent discrepancies in roughly a dozen published interviews, and articles that she has written over the years, Kids Company’s lawyers told the Mail last night that they rejected any suggestion that their client was dishonest.
claims that violent events happened on the charity’s premises, and were not reported to the police; that kids smoked drugs at the centres and the neighbours complained; and that the charity mishandled allegations of sexual abuse (most of this came from the BBC’s Newsnight last week).
Kids Company’s safeguarding manager, Mike Gee, describes passing their cases on to the local authorities and to child and adolescent mental heath services (Camhs). A former social worker himself, Gee said Kids Company didn’t have an adversarial relationship with the statutory services, but that those services were under so much pressure that they couldn’t afford to recognise the intensity of the need many children were in. So Kids Company, which had raised £163m over 19 years for the precise purpose of being able to help whoever asked for it, was having to hand over its vast caseload to services that couldn’t treat those without a significant mental-health diagnosis, didn’t have the resources to help the ones who wouldn’t engage, and wouldn’t recognise the illegal ones (trafficked and migrant children) as even real. And that’s almost all of them.
The one thing that dents Batmanghelidjh’s credibility, for me, is her tendency to be lurid. She doesn’t seem to trust the listener to believe someone is in a bad way: she always has to add a suicide attempt, a crack-addict mother, eight other siblings.
asked if she had a life outside it, she said, affronted, “would you ask a painter that?”
Kids Company run several centres around England; have 650 staff (coincidently one for each MP in parliament) and 10,000 volunteers.
Camila Batmanghelidjh comes to the government’s aid
Since Mr S’s colleague Miles Goslett blew the whistle on Kids Company – and its founder Camila Batmanghelidjh — in The Spectator earlier this year, the charity has been closed down and Batmanghelidjh has been summoned to a select committee hearing.
With Batmanghelidjh’s former cheerleader David Cameron now doing his best to distance himself from the disgraced charity chief — after his ministers were accused of brushing aside civil servants’ concerns about Kids Company’s finances, could she still have one cabinet minister on side?
Mr S only asks after an email popped into his inbox this morning from 6 Hillgrove PR saying that Batmanghelidjh was helping to inspire children as part of an Entrepreneurs4Schools scheme allegedly backed by the education secretary. They say that Batmanghelidjh has recorded a special video message to help launch the government-backed scheme, along with an email claiming that Nicky Morgan personally supports the scheme:
Mr S called the education secretary’s office to find out what she made of her co-helper’s efforts. However, they say that the PR firm have made a mistake and that Morgan has no official involvement in the scheme — though she had expressed interest and asked for more information when first approached about getting involved over a year ago.
Given that no further conversations followed, Mr S suspects that Batmanghelidjh’s video efforts today will have at least managed to attract Morgan’s attention to the project once again.
Kids Company rented a £4,000-a-month Grade II-listed art-deco mansion in North London, in which a member of the finance department and one of Ms Batmanghelidjh’s PAs lived
While the Metropolitan Police found insufficient evidence to press any criminal charge, anecdotal evidence of institutional anarchy and excesses at Kids Company still has the power to shock.
Brown envelopes stuffed with cash were handed to troubled children as a matter of course. Twelve-year-old clients were given £150 trainers; others were flown first class to America. Some £50,000 alone was allegedly spent on taxis at the charity’s Christmas party.
Kids Company received £46 million from the UK taxpayer over 13 years, including £3 million days before it shut. Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson is pictured with Camila Batmanghelidjh London Evening Standard’s ‘1000: London’s Most Influential People’ in 2014
Flamboyant, Iranian-born Camila could charm the birds from the trees. Then prime minister David Cameron was said to be ‘mesmerised’ by her, while his wife Samantha was a backer, along with Prince Charles and a host of other A-list celebrities and City financiers.
Kids Company received £46 million from the UK taxpayer over 13 years, including £3 million days before it shut. Rock band Coldplay ploughed in a further £8 million from royalties.
Ms Batmanghelidjh claimed her charity had 36,000 young ‘clients’.
No doubt there was and remains a very real need for children from splintered families to be supported in Britain’s troubled inner cities.
But something within the organisation was not right. It needed only a small push for the already teetering edifice to collapse. That pressure came from an unlikely quarter.
Pensioner Joan Woolard was the catalyst to Kids Company’s spectacular downfall and remains one of Ms Batmanghelidjh’s fiercest critics.
Having heard the charity boss speak on Radio 4, Mrs Woolard was inspired to sell her home and donate the proceeds — more than £200,000 — to the Kids Company.
Being driven to her office or one of the charity’s centres by car is not a luxury, but a necessity to ensure her safety.
We are working in a very risky environment encountering rival gangs and paedophile rings from which we are rescuing children.’
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/alumni/ouralumni/notable2/batmanghelidjh/
Doubts began when she asked how the money had been spent.
The answers were unsatisfactory. Her experience of spending some time at Kids Company offices alarmed her further — and she asked for her money back.
Hers was the first public voice of dissent against this fashionable and feted good cause. Ms Batmanghelidjh denied any wrongdoing.
But the money remained in Ms Batmanghelidjh’s hands. Kids Company needed it desperately.
Encouraged by Mrs Woolard’s public stand, whistle-blowers from inside the organisation began to come forward.
The unsubstantiated allegations of sexual abuse were the final straw.
In August 2015, the charity shut down, laying off scores of staff and abandoning thousands of children.
Some of the evidence subsequently given to the Commons select committee presented a shocking litany of financial chaos, rampant nepotism and very dubious methodology.
The committee concluded: ‘There appears to have been a catastrophic confluence of factors that have conspired to allow this charity to operate as it did, for as long as it did.’
Their report said the ‘approach of successive governments and ministers towards Kids Company has proved to be an improper way to conduct government business or handle public money’.
Alan Yentob had failed to restrain his ‘unaccountable and dominant’ CEO. His employer, the BBC, was also ‘accused of poor leadership for failing to take action against him when he tried to make suggestions about the BBC’s reporting of Kids Company’.
One of the committee’s witnesses, a high-ranking worker who was granted anonymity, gave a particularly damning insight into what Kids Company had become.
She said: ‘The charity was run by the CEO as her personal fiefdom, with no regard whatsoever for the financial implications. It was simply unsustainable to continue to take in anyone who asked for assistance and, in certain specific areas, ridiculous amounts of money were spent wantonly and inappropriately.’
Ms Batmanghelidjh had favourites among the youngsters she helped. ‘One group of young adults — many of them in their late 20s — were known throughout the organisation as “Camila’s kids” and inordinate amounts of money and resources were lavished on them; creating envy and resentment among others.’
But staff were also treated lavishly, the witness stated, and nepotism was rife. ‘Sasha and Jamie Handover (the children of former WH Smith boss Richard Handover, a trustee) were both employed at KC,’ the witness said.
‘The so-called “Operations Manager” — a sweet but totally inefficient woman who kept odd hours — turned out to be the mother of one of the IT chaps.
‘Magbule Mulla — who worked in the finance department — is the sister-in-law of Jeton (Tony) Cavolli, who was Camila’s driver.’
(While her Linked In page still describes her as ‘Assistant Accountant Kids Company’, Mrs Mulla was described by Ms Batmanghelidjh in one interview as ‘the woman who sews for me’.)
Ms Batmanghelidjh would eventually admit that her charity had paid for both of Mr Cavolli’s children to be put through private schools; one of them a boarding establishment where the chairman of governors was one Richard Handover (a trustee).
Mr Cavolli had been described by Ms Batmanghelidjh as a ‘therapist tasked with dealing with difficult young men and only had a car in order to go to their aid late at night’. But in the time she worked there, the witness only ‘heard him referred to as “Tony the Driver”.’
Some of the evidence subsequently given to the Commons select committee presented a shocking litany of financial chaos. Squatters are pictured at the former offices of Kids Company in Kenbury Street, Camberwell
It was ‘Tony the Driver’ who was pictured holding the car door open for Ms Batmanghelidjh prior to that lunch at Pied a Terre restaurant last summer.
He was not her chauffeur, she later explained. He was working as an Uber driver and had given her a lift as a ‘favour’.
A university academic whose role as an Ofsted inspector in South London alerted her to Kids Company more than 15 years ago had watched its progress with alarm.
‘The whole history of Kids Company is one of a failure of due diligence by local government, donor charities, the Tory Party, Prince Charles. They all failed. It is astounding,’ she told me.
Hers is only one of many critical voices. But there is an approaching counterblast. Approaching, but repeatedly delayed. Ms Batmanghelidjh’s autobiography was due to be published last autumn. Her ghost-writer is Tim Rayment.
In early 2015 he was sent by his newspaper to investigate Ms Batmanghelidjh. Now he is firmly in her camp.
One view is that Rayment fell under her spell; like so many financiers, pop stars, politicians and royals before him, he was ‘hypnotised’, one colleague said.
‘I want to give voice to someone who has been silenced,’ Mr Rayment told me last year, rather generously of someone who had the ear of royalty and prime ministers.
‘Have I been naïve? Have I been mesmerised?’ he asks. ‘The time to make that judgment is on publication.’
The fall-out has indeed been complex and messy for those involved. Last December, Mr Yentob stepped down as Creative Director of the BBC as a direct result of his involvement in the Kids Company collapse
Last night, a spokesman for Ms Batmanghelidjh’s publisher, Biteback, said she expected the book to appear in August. She explained: ‘We had initially hoped to do a very fast turnaround on this title, and therefore gave it a very ambitious publication date.
‘But it has turned out to be far more complex, both legally and in terms of the science involved, than we had first anticipated.’
The fall-out has indeed been complex and messy for those involved. Last December, Mr Yentob stepped down as Creative Director of the BBC as a direct result of his involvement in the Kids Company collapse.
Earlier this year, it was reported that the Insolvency Service had written to lawyers acting for Kids Company’s former board members to warn them it was minded to ban them from holding directorships.They included Ms Batmanghelidjh, Mr Yentob and Mr Handover. Which brings us back to the musical.
Flamboyant, Iranian-born Camila could charm the birds from the trees. Then prime minister David Cameron was said to be ‘mesmerised’ by her
‘Mr Yentob’ bewails the sudden denial of the public purse gold seam. He had mined it for years thanks to his contacts with David Cameron and the latter’s desire to give his Big Society slogan some substance and street cred.
Last night, a Charities Commission spokeswoman said: ‘When an inquiry is under way, we do not provide updates on when it is likely to conclude.
‘This is a high-profile case and when a report is available it will be posted online with full findings.’
An Insolvency Service spokesman said: ‘Our investigation into Kids Company remains ongoing. Each case has its own complexities and differences depending on the number of directors involved. There is no timescale for us to reach any conclusions. As such, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at present.’
Miles Goslett, the journalist who first raised questions about Kids Company, in February 2015, is sceptical about the delay.
‘Both inquiries were set up the best part of two years ago and I was told privately last year they’d be published by Christmas 2016 at the latest,’ he said this week.
‘Even if these bodies are short on manpower, I’d have no difficulty believing that someone in Whitehall has taken the decision it would be politically sensible to keep them from public view for a while yet.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4659936/Will-Kids-Company-Camila-BBC-stooge-face-music.html
Kids Company
A few months later, £589,957 was written off using taxpayers’ money, with an additional £100,000 debt met by an unidentified donor.
The charity’s unpaid bill was first revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week, which led to this newspaper obtaining the Yentob email.
The charity has received about £4 million from the Government every year for the last decade.
Ms Batmanghelidjh claims the Government has targeted her because she has a list of Establishment figures allegedly involved in historical child sex abuse.
Mr Boateng said last night: ‘I do not recall the details. I would not be prepared to comment without consulting Treasury papers. I was responsible for spending, not tax.’
Zambesi Trust
Public address
Jeremiah Michael Powlett Colman, 20 Henderson Road, London, SW18 3RR
Trustee board
Mr Jamie Colman (Chair)
Mrs Joan Penny
Mr Bruce Levy
Other charities that the Colmans are involved with …
Malshanger Benevolent Trust
1) Relieving Poverty Among Employees Of The Malshanger Estate Or Their Relations. 2) General Charitable Purposes.”
Trustee board
Trustee board
http://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regid=326752&subid=0
Jamie Colman
Jamie is a Solicitor in and Partner of Plexus Law, a specialist London law firm. Jamie is Nehemiah’s Chair and has been a Nehemiah Director, involved in every aspect of Nehemiah’s development, for the last 12 years.
Home For Good
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
What an utterly warped train of thought!
Update Feb 8 2017
Hayley Barlow @Hayley_Barlow
John Smyth faces fresh allegations of abuse in #Zimbabwe following ongoing @CathyNewman Channel 4 News investigation
https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-more-church-abuse-revelations …
Tonight: Channel 4 News obtains new documents revealing disturbing evidence about the scale of John Smyth’s alleged abuse in #Zimbabwe.
Lawyer accused of subjecting boys to sadomasochistic beatings at Christian summer camps in 1982 ‘was still counselling teens up until allegations re-emerged last week’
- Justin Welby apologised on behalf of Church of England over the camp beatings
- John Smyth, head of Iwerne Trust, allegedly subjected boys to ‘sadomasochism’
- Boys from some of Britain’s top public schools were left with life-long scars
- Neither the church or Winchester College, where some boys went, told police
The part-time judge, whose style of leadership has been likened to a ‘cult leader’ moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 after British assault allegations emerged in 1982, and founded a series of Christian camps at which alleged victims claim he again abused teenagers – at one camp a 16 year old boy drowned during a nighttime ‘skinny dip’ ordered by him.
Mr Smyth was charged with culpable homicide in 1997 in the wake of the death and several other boys came forward to claim he had beaten them and forced them to swim naked while he watched, although both cases against him collapsed.
Today a letter emerged, signed by the barrister and printed on the letterhead of his Zambesi Holidays firm, that was sent to parents of boys booked to attend a camp at the Ruzawi School, an elite boarding school in the north-east of Zimbabwe.
In it, Mr Smyth said that he wanted to create a ‘relaxed family atmosphere’ but admitted the likelihood that he would beat the boys and take showers with them.
He wrote in the note, published in today’s Telegraph: ‘I am determined that we should avoid a school atmosphere as far as possible. I am not a schoolmaster; I try instead to be something of a father figure to the camp, encouraging the younger leaders to care for their campers in the way the best of big brothers should.
‘To this end we use Christian names all round, the younger leaders sleep in the dormitories with their campers, and we all (including myself from time to time) have our showers with the boys.’
The barrister, who was described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as a ‘delightful’ man, also explained that he intended to impose a regime of corporal punishment.
He told parents: ‘We must, however, have good discipline and experience has shown that with so many high-spirited boys we need some form of sanction. I never cane the boys, but I do whack them with a table tennis bat when necessary.
‘Such are the opportunities for pranks that I sometimes have to use this fairly liberally to deter high-spirited naughtiness and to ensure obedience and reasonable standards of tidiness.
At his evangelical church in Cape Town, the couple’s priest confirmed he had been in touch with the Smyths and instructed them to stay away from its services and meetings until the allegations of ‘terrible misconduct’ against the former part-time judge are resolved.
The couple left their home last Friday as allegations of Mr Smyth’s fondness for excessive corporal punishment and penchant for naked boys emerged in interviews with his victims, who spoke to Channel 4 News.
Mr Thompson, told the hushed, packed Church-on-Main congregation in Wynberg, that help would be offered to those who had confided in Mr Smyth.
‘A fair number of people… have had moments of counselling and group discipleship with John,’ Mr Thompson said.
Elders were available ‘should anyone feel the need to discuss the nature of’ or content of’ their experience,’ he added.
He added: ‘If our having had John as a leader of a discipleship group or his role in any form of ministry has led to hurt or risk to anyone’ or to bringing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ into disrepute in any way’ for this we apologise’.
Last week, one of the Smyths daughters, who did not wish to be identified, called on her father to come forward and confront allegations against him. Yesterday, her brother PJ joined the chorus for their father to present himself.
At his evangelical church in Cape Town, the couple’s priest confirmed he had been in touch with the Smyths and instructed them to stay away from its services and meetings until the allegations of ‘terrible misconduct’ against the former part-time judge are resolved
In a letter to the congregation of Covenant Life Church in Maryland’ PJ Smyth said his father ‘disciplined me in a manner consistent with the laws and cultural trends of the UK at the time’ not in a manner alleged in the recent reports’.
‘We moved to Zimbabwe when I was 13. My father told me that he felt called out of the legal profession into full-time Christian work. I attended a number of Zambesi Holidays camps and I was never aware of any abuse.
‘During the early 1990s’ when I was studying in South Africa’ I was aware that a delegation of pastors and parents insisted that my father and the board of Zambesi Holidays make adjustments to camp life’ which they did. I do clearly remember the tragic drowning of a fellow camper one year. It was devastating to his family and to all of us who knew him.
‘In my twenties’ I gradually became aware that there had been issues surrounding my father’s ministry in the UK. Nothing specific’ but I remember hearing some of my parents’ friends say things like’ ‘… of course those were difficult years for your dad’. However’ I assumed that it was something relatively minor and it never occurred to me to press my father for detail.
‘I believe that the civil authorities are given by God to help protect against wrong-doing. I am firmly committed to reporting any form of child abuse to the authorities.’
Archbishop of Canterbury’s QC friend blamed his beating of boys at a British summer camp on sleeping pill addiction
A part-time judge and friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury said he was addicted to sleeping pills at the time he was accused of subjecting boys to savage sado-masochistic beatings.
Justin Welby
John Smyth QC, who ran Christian holiday camps attended by the Rev Justin Welby in the late Seventies, told church leaders his “extraordinary aberration of judgment” was linked to his addiction to prescription medication. Hampshire Police this week launched an investigation into Mr Smyth, who left Britain when the beating allegations came to light in the early Eighties, moving to Zimbabwe, where he also faces abuse claims.
Mr Smyth issued a written statement to church leaders in which he accepted that beating British teenagers had been “entirely wrong” and blamed it on the pressures of work and an addiction to sedatives.
The barrister made the admission in 1989, a month after the former headmaster of Winchester, John Thorn, published a book in which he referred to the beating claims.
Mr Thorn wrote in The Road to Winchester, published in February 1989: “I was told the extraordinary news that the neighbouring barrister had gained such personal control over a few of the senior boys in the group, and had kept it after they left the school, that he was claiming to direct their burgeoning relationship with girls and was, with their consent, punishing them physically when they confessed to him they had sinned.
“The World of Conservative Evangelism was reft in twain. Absurd and baseless rumours were circulated that he was an unhinged tyrant, the embodiment of Satan. He must be banished. And – quietly but efficiently – he was.
“He left the Winchester district and then the United Kingdom. He departed for Africa with his family and, by me, has not been heard of since.”
The fact that the allegations had surfaced publicly for the first time prompted Mr Smyth to issue a written statement, via his Zambezi Ministry, in March 1989.
The release, circulated to church leaders in Zimbabwe, states: “Within a few days of the matter first coming to the attention of older Christians in February 1982, John accepted that what he had been doing was entirely wrong and he has never sought to justify it since.
Archbishop admits Church ‘failed terribly’ over abuse revelations
The Church of England has tonight apologised unreservedly after a Channel 4 News investigation revealed that a prominent Anglican evangelical and former colleague of the Archbishop of Canterbury is alleged to have severely assaulted boys and young men for decades.
Mr. John Smyth, QC, MA, LLB Trinity Hall and Cambridge.
The alleged abuse was carried out by prominent QC and part time judge called John Smyth, who was chairman of the Iwerne Trust, a charity closely linked to the church which ran Christian holiday camps for public school students.
The Church admitted that it had “failed terribly”, after this programme learned that the Trust had discovered the alleged abuse in 1982, but failed to report it to the police.
Winchester College, where some of the young men met Smyth, was made aware of the alleged abuse, but also failed to report it to the police at the time. There is no suggestion that any abuse took place at the College or with the knowledge of its staff.
The Archbishop was a colleague of Smyth’s at the Iwerne Trust.
Smyth was never reported to cops.
He was instead allowed to move to South Africa after agreeing never to work with children again.
Neither the church or top Winchester College, were some boys went, told police
The Archbishop and Smyth, who continued to ‘exchange cards’ even after he moved abroad.
Lambeth Palace said: ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury was a dormitory officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians. The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.
Two friends of the Archbishop have known of the abuse claims since they first came to light, although a spokesman said neither informed Welby of the allegations.
One, the Reverend David Fletcher, was the trustee of the Iwerne Trust who led the investigation into the incidents. Fletcher opted not to pass the claims to police.
http://freethinker.co.uk/2017/02/03/sadistic-christian-morality-campaigner-accused-of-abuse/
Cape Town church excommunicates alleged child abuser
Cape Town – British alleged sexual predator John Smyth and his wife Anne have been excommunicated from the Cape Town church they belonged to and in which both played a leading role.
Smyth, a British barrister, who was also a part of a South African legal NGO, the Justice Alliance of South Africa, left Zimbabwe nearly 20 years ago under a cloud with accusations of sexual impropriety with school boys on the Christian holiday camps he ran for several years.
Smyth went to Zimbabwe after similar accusations were kept under wraps in the UK. Justin Welby, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of those who attended the camps at a famous public school in the UK and said he noticed nothing but apologised anyway.
Some of Smyth’s activities, mostly with schoolboys at Christian camps in the UK, were highlighted in a documentary broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK in February.
Many of the victims claim they were repeatedly beaten while naked by Smyth, who also engaged with them in disturbing sexual conversations.
Church-on-Main released a statement about Smyth last week saying he had been deceitful and said it had excommunicated him and his wife after “much heartache.”
It said its elders came to this conclusions after repeated efforts failed to persuade Smyth to make frank disclosures to the church.
A statement published on the church’s website last week said: ”The lack of response by John and Anne to all parties involved relating to the grave alleged misconduct by John while living in the UK, indicate an unwillingness to have these matters resolved…We find the non-disclosure, or partial disclosure of previous serious actions of misconduct, to have been deceptive and misleading of an extreme nature..”
“We have found that John Smyth specifically deceived us with regard to his dealings with young men he counselled (in Cape Town) in that he repeatedly claimed he would not raise the issue of sexuality in a first meeting.”
The church confirmed it had advised Smyth to return to UK after the matter of his sexual behaviour with male youngsters in the UK emerged in a documentary on the UK’s Channel 4 in February.
After the Channel 4 documentary, Zimbabwe lawyer David Coltart, former education minister in the inclusive government, released a file of legal documents and statements collected and agreed to by a group of church leaders in Bulawayo in the 1990’s.
These statements led to Smyth being obliged to cancel Christian holiday camps he had been holding in the country for several years.
Smyth was advised by Zimbabwean church leaders to seek professional help and analysis as they felt he had unresolved sexual issues.
Parents of several boys who had attended the Zimbabwe camps sued Smyth but the case eventually expired and he then fled Zimbabwe and first went to KwaZulu-Natal and then on to the Western Cape where they settled in a home in Bergvliet.
He became an elder in the Church-on-Main but some of its members were uneasy about him even prior to the Channel 4 documentary.
Smyth raised money from South Africa and the UK and formed the Justice Alliance which took several cases to court. His colleagues in Justice Alliance say Smyth is no longer part of their organisation.
He had been a Queen’s Council member in the UK prior to his departure to Zimbabwe.
The controversy over his father followed his son, PJ Smyth, pastor of a successful Johannesburg Christian organisation, GodFirst Church which had congregations in several Gauteng areas and suburbs such as Douglasdale, Parkhurst, Paulshoff, Benoni and Tembisa.
He went to the US last December to take up the post of Covenant Life Church in Maryland which had itself been previously involved in a child sex abuse scandal.
He was unable to take over his role as lead pastor after the scandal about his father emerged in the international media.
So far there is no indications whether British police will, as they indicated in February, be questioning Smyth when he returns to the UK.
https://www.iol.co.za/news/cape-town-church-excommunicates-alleged-child-abuser-9563028
Son of lawyer in ‘spanking’ documentary heads US ‘megachurch’ embroiled in sex scandal
The son of John Smyth — the Cape Town lawyer accused of abusing boys at Christian holiday camps for decades — has just moved from South Africa to head a US “megachurch” emerging from a child sex abuse scandal.
PJ Smyth is the new lead pastor at Covenant Life Church‚ in Gaithersburg‚ Maryland. He moved there in December after being at the helm of Johannesburg’s GodFirst church‚ which has congregations in Douglasdale‚ Parkhurst‚ Paulshoff‚ Benoni and Tembisa.
The website of Covenant Life — which has 19 pastors and around 2‚000 members — says: “We convey our warmest thanks to the people of GodFirst Church in Johannesburg‚ where PJ has served for the last 10 years‚ for their faith and generosity in sending PJ and family stateside for a new assignment.”
In December 2012‚ according to Wikipedia‚ Covenant Life withdrew from the Sovereign Grace Ministries network after former congregants — including some from Covenant Life — filed a lawsuit alleging the ministry’s leaders conspired to conceal the sexual abuse of children.
Six months later‚ Smyth’s predecessor as lead pastor‚ Joshua Harris‚ disclosed that he had been a victim of sex abuse and encouraged victims to go to the police after a Maryland judge dismissed the lawsuit due to the statute of limitations.
Harris stepped down from The Gospel Coalition council in 2014 after former Covenant Life youth group leader Nathaniel Morales was convicted on five counts of sexual abuse against three boys between 1983 and 1991.
During the trial‚ former Covenant Life pastor Grant Layman admitted under oath that he had not reported sex abuse allegations.
http://thouartthemandotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/screenshot-2014-02-01-00-16-31.png?w=425
PJ moved to Zimbabwe from the UK in 1984‚ when he was 13. He studied at the University of Cape Town‚ and Covenant Life’s website says: “In 1997‚ (PJ and his wife Ashleigh) started River of Life Church in Harare with a few friends.
“Over a seven-year period‚ River of Life had become a family of five churches‚ and PJ and Ashleigh felt God calling them to … plant another reproducing base church‚ this time in Johannesburg‚ South Africa. They started GodFirst Church … in 2005.
“In 2014‚ PJ handed over the leadership of GodFirst Church to devote himself full time to establishing Advance‚ a family of churches committed to planting and strengthening churches‚ currently working on five continents.”
His son PJ Smyth – of Covenant Life Church
Washingtonian Magazine – allegations that CLC’s members and pastors have been covering up child sexual abuse for decades and are continuing to handle sexual abuse problems internally instead of reporting them to the police.
PJ Smyth’s church
Another Covenant Life Church Member Arrested for Sexual Abuse
March 28, 2016
UPDATE – March 30, 2016
Covenant Life Church sent the following email to their members yesterday:
March 29,2016
Dear church family,
I am sorry to bring sad and disturbing news. We learned Saturday that a 66-year-old male member of the church was arrested earlier this month and charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of a minor. We are grateful that law enforcement is involved. We are not naming the accused at this time to protect the minor.
We’ve been learning all we can so that we can communicate with you fully and accurately in the days to come. We want to reassure you that our child protection measures are robust, and we continue to work hard to ensure Covenant Life remains a place of safety for children.
So far as we know nothing related to these charges occurred at the church. However, if you have any information we encourage you to contact Montgomery County Police at 301-279-8000.
Sincerely,
Mark Mitchell
The idea that Covenant Life Church is not releasing the perpetrator’s name because they want to protect the victim’s privacy is an appalling lie. The alleged perpetrator’s arrest is a matter of public record on the MD court case website. How are church members supposed to know if their kids have been associating with an unnamed pedophile? How are CLC members realistically expected to report any information on an unnamed pedophile to the Montgomery County Police?
Covenant Life Church is a mess. They cannot even get a simple letter notifying members of a dangerous pedophile in their church right. I think it is most likely that they knew on the 16th when Caffery was arrested; but even if they didn’t find out till Saturday, why did it take 4 days to send out a statement that essentially said nothing? And we are to believe they have “robust child protection” policies?
https://thouarttheman.org/2016/03/28/another-covenant-life-church-member-arrested-sexual-abuse/
When we last heard from Covenant Life Church of Gaithersburg, Maryland they were reeling from stories in TIME and the Washingtonian which shined an unwelcome light on their sordid past of alleged sex abuse of children and the conspiracy to cover up the abuse. They released the statement below in an attempt to tell people to “move along, there is nothing to see here.”
Fast forward six weeks and the CLC statement, undoubtedly crafted by their attorney, rings hollow as it is revealed yet another member of their church has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing a minor!
A Maryland Senate subcommittee held a hearing on SB69 earlier this month. The proposed bill would extend the statute of limitations for civil cases of sexual abuse from seven to twenty years. During the hearing, Senator Jamie Raskin stated that Covenant Life Church looks like something of a “clearing house for predatory sexual activities against children.”
I would agree with Senator Raskin.
One is left to wonder how many more pedophiles will be arrested before Child Protection Services and Law Enforcement intervene with the intent of protecting children.
https://thouarttheman.org/2016/03/28/another-covenant-life-church-member-arrested-sexual-abuse/
P.J. Smyth Tells Covenant Life Church, “I Cannot Re-Engage as Your Lead Pastor” Because of Divisions & Dissensions – Will Likely Plant Church in Area with Interested Members
July 3, 2018
Before he was exposed, P.J. even had the gall to highly commend his father on the CLC blog as a “primary shaping spiritual influence” who “instilled in him a love for God’s Word and for leadership” even though he knew all the evil his father had committed. He is an accomplice to the charade that the Smyth’s are top of the class evangelical elites.
In addition, P.J. observed some of the violent beatings. He too should have reported them to law enforcement as required. Moreover, he was his father’s closest confidante once the allegations and charges were brought against his father in Zimbabwe. P.J. was a college graduate, married, and 22 years old. He was no juvenile.
Yet, despite his first-hand knowledge of violent beatings and other overwhelming evidence, he repudiated David Coltart (the top civil rights lawyer in Zimbabwe) and the Zimbabwe pastors who testified on the behalf of seven victims. Furthermore, he worked to get his father off for his crimes from Feb 1994 (age 23) to Oct 1997 (age 26) through connections with the government. He was no innocent hap-along. He should have helped with the prosecution even though it was his father. The horrific beating of boys and young men involved scores of individuals and inflicted great harm upon their souls.
I don’t know what it is like to grow up with a sexual sadist for a father, but that is no excuse for P.J. defending him, allowing innocents to be harmed, and being party to corrupt means to stop the prosecution.
All of this cunning conveyed to CLC. P.J. withheld the above information from the Search Committee to get the lead pastor job. And then he lied to Covenant Life to keep the job after his father was exposed on three continents in Feb. 2017. P.J. claimed absolutely no knowledge of any allegations against his father as reported in the press. His lying was beyond audacious! Soon after, the CLC pastors discovered it was a lie. They covered it up.
P.J. didn’t lie because he feared a lawsuit. He lied because he didn’t want to be exposed and lose his job and face possible deportation. He lied because he wanted to keep his prestigious job at a former mega-church with 40 acres and a massive facility in one of the wealthiest counties in America that is near Washington D.C.
Furthermore, P.J. has refused to speak out against his father and call for him to return to England and face justice even though victims have asked him to do so. He has also refused interviews with people like Cathy Newman [at Channel 4 News] in the UK who broke the story about his father. And he has expressed no care or compassionate concern for victims of his father according to the victims themselves.
PJ’s Status
June 5, 2018
Is PJ still employed by CLC?
Yes. PJ’s employment was never terminated [which could have resulted in his deportation].
Is PJ still the Lead Pastor (LP)?
PJ has not been functioning as LP since the elders decided to part ways on April 21. He has been carefully considering whether to re-engage as LP since the elders rescinded that decision on May 3.
Has PJ made his final decision whether to stay as LP?
PJ will come to a final decision by Sunday June 10.
Will there be any congregational involvement?
If PJ decides to re-engage as LP, he and a smaller group of elders (i.e. an interim board) will be presented to the congregation for affirmation.
Role of the Advisory Committee (AC)
What is the Advisory Committee doing?
The elders tasked this group, as stated in their charter, “to help PJ determine whether he can re-engage as Lead Elder of Covenant Life Church, and what Board configuration would best facilitate that purpose.” To this end, the AC has spent significant time in dialogue with PJ and the other elders and made a number of recommendations.
Who is on Advisory Committee?
Myung Yi, Travis Earles, Michael Winn, Ed Stockton, and Jim Wilson.
Who selected them?
The elders, including PJ.
Was Board of Elders (BoE) unanimously supportive of their selection?
Yes.
What qualifies them?
Committee members have proven their leadership expertise in other church contexts and were commended by the BOE [Board of Elders] for their initiative, maturity, and wisdom. They were among those who appealed to the elders to reconsider upon hearing of the decision to part ways with PJ. In part, their initiative qualified them to continue to serve the elders with their counsel. In addition, they have served in a number of leadership roles in the church. Myung Yi was vice chairman of the Lead Pastor Search Team and leads a small group. Travis Earles recently chaired the Local Missions Committee and has served as a small group leader and ministry team leader. Ed Stockton is the chairman of the board of Covenant Life School. Jim Wilson serves on the Financial Advisory Committee. Michael Winn helps to lead the Benevolence Committee and the Greeting Team.
Is BOE ceding authority to them?
The Advisory Committee does not have authority. They have been tasked to provide counsel and recommendations to PJ and the BoE.
June 29, 2018
Letter from PJ
I regretfully have reached the conclusion that I cannot re-engage as your Lead Pastor.
Justin Welby worked as a dormitory officer at a camp where John Smyth was one of the main leaders in the 70s
The Archbishop said he was first informed of the alleged abuse in late 2013 or early 2014.
He said: ‘I was told the Bishop of Ely – it fell within his diocese – had been informed by a survivor of what had happened and had written to the police so we checked that indeed the police had been contacted immediately as per the Church rules.
‘They had been, we keep an eye on it obviously, we kept in touch and found out what was going on.
‘As you know, John Smyth had moved to Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, I understand, and it was not in the police’s jurisdiction.
‘I have a vague feeling I may have had a Christmas card in the 1990s and when I was living in Paris he passed through a
The prosecuting counsel was John Jackson Smyth, Mary Whitehouse’s fellow traveller from the Festival of Lights
Ex-detective felt forced by BBC reporter to reveal Cliff Richard raid, court hears
Matthew Fenwick tells high court he felt he had ‘no option’ but to tell reporter about the search
Apr 16 2018
Matthew Fenwick, who was a detective superintendent with South Yorkshire police, said he believed reporter Dan Johnson would run a story about the investigation into the singer, leaving it “compromised”, unless he was told about the search.
Fenwick said it had been clear Johnson knew the force was investigating an allegation of child sexual abuse against Richard, because he described the singer as a “celebrity paedo” during a meeting.
John Smyth QC Obscenity case:
“The prosecuting counsel was John Jackson Smyth, Mary Whitehouse’s fellow traveller from the Festival of Lights”
Conversion of an archbishop
Justin Welby with ‘Bash camps’ founder Eric John Hewitson Nash, popularly known as ‘Bash’
Welby’s role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.
Much of Welby’s early grounding in Christian doctrine was also gained through the ‘Bash camp’ network…
Welby was involved in the camps as an undergraduate and and again as a theological college student in the early 1990s.
Strange that John Smyth QC lives in Cape Town, South Africa and Justin Welby was in South Africa over Christmas and the New Year visiting Desmond Tutu in Cape Town.
Privilege to meet Archbishop Emeritus @TheDesmondTutu and family – inspired by his challenge to serve Christ above all personal interest.
Sir Anthony Montague Browne arriving to visit Sir Winston Churchill in hospital with Dianna Churchill and Lady Churchill
Rings…John Symth/Archbishop Welby – Welby’s biological father, Sir Anthony Montague Browne …one of Winston Churchill’s private secretaries
Sir Anthony Montague Browne was a founder member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, established in 1965, and served as chairman.
Rab Butler (PIE-linked) ‘s daughter, Churchill, Welby’s father
Winston Churchill’s right-hand man and an affair to shake the Establishment
Anthony Montague-Browne (Welby’s father) with Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower in a helicopter on the White House lawn in 1959
Welby’s biological father was Anthony Montague Browne, Churchill’s private secretary, who later worked for the Queen
Welby’s biological father Anthony Montague Browne with Churchill and Onassis
In a statement the Archbishop said he had been friends with Smyth during the late Seventies, when he worked at the camps, run by the Iwerne Trust.
The Archbishop said he had kept in “occasional” contact with the barrister since.
He was made aware of the allegations in 2013 when the police were involved.
A statement from the Archbishop said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury was a Dormitory Officer at Iwerne holiday camp in the late 1970s, where boys from public schools learnt to develop life as Christians.
“The role was to be a mentor to the boys, as was that of his now wife at a similar camp for girls.
Winchester College, where some of the young men met Smyth, was made aware of the alleged abuse, but also failed to report it to the police at the time.
Many Royal visits to Winchester College
http://www.winchestercollege.org/UserFiles/pdfs/Royal%20VisitsFriendsLeaflet.pdf
The Titus Trust was set up in 1997 and took over fundraising from The Iwerne Trust.
In 2000 it took control of the running of the holidays from Scripture Union.
In 2014 that the board of The Titus Trust became aware of these allegations
The Titus Trust
Lymington Rushmore is part of the Titus Trust, a non-denominational Christian charity. The Trust has been running activity holidays for young people since the 1930s (originally as part of the Scripture Union). It is responsible for four holiday groups –Lymington Rushmore Holidays serving a mixture of day and boarding schools in the South; Iwerne & Forres Holidays, for those at the larger boarding schools and associated prep schools in the South of England; Gloddaeth Holidays working with independent schools in the North of England; and LDN Holidays for those at independent London day schools.
The Titus Trust continues to enjoy strong links with the Scripture Union and with a number of CPAS Ventures and holidays.
The Titus Trust is a registered charity (charity no. 1066751) and is only able to continue its work due to the generous gifts of its supporters.
https://www.lymingtonrushmore.org/titus-trust
Reverend David Fletcher, a vicar in the Church of England who as head of Iwerne decided not to report the abuse to the police, declined to comment to Channel 4.
Always loving OB @WellyTopping
justme @zante03
John Smyth QC right next to an advert regarding child sex abuse
Tremendous Teens by John Smyth
Pastor Andrew Ellis and Pastor Nigel Desmond praising John Smyth
Christian crusader in teen abuse scandal
A British lawyer who has been working for the inclusion of Christian values into South Africa’s constitutional jurisprudence has been accused of the “horrific” and “masochistic” beating of teenage boys in his care.
Currently based in Cape Town, John Smyth, a Queen’s Counsel and former acting judge in England, is alleged to have left a decades-long trail of bloodied bodies and broken spirits both in the United Kingdom and in Zimbabwe.
While in Zimbabwe Smyth ran a Christian mission, Zambesi Ministries, for 17 years. He was charged with the culpable homicide of 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru at one of the Zambesi Ministries’ summer camps held in Marondera in December 1992. Nyachuru’s naked body was found in the Ruzawi School pool — questions still hang over the circumstances surrounding his drowning. Smyth has always maintained it was a tragic accident.
Smyth was also charged with five counts of crimen injuria relating to incidents during a camp in April 1993 involving five boys from posh Zimbabwean schools.
The culpable homicide prosecution was discontinued when the then Zimbabwean Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, ruled the prosecutor in the case had a conflict of interest. Smyth moved to South Africa soon afterwards in 2001.
The allegations of abuse — ritualised beatings to “repent” for sins such as masturbation — surfaced this week following an investigation by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News, An Ungodly Crime?, which screened on Thursday February 2 in Britain.
The alleged pattern of behaviour appears contrary to Smyth’s public image in South Africa as a moral crusader and the executive director of the Justice Alliance of South Africa (Jasa). This week Jasa shut down its website.
Justice Alliance Executive Board
This consists of an attorney, three Pastors of different churches, a financier and John Smyth QC, the Honorary Director.
|
 Linda-Jane Tippoo, New Board Member August 2009 |
John Smyth,QC (photo right) practised law as a barrister for many years in Britain; aged 37 he was appointed Queen’s Counsel, and he sat as a part-time judge for 5 years. Part of his practise was constitutional matters and parliamentary drafting. In 1984 he was invited to Australia to assist Parliament with drafting their legislation to restrict video pornography and gratuitous violence.
After running a mission in Zimbabwe for 17 years, John and his wife Anne have made their home in South Africa. In the third season of their lives Anne and John weave together their experience of their earlier years. John combines his legal skills with pastoral work and is supported by Anne in both spheres of work.
John has been involved with moral issues in Parliament, the courts and media for 5 years now. He has a proven track record having addressed the Constitutional Court as amicus curiae in person, and as architect and author of the successful challenge to Parliament by Doctors for Life in respect of the Abortion Amendment Bill 2004. John writes, lectures and frequently appears on radio and TV. John’s website is www.jjs.za.net.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140528095546/www.justicealliance.co.za/board.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20080519170125/http://www.jjs.za.net:80/
Justice Alliance Board 2017
This consists of an attorney, three pastors, a financier, an IT expert and John Smyth QC, the Honorary Director.
- Grant Gunston (Chairman)
- Stephen van Rhyn (Vice-Chairman)
- Msizi Cele
- Tendai Musikavanu
- Nyari Pariola
- Joel Sangster – see photo, right
- John Smyth (Honorary Director)
https://web.archive.org/web/20161011185709/http://justicealliance.co.za/board.html
Australian Parliament
Films (Censorship and Review) Acts Amendment Bill 27 Nov 1984
Videos for children:
British barrister John Smyth QC assisted to draft the key clause of the United Kingdom Act
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/1984/1984_11_27.pdf
Smyth and Jasa have been involved in Constitutional Court cases arguing against same-sex marriage, teenage sex, abortion, pornography and euthanasia. He also submitted draft legislation to the department of home affairs to limit access to pornography.
Senior evangelical Anglicans appear to have known of Smyth’s behaviour, which An Ungodly Crime? suggests they appear to have sought to cover up. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, Smyth was chairperson of the Iwerne Trust, an Anglican organisation with close ties to The Church of England. Iwerne organised Christian holiday camps for boys from Britain’s poshest public schools (called private schools in South Africa).
An internal report written by the Iwerne Trust in 1982, in which it acknowledges the “horrific” scale and severity of the alleged beatings by Smyth involving 22 young men since 1978.
The investigator interviewed 13 of the 22 alleged victims. In one of the first reported incidents a 17-year-old claimed that instead of a shoplifting incident being reported to his parents, Smyth offered him the choice of a beating to repent.
“He chose the beating, which was given with a cane in the summer house,” the report stated.
According to the report the beatings “continued with four 17-year-olds, on the bare bottom with a gym shoe (because it leaves less evidence) but was voluntarily accepted as a deterrent to masturbation. Beatings varied from a dozen to 40 strokes.”
The report acknowledged the beatings were “technically all criminal offences” but the organisation appears not to have reported these cases to the police at the time. The report suggests the practice was part of the “sanctifying of young men, and the blessings of fatherly discipline” but noted that a psychiatrist “describes it as suppressed masochistic sexual activity”.
From 1979 the beatings are alleged to have escalated in frequency, severity and the number of teenagers involved. About half of the victims attended Winchester College, England’s oldest public school, where Smyth appeared to have access to students.
While there was no overt sexual activity, the report said: “There was a very frequent association with sexual sins of a comparatively minor kind (masturbation and impure thoughts) and too many sexual overtones”.
The teenagers said the beatings were followed by “embraces”, with the survivor laying on the bed while it is claimed that Smyth “would kneel and pray, linking arms with him and kissing him on the shoulder and back”.
Smyth was not charged, and, instead, left for Zimbabwe in 1984.
There, he continued to source boys from top-end schools, like Bulawayo’s Christian Brothers College and Prince Edward School in Harare, for camps where the psychological manipulation and abuse allegedly continued.
http://mg.co.za/article/2017-02-02-christian-crusader-in-teen-abuse-scandal
31st August 1995 Prince Edward shares a laugh with students from Prince Edward High School in Harare
Two friends of Archbishop Welby investigated allegations about John Smythfruston
Archbishop of Canterbury’s ‘delightful’ friend accused of killing teenager in Zimbabwe
A former friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury who left Britain amidst child abuse claims was later charged with killing a teenage boy in Zimbabwe.
Hampshire Police yesterday launched an investigation into claims that John Smyth QC, described by the Most Rev Justin Welby as a “charming and delightful” man, forced young men to endure savage sado-masochistic beatings after grooming them at Christian holiday camps in the late Seventies.
Channel 4 News will tonight report that Mr Smyth, who left Britain after the abuse claims emerged, went on to face charges of killing a 16-year-old boy who was found dead in a swimming pool at a Zimbabwean holiday camp.
The barrister was also accused of swimming naked with Zimbabwean teenagers, showering with them in the nude, and encouraging them to talk about masturbation.
In 1997 he was arrested over claims that he had killed Guide Nyachuru, a 16-year-old boy whose body was discovered at the bottom of the camp’s swimming pool in December 1992. The case of culpable homicide was subsequently dismissed.
Edith Nyachuru, whose brother died at one of Mr Smyth’s camps, say he would still be alive had the barrister faced justice in the UK
Court documents from the time state: “The particular allegations are that [Mr Smyth] made the complainants walk naked to the swimming pool at night; that he took showers with them in the nude; that he talked to them about masturbation and told them to be proud of their ‘dicks’; as Jesus Christ had one; and that he assaulted them on their ‘rear bare buttocks’ with a table tennis bat.”
The case against Mr Smyth collapsed in 1998, after he successfully persuaded Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court that prosecutors had overstated the claims and failed to follow proper procedures.
A lawyer involved in the case told The Telegraph he had been “shocked” after the barrister privately admitted showering with the boys, and said he had warned Mr Smyth to stop.
Channel 4 News has tracked down boys who attended the camps, who insist that the allegations are true.
A 1982 report into the claims, commissioned by the Iwerne Trust, was carried out by Mark Ruston, the vicar of the Round Church in Cambridge, with whom the Archbishop lodged during the late Seventies, in his final year at university.
The Archbishop has said his friendship with the Reverend Ruston was “extraordinary privilege” and he was “inspired” by him.
A second friend of the Archbishop, the Reverend David Fletcher, was the trustee of the Iwerne Trust who led the investigation into the incidents.
A report by the Iwerne Trust, the charity that ran the Christian camps at which Mr Smyth met many of the victims, documents how he persuaded one of the boys to assist with the attacks.
Mr Ruston wrote that while some of the victims “seem amazingly resilient … the rehabilitation of S … is a cause of concern”.
Mr Ruston’s report says the young men were “conned” by the barrister into taking part in the naked beatings.
The report, written by Canon Mark Ruston, a close friend of the Rev Justin Welby, said that the teenage boy, identified only as “S”, was “brought into sharing the ‘ministry’ in the summer of 1980”.
He wrote in the 1982 report: “There was considerable persuasion for anyone who held back. It had almost become a cult, with a powerful group dynamic.
“S, wanting to ‘be the best for God’, beat as hard as he could. “Immediately after the beating, the man lay on the bed, while [Mr Smyth] and/or S would kneel and pray, linking arms with him and kissing him on the shoulder and back.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/05/teenage-boy-forced-barrister-join-cult-beating-friends/
“M.A., Honorary Chaplain to the Queen Canon Mark Ruston”
An Honorary Chaplain to the Queen (QHC)[1] is a member of the clergy within the United Kingdom who, through long and distinguished service, is appointed to minister to the monarch of the United Kingdom.
Doctors for Life – Legal Team – Shadrack Mafutsa, Martus de Wet, Adv Kemp SC, Dr Van Eeden and John Smyth QC,
http://www.doctorsforlife.co.za/pg/175/
Executive Board of the Justice Alliance of South Africa
This consists of an attorney, three Pastors of different churches, a financier and John Smyth QC, the Honorary Director.
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After running a mission in Zimbabwe for 17 years, John and his wife Anne have made their home in South Africa. In the third season of their lives Anne and John weave together their experience of their earlier years. John combines his legal skills with pastoral work and is supported by Anne in both spheres of work.
John has been involved with moral issues in Parliament, the courts and media for 5 years now. He has a proven track record having addressed the Constitutional Court as amicus curiae in person, and as architect and author of the successful challenge to Parliament by Doctors for Life in respect of the Abortion Amendment Bill 2004. John writes, lectures and frequently appears on radio and TV. John’s website is www.jjs.za.net.
John and Anne were married in 1968. They have 4 grown up children and 7 grandchildren.
John was educated in the UK and Canada and gained MA and LLB degrees at the University of Cambridge.
He was called to the Bar in 1965 and practiced as a Barrister (Advocate) for 19 years. In 1978 he was appointed a part-time judge, and in 1979 Queen’s Counsel.
One of Mr Smyth’s daughters, who asked not to be named said
that teenage boys were “often” at their family home for barbecues and pool parties and she never saw any abuse.
The alleged assaults came to light in the early 1980s after one of the victims, a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University, reportedly attempted to kill himself after he was told to submit to another beating.
A report by the charity, the Irwerne Trust, in 1982 called the practice “horrific” but the claims were not reported to police until 2013.
A vicar, Mark Ruston, carried out the report for the charity, which has now been seen by Channel 4 News and the Daily Telegraph.
It reported that after identifying the boys, mostly from public school Winchester College, Mr Smyth took them to his home in Hampshire and carried out lashings with a garden cane in his shed.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38838113
Winchester College – Willie Whitelaw, former Winchester College pupil, alleged satanist, was given Ad Portas honour from Winchester College May 12 1984
The Whitelaw Memoirs pg 5
http://www.winchestercollege.org/UserFiles/pdfs/Ad%20Portas%20Programme%202012%20(2).pdf
The Times and Willie Whitelaw
The Church of England has told Scotland Yard that William Whitelaw, the former home secretary, and Enoch Powell were accused of being members of a political satanic abuse ring.
The allegations of the politicians’ involvement in child abuse emerged during counselling by a vicar of a youth in the 1980s. Leo Abse, a long-serving Labour MP, was also named.
Although there was no evidence to support the claims, the church authorities felt compelled to send the information to Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged establishment involvement in child abuse.
CuddleNinja
@NingaAnon
I am aware that the following Parliamentarians knew about the elite paedophile ring and the cover-up Willie Whitelaw, John Major, Ken Livingstone, Edwina Currie, David Waddington, Michael Howard, Margaret Thatcher, Leon Brittan, Ken Clarke, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Geoffrey Dickens, Alun Michael, Rod Richards, John Merek and William Hague.
Public school defends role in alleged cover up of abuse at Christian camps
Winchester College knew in 1982 about allegations of abuse at the camps but says it didn’t go to the police
One of Britain’s leading public schools has been forced to defend its role in an alleged cover up of serious physical abuse at Christian summer camps attended by its pupils in the 1970s and 1980s.
Winchester College knew in 1982 about allegations of sadomasochistic abuse at the hands of John Smyth, a British QC who ran a series of Christian summer camps known as “bash camps”.
Instead, it said: “The then headmaster met John Smyth and required him to undertake never again to enter the college or contact its pupils.”
Cambridgeshire police said on Thursday they could find no record of the report from the diocese of Ely. A spokesman said any allegations would have been passed to Hampshire police to investigate.
John Smyth was appointed a part time judge in 1978
In 1984 John and Anne moved with their family to Zimbabwe to do mission work. After two years with African Enterprise they founded Zambesi Ministries which they directed for the next 15 years until John reached 60.
According to Bar Council records, Smyth continued to be a part-time recorder and member of the bar until he moved to Zimbabwe two years later, where in 1986 he set up his own teenage camp for young boys, Zambesi Ministries. Between 1986 and 2002, hundreds of boys passed through the camps.
Smyth is now based in Cape Town, South Africa, where he runs the Justice Alliance, whose website has recently been taken down. In 2005 he was one of an outspoken group who opposed gay marriage equality in South Africa.
Smyth has nine grandchildren and lists his hobbies as skiing, mountain walking and squash.
He did not respond to requests for a comment on Thursday.
Anne and John now make their home in Cape Town. John is available as a consultant in constitutional law and serves Doctors for Life International and the Justice Alliance of South Africa.
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Discipline of Children |
Welby said he had only had fleeting contact with Smyth since. “I have a vague feeling I may have had a Christmas card in the 1990s and when I was living in Paris he passed through and I shook hands with him. That was the limit.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/justin-welby-church-england-john-smyth-abuse-claims
Archbishop Welby, was a colleague of Smyth’s at the Iwerne Trust
Archbishop Justin Welby with Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, the daughter of Greville Janner. JANNER PART OF WORLDWIDE RING
Justin Welby “has a secret past smuggling in cold war Europe, briefing US state department officials on rebels in the Niger Delta and chatting to the future head of MI6 in Baghdad.”
MI6 spy – Archbishop of Canterbury
John Smyth
Holmer United Charities (226243)
I am a retired member of the Bar of England and Wales, and was appointed Queen\u2019s Counsel in 1979.
https://www.scribd.com/document/7040441/Smythe-Affadavit
John Smyth’s son:
Covenant Life Church
Why is Pastor P.J. Smyth Comfortable Enabling Child Sexual Abuse At Covenant Life Church?
A Current Member of Covenant Life Church Has Been Arrested For Multiple Counts of Child Sexual Abuse. P.J. Smyth has not commented on this issue despite being the Church’s Senior Pastor-Elect.
His son PJ Smyth – of Covenant Life Church
Washingtonian Magazine – allegations that CLC’s members and pastors have been covering up child sexual abuse for decades and are continuing to handle sexual abuse problems internally instead of reporting them to the police.
During the hearing, Senator Jamie Raskin stated that Covenant Life Church looks like something of a “clearing house for predatory sexual activities against children.
https://thouarttheman.org/2016/03/28/another-covenant-life-church-member-arrested-sexual-abuse/
Son of lawyer in ‘spanking’ documentary heads US ‘megachurch’ embroiled in sex scandal
New Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Affecting Children
Is P.J. Smyth a Naive Opportunist or Just Someone Comfortable Indirectly Enabling Child Sexual Abuse
P.J. Smyth, a self-proclaimed (he does not appear to have formal Ministry training) Pastor from South Africa, has declared that critics of Covenant Life Church’s (CLC’s) decision to harbor pedophiles are part of a Satanic attack to stop his Godly Ministry per an undisputed statement about his comments at a recent Church meeting below:
link
PJ was born in the UK in 1971. When he was 13 his family moved to Zimbabwe where his parents took up missionary work for many years. PJ and Ashleigh met at high school in Harare (Zimbabwe’s capital city), married straight after college (1993), and for their first few years of marriage, both taught high school.
In 1997, they started River of Life Church in Harare with a few friends
Q: Where has PJ lived?
A: In the UK until age 13 (1971-1984); in Zimbabwe until age 33 (1984-2004); then in South Africa (2004-2016) until age 45. PJ and family relocated to Maryland in December 2016.
Q: What is his citizenship?
A: PJ is a UK citizen, who enjoyed the status of permanent residence in Zimbabwe, and then in South Africa. Ashleigh is a South African citizen.
Q: Describe PJ’s educational background.
A: PJ attained ‘O’ Levels (aged 16 years) and ‘A’ Levels (aged 18 years), and university degrees from Cape Town University and the University of South Africa in Biblical Studies and Church History.
Q: Describe PJ’s spiritual background.
A: PJ came to faith as a young boy, although he feels he properly owned his faith at age 15. Because he was at boarding schools from ages 8 to 18, PJ’s first genuine experience of local church life came during college. He attended His People Church in Cape Town throughout his university years, and during that time felt God speak to him about one day leading a church.
PJ reflects on three primary shaping spiritual influences. First, his parents. John and Anne Smyth (who live in Cape Town), led PJ to faith and instilled in him a love for God’s Word and for leadership. Second, His People Church in Cape Town. His People taught PJ about the importance of faith, courage and excellence in ministry. Third, Newfrontiers. Terry Virgo, and other Newfrontiers men and women, taught PJ about the importance of the local church, the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.
Q: What are the churches PJ has led in Africa?
A: River of Life Church in Harare, Zimbabwe. GodFirst Church in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Police investigate alleged ‘brutal lashings’ by Christian leader
Police have today launched an investigation into claims that teenage boys from Britain’s leading public schools were violently beaten, in what’s been described as a “sadomasochistic cult” run by a lawyer with links to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Operation Cubic, run by Hampshire Police, will examine allegations uncovered by Channel 4 News that John Smyth QC stripped and brutally lashed 22 young men he had groomed at the Christian youth camps he ran.
The QC, who acted for public morals campaigner Mary Whitehouse in her high profile anti-gay censorship trials, is alleged to have carried out the intense beatings in a specially sound-proofed garden shed at his Winchester home after meeting many of his “disciples” while giving talks at nearby Winchester College.
From 1979 the beatings are alleged to have escalated in frequency, severity and the number of teenagers involved. About half of the victims attended Winchester College, England’s oldest public school, where Smyth appeared to have access to students.
Smyth encouraged the pupils to attend the Iwerne Trust camps where he cultivated small groups of followers in their late teens. They were invited to his home for Sunday lunch.
The report’s author, Mark Ruston, a vicar and also a friend of Archbishop Welby, said the punishments began with “training beatings” that were “semi-naked” which “gave way to complete nakedness to ‘increase humility’.
The teenage boys were reportedly told: “You want to be the best, don’t you? Let me be a helper to you”.
The alleged violence intensified. One boy said, “I could feel the blood spattering on my legs”, another said, “I fainted sometime after a severe beating”. One simply stated: “I was bleeding for three-and-a-half weeks”.
Dear Archbishop of Canterbury: Can you look yourself in the mirror and honestly say you did everything you could to expose John Smyth?
The open letter calls on the Archbishop to reconsider his statement that he first heard of abuse in 2013
- This is an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from an anonymous abuse victim who told his story in the Daily Telegraph. It is endorsed by seven other victims.
Dear Archbishop,
I am sure that we will meet one day. You have expressed your deep regret about how the Church has treated myself and my fellow victims since John Smyth’s abuse was uncovered. And besides, we have a lot in common. We are pretty much the same age. You went to Eton, I went to Winchester College. We have shared a university education.
We were both at the Iwerne Trust Christian camps at the same time, although I was there as a boy, you were there as an Iwerne Officer. Crucially, however, we both personally knew John Smyth, the subject of Channel 4’s news reports last Thursday & Friday. He was my abuser. The man who beat me in the horrific detail that was exposed in the television reports (and that I have written about in my account for Monday’s Daily Telegraph, the newspaper that, in my opinion, bravely ran this story before all others).
You have described John Smyth as ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’. Some people have found these words a strange description for someone who is alleged to have performed such monstrous acts, but I completely agree with you. I first met John Smyth when I was 14 years old. He was charming and delightful. That was why I latched on to him.
Watch | Reporter tracks down man at centre of abuse allegations
01:21
I was at Winchester College at the time. I had been educated away from home since the age of 7. With respect to all the adults that I met during those years of boarding school, John Smyth was probably the first man who seemed genuinely interested in me. Only a ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’ man could have attracted so many young, impressionable men into his cult.
I was beaten by John on a 4-6 weekly basis from the age of 16 to 21. I was ‘in’ at the beginning and ‘out’ at the very end. I actually brought about the end of the beatings in the UK when I tried to commit suicide because I couldn’t face the ‘special’ beating that he had planned for my 21st birthday. By then, for me, it had been over four years and thousands and thousands of lashes. My body couldn’t take it anymore. My mind was frozen in trauma. I was ready to die. Death would have been a relief.
That was in 1982. In 2016, a friend and fellow victim told me that Channel 4 were conducting an investigation into John Smyth – an investigation into the alleged physical abuse that John Smyth handed out in the UK and subsequently continued in Zimbabwe. The first words that my friend said were ‘I hope you don’t mind me telling you…’ but we soon reflected that in fact neither of us minded that complete strangers were uncovering our secret past.
Watch | Archbishop of Canterbury: I saw no signs of abuse
03:04
We were in fact overjoyed, elated. Why? Well over the intervening years, all of those who had been involved in the beatings had gradually drifted away from each other and lost touch. We had all been great friends at school, often best friends at university and Iwerne Trust Christian camps but, as we had grown older and appreciated the acts of John Smyth for what they were, a terrible catalogue of abuse, we simply found it easier not to meet up, not to socialise, because every time that we saw each other it reminded us of the horrors of the past and, equally troubling, the fact that none of us or our families had ever reported John Smyth to the police, none of us had ever broken the bond of secrecy that we had sworn to him and each other while the abuse was occurring.
And so, in our adult years we had become gradually isolated, intentionally separated from each other. Why am I saying ‘we’ and not just reflecting my own experience? Because, once I learned that Channel 4 were investigating John Smyth. I found that instead of wishing to remain isolated, I positively wanted to search out all my old friends, my fellow victims. I wanted to reconnect and spread the news that Channel 4 and the Daily Telegraph (not any of the institutions that we had imagined might one day get in touch) wanted to listen to our story, to understand our experiences with John Smyth, to build a picture of everything that had occurred to us from 1978 to 1982.
The world is quite different now. I found most of my old friends and fellow victims within a few minutes of opening my laptop: they were on Facebook, LinkedIn, all the social media sites. We were pretty much all there. And we were all delighted to make contact. In the four months that I was involved in assisting various reporters, I have either spoken to or messaged about half of John Smyth’s alleged 22 UK victims. I have even spoken to one of the people who described to me the very similar way that John Smyth had beaten him in Zimbabwe.
In those conversations, I soon became aware of an interesting thing. None of us were really bothered to talk about John Smyth. We knew everything that he had done to each of us. How appalling it had been. How cruelly and malevolently he had used some individuals in particular. That went without saying. We also weren’t particularly curious about what jobs we were doing, whether we had married, had children etc. That didn’t seem important. We were most concerned about each other’s well-being, we kept saying ‘I hope you’re okay.’ Even as we talked or messaged, we continually checked that the other person was comfortable with describing how they felt.
And we discovered that although we had experienced a wide range of mental turmoil, depression and trauma in the intervening years, we all universally had an impression that the media investigation was a GOOD THING – that although it was difficult, shameful to talk to the Channel 4 team and reporter Peter Robertson on behalf of the Daily Telegraph, it was actually a cathartic experience. Because someone was asking us sympathetically what had happened, how we felt. And we all felt a bit better for it.
Because, Archbishop, that is one of the important points that I would like to convey in this letter, from all the victims that I have been in touch with, no matter how different our outcomes. The media asked us, we told, they listened and they reported. Prior to that, none of us had been contacted since 1983 by any of the four institutions that had known our story or had come to learn of it. Actually, that’s not quite true. One of us, one of the victims had contacted the church himself in 2012, reported his experiences, which in turn prompted the police ‘investigation’ that you told us about in your comments to the press.
But that was him bravely contacting the church , not the church or any institution contacting him. And we know that the police investigation collapsed very quickly because they have said that they were not provided with enough evidence to make a case.
So, let’s consider these four institutions, the ones who at some point or other knew about John Smyth’s abuse before the Telegraph’s first story last Thursday morning:
The Iwerne Trust – were aware of the whole story in 1982. I can say that unequivocally because they commissioned a report by your fellow Iwerne Minster Officer and great friend the Reverend Mark Ruston in the Spring of 1982. Channel 4 showed me the report. It has the initials of the Iwerne Trustees at its head, many of whom are still alive, some holding very influential positions in the Church of England.
It’s an incredible account. It contains, in my opinion, the whole story in a few pages. Every detail is correct to my mind: the number of victims, the scale of the abuse, the criminal act that was broken, the trauma that the victims were likely to suffer. Amazing. A couple of months after I tried to commit suicide in 1982, everything that anyone would need to know Mark Ruston has written down.
Identities of all the victims are protected by initialisation but I’ve subsequently found out that in order to compile the report enormous efforts were made to contact my friends and fellow victims. They had nearly all been interviewed by Mark Ruston. That’s why it’s so accurate. It’s a succinct distillation of everything the victims knew and some remarkable interpretation by Mark Ruston himself. At the time, I was in hospital. He didn’t contact me. But even though I never met him I still to this day consider it to be completely accurate.
The Titus Trust – set up in 1997 and who took over the Iwerne Trust fundraising and have run very similar Christian camps for young teenagers up to the present day. Time and space prevents me from naming the personnel who have been involved in both Titus and the Iwerne Trust. Titus have told the media (not the victims) that they were aware, by their own admission, in 2014 of John Smyth’s activities. They’ve said that this was the first they’d ever heard of the abuse.
Apparently, Mark Ruston’s report that the Iwerne Trust commissioned in 1982 somehow never got handed over in the paperwork exchange between Iwerne and Titus. Somehow, all the people who were involved at any time in both the charities never mentioned anything about John Smyth’s horrific practice to each other. We do know that Titus asked Andrew Graystone, a PR advisor to Christian organisations, to advise them about how to deal with the knowledge that they had suddenly ‘discovered’.
Mr Graystone recommended to the Titus Trust that they should make a full, proper independent investigation, inform the police and contact any institution or individual that might have known anything about John Smyth in order that the Titus Trust would be able to reveal the whole story. And, as Mr Graystone advised, that this was the specific, unequivocal type of action that would be most helpful to the victims of the abuse.
Titus didn’t hold that independent investigation. Instead, they relieved Mr Graystone of his advisory position and got in touch with their lawyers. They did notify the police. The police never contacted myself or any of the victims that I have spoken to. It appears that, outside of the one victim who had reported John Smyth, there was no corroboration from anyone or any institution that persuaded the police that there was enough evidence for the investigation to continue. The victim who reported was told as much. Titus offered him no direct support, admitted no responsibility.
Two private individuals (one of whom Channel 4 has identified as David Fletcher of the Iwerne Trust) paid anonymously for 10 therapy sessions. To put that useful counselling into perspective, I have been lucky enough to have received approximately 400 hours of therapy. I am still receiving therapy at the Maudsley Hospital in London and the therapy I’m receiving now is fantastic, really helpful. But it took me 10 years to find a therapist who could even identify the exact nature of my trauma. 10 years for me. Only 10 sessions offered to the one victim who reported. And none of those sessions paid for by the Titus Trust.
Winchester College – informed of the abuse in 1982 by the Iwerne Trust. I say the College, because it was actually the headmaster of the College, John Thorn, who was informed by David Fletcher on behalf of the Iwerne Trust. I know that the Headmaster confronted John Smyth and drew up an undertaking for Smyth to sign, to prevent him from ministering to young children again. One of my parents saw that undertaking. Other victims’ parents too. But they never saw that document signed by John Smyth. And I know crucially that the promise at the bottom of the document that the Headmaster, John Thorn, made as his own personal ‘undertaking’ – a promise that he would distribute to all future headmasters was not kept. I know this for certain. I’ll tell you how I know, when we meet.
The Church – it’s really over to you on this one. I’m sure that you’ll tell me all the details from your end and 2012 onwards when we meet. So that can wait. Wow! That was a long letter. But then it has been over forty years since I first met John Smyth. I hope that some of what I’ve written has given you an indication of how difficult the silence of those last forty years have been.
The final thing that I would like to say is that, from my perspective, it’s not about institutions and organisations; all of those four institutions that I’ve listed include good people doing important, valuable work. So, for me, it’s all about specific individuals. It’s about John Smyth. Myself. The other victims. And all those individuals who have known about this story during those 40 years – and said nothing.
My therapist likes to keep thing simple, which is useful for me. She tells me that there is a triangle in abuse: the ‘abuser’, the ‘victims’ and the ‘observers’ (observers are people who knew but never reported appropriately). I personally find it quite easy to think about John Smyth, the abuser. The victims too. But considering the observers is much, much more difficult. Technically speaking, as a victim, I am ‘excused’ from being an observer (no matter how much I feel like one) but the observers in the John Smyth case include my closest family, everyone who has supported me throughout the years.
They also include all the individuals in all the institutions who also know the story but did not report appropriately. Mark Ruston, your friend, in 1982, when he wrote his report in 1982 became an observer because he wrote that he believed that a criminal act had been committed and he was one of the many people, almost 35 years ago, who failed to report to the police. A decision that had terrible consequences. But a particularly well-informed one.
You, archbishop are also an observer. How and when you became one I know that you will want to tell me. And here’s the difficulty about being an observer. You have to ask yourself. “I knew about John Smyth. I become aware about some of the things that this abuser did, I have ‘observed’ them. Can I look myself in the mirror and honestly say that I did everything I could to report to the correct authority all the things that I knew? Did I give the people who might bring the abuser to justice every scrap of information that they might need? And, if I didn’t, then thinking very carefully about this – whose side have I been on, all this time? The side of the victims. Or the side of the abuser?”
It’s a very troubling position to find yourself in. I totally understand this and that was why, when Cathy Newman interviewed me after the showing of Channel 4’s second news report, I said on camera that I wanted to give you some time to reconsider the statements that you’ve made. I’d like to believe that you will find somewhere where you can be alone, without the advice of anyone else other than your own conscience and God. And when you have decided that you would like to talk, I’m now actually thinking that it’s not really important that we meet. In fact, there’s no reason for us to meet at all. Better not to. Because I know that everything that you tell me, you would happily say to the whole world.
Best wishes, and as we victims of John Smyth are always saying to each other – ‘I hope you’re okay’.
“W “
PS – In the account that I gave in Monday’s edition of The Daily Telegraph, I said that it was my final contribution and that I was returning to my family and normal life. And I can appreciate that Telegraph readers seeing this letter today might think that I have lied. The truth is that when I contributed to the piece on Monday, I thought that it was the end of what I wanted to say. It’s just that what I’ve seen and heard from you since on the John Smyth matter (i.e. nothing) has impelled me to write. However, just to be clear, I apologise for lying. I suppose this is a salutary reminder to us all of how a person can say things sincerely at one time and yet still be telling a lie.
as told to Peter Robertson
Bishop Welby’s response, rather the lack of, to another survivor of abuse by a priest:
Paul Butler, the bishop of Durham, who leads the C of E’s safeguarding work, privately apologised to Joe for the church’s response to his disclosures. He said he had no doubt that Joe had been abused by Garth Moore, and there were likely to be other survivors who have not yet come forward. He ended his handwritten letter, seen by the Guardian, with: “I am … deeply sorry for the hurt I have caused you.”
But there has been no apology from Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, to whom Joe reports writing 18 letters after the church began examining his case. He had one reply, from a correspondence secretary, assuring him that “the archbishop would hold him in his prayers”.
Covenant Life Church Sure Knows How To Pick’em
February 3, 2017
What did CLC pastor PJ Smyth know and when did he know it?
Breaking: News 4 has aired their first two longer investigative stories on the abuse carried out by John Smyth. You can view the first story here. You can view the second story here.
Breaking: PJ Smyth has just released a video which can be viewed immediately below. PJ Smyth’s statement is not good news for Covenant Life Church. It is my opinion that he comes across as a deceptive man with something to hide. CLC has a storied history of former senior pastors who have been deceptive with church members, unfortunately, it looks like they can add another one to the list.
For starters, PJ refers to his father’s abuse as “excessive discipline.” PJ talked only of his father’s alleged abuse while living in the UK decades ago.
Long, long ago and far, far away.
It all occurred when PJ was a young boy. He only heard vague rumors of his father’s behavior. End of story. Nothing to see here, now move along.
Nice try PJ.
What about those years in between the time you and dear old dad lived in the UK and SA? I believe your dad packed up and took the family to Zimbabwe in 1984, where he then worked for 17 years. By my calculations that would mean your dad left Zimbabwe for SA in 2001. You would have been 30 years-old! While in Zimbabwe your dad was charged with the culpable homicide of 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru at one of the Zambesi Ministries’ summer camps held in Marondera in December 1992. (Link) He managed to dodge those charges and fled to SA. (Link) Any recollections of those years PJ? You’re a clever man, surely you don’t expect us to believe that when you were 21 years old you had no knowledge of the charges of homicide against your father, do you?
PJ has some explaining to do. My bet is the corrupt leaders at CLC who rallied around CJ Mahaney and Joshua Harris to cover up the sexual abuse of children happening in their church will continue their corrupt ways and attempt to provide cover for PJ Smyth. It is time for the good members of CLC to rise up and demand the truth from their leaders, and then demand the resignation of corrupt leaders.
Video Player
PJ Smyth’s video makes no mention of his father’s abuse in Zimbabwe.
PJ Smyth’s written statement. (Link)
My submitted response which is not likely to make it out of moderation!
Video Player
Source: Channel 4 News – John Smyth confronted with charges by reporter Cathy Newman (Link)
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Source: Channel 4 News – “Archbishop admits Church ‘failed terribly’ over abuse revelations” (Link)
Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD sure knows how to pick a winner. CLC, formerly the flagship church of the Sovereign Grace denomination, has been embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal that some say was the largest to hit the Evangelical Church in America. Former senior pastors C.J. Mahaney and Joshua Harris, along with assistant pastor (and brother-in-law of C.J. Mahaney) Grant Layman resigned from the church. Youth leader, Nate Morales was convicted of sexually abusing boys and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Hundreds of disenchanted church members quit.
Covenant Life Church, seeking a fresh beginning, left the Sovereign Grace denomination and began a world-wide search for a new pastor. The man CLC leaders (the same leaders complicit in the coverup of abuse) selected to lead them out of the morass of sexual abuse and coverup and restore them to a position of respectability was PJ Smyth. While a relative unknown in the USA, PJ was a superstar in South Africa, much like CJ used to be in the USA. Convinced they had found their next Christian celebrity, CLC leaders had an easy time of convincing the Kool-Aid swilling members who had remained loyal to the church that PJ was their man. The members reportedly voted overwhelmingly ( 97% in favor) of hiring PJ. One year later, in January of 2017, PJ and his family arrived in the USA.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/199353011
All appeared well in CLC-land. PJ was in charge and ready to make everyone forget CJ and lead CLC to new heights of fame and fortune. Who could have known that within one month of PJ’s arrival CLC leaders would once again be indirectly rocked by more charges of abuse?
While one cannot place the blame for the sins of the father on the son, it would be reasonable to believe that PJ Smyth had to have knowledge of his father’s sinister life. The Archbishop of Canterbury became aware of allegations in 2013. When did PJ Smyth become aware that his father was beating young men? Did PJ report any of these brutal beatings to police? Was PJ Smyth ever beaten by his father? Assuming PJ Smyth was aware of what his father was engaged in, did he advise CLC leaders of the potential fall-out from his father’s evil deeds?
It would appear CLC leaders did not exercise due diligence prior to hiring PJ Smith. CLC leaders have repeatedly demonstrated that they are sorely lacking any discernment. In my opinion, these leaders need to resign. One also wonders if church members will divest themselves of the notion that only a celebrity can lead their church? The whole culture at CLC seems, to this outsider, to be sick. Perhaps the healthiest thing CLC could do would be to close shop.
It would also be interesting to know whether PJ Smyth was truthful with US Immigration officials in his visa interview.
Below is a video in which Mark Mitchell recounts the thorough vetting procedure they put PJ Smyth through prior to offering him the job of senior pastor. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me as if the CLC pastors had determined the job was PJ’s prior to the Search Committee even beginning their work!
Video Player
A little refresher course on problems CLC leaders would like you to believe are in their past:
The Leaders Poole: 10 Questions for Leaders: PJ Smyth
2008
Church Causes Stir Round Johannesburg
This blog was updated with additional content on 20 May 2011
The large billboards being displayed around Johannesburg with the question: “Why do bad things happen?” with a picture of God First Pastor PJ Smyth, who recently had cancer, are yet another example of the God First Church causing quite a stir in Johannesburg.
Church Causes Stir Round Johannesburg
This blog was updated with additional content on 20 May 2011
The large billboards being displayed around Johannesburg with the question: “Why do bad things happen?” with a picture of God First Pastor PJ Smyth, who recently had cancer, are yet another example of the God First Church causing quite a stir in Johannesburg.
It’s causing a stir for a number of reasons: the message on the billboard, the way in which it’s presented and the fact that a church is using such mediums to engage with the masses.
Before I carry on let me clearly state upfront the intentions and content of this blog: to examine God First’s cultural relevance and use of media and how this differs from the usual impressions people have of church and the way a church communicates.
The Media
So if you haven’t seen the billboard (the one I saw is on Witkoppen road in Fourways, Johannesburg) it looks like this.
It’s not the first time God First has used some billboards. They first drew attention with their Sex and the City billboards which I’ll get onto later.
The billboard is designed to be provocative. The underlying message is that if God First believes in a God that is good, then why did its leader get cancer? And why did he have to have chemotherapy to beat it?
The History
In the broader scheme of church history in Johannesburg, God First is a baby. Started some six years ago by PJ Smyth, his wife and 20 odd other people, the church first began meeting in Bryanston in 2005.
PJ, a Zimbabwean High School Teacher, planted their first church in Harare in 1997 and then felt the pull to Johannesburg. So he called up 20 of his friends to start a church with him.
The growth has been dramatic in church expansion terms when it comes to Johannesburg. The church moved into Ferndale High School and then expanded further to now meet in nine other sites across Gauteng.
Location is also key for the church. Two of the most interesting sites are Montecasino, where they first met in the Pieter Torien Theatre and now meet at Parker’s Comedy Club and Jive along with Taboo Night Club in Sandton.
The church also meets in various schools around Gauteng and has sites at the University of Johannesburg and Wits University as well as Tembisa, targeting both the up and coming youth and people of different LSM groups.
God First is not concerned about touching the hot topics. As mentioned earlier their Sex and the City billboards also caused surprise and outrage in some circles round the city, with topics like “I kissed a girl and I liked it”, while other series’ have had topics like “The one about having a couple of beers, sneaking around in the dark, and not having sex,” and “A Pornified World”
Another example of their desire to be relevant is their “What Would God Say to” series, where they picked out some interesting celebrities like Oprah, Bono and Julius Malema, which featured in preaches, along with live interviews with Darren “Whackhead” Simpson from 94.7, Michael Mol and none other than President Jacob Zuma. You can see some pictures of that here.
Zuma’s been known to grace the doors of churches before, but Whackhead is a surprise. And he was clearly surprised to be invited to speak at a church, commenting that the whole visit to God First surprised him.
…PJ says, acknowledging that some are suspicious of the church’s motives.
A husband to Ashleigh and father of three strapping boys, PJ was recently diagnosed with cancer and had to take six months off for chemotherapy. His cancer has gone into remission, which the family was obviously thrilled about in their TV interview on Hello Doctor on SABC 3.
http://www.intrinsicmedia.co.za/2011/05/church-causes-stir-round-johannesburg/
https://www.zimeye.net/christian-crusader-alleged-to-have-killed-zim-boy-faces-the-music/
GodFirst and Who is PJ Smyth?
of GodFirst PJ says, “Modern evangelical churches have an appalling reputation. High-profile church leaders are in scandals with money, getting divorced. The reputation is that our kind of church is dubious at best. I completely appreciate that
Speaking of billboard campaigns in 2009 GodFirst ran a “Sex in the City” sermon series which caused controversy and the billboard campaign was axed by the Advertising Standards Authority. The slogan for this series was “Jozi loves sex. God loves sex. Let’s talk.” PJ also believes that there is a crisis of masculinity (paging John Piper, paging John Piper…) When he talked about that crisis of masculinity PJ said the following, “Nine out of 10 sex offenders are men, eight out of 10 prisoners are men, for every one woman who commits suicide, four men do. There’s a lot of work to be done on men and there’s loads in it for women.”
PJ Smyth wrote an article about Nelson Mandela and of his own tribute and salute to Mandela
CJ Mahaney on scandal: ‘I have never conspired to protect a child predator’
Breakfast with Mandela, at Buckingham Palace – front, Trevor Huddleston, back from left, Richard Caborn, Nelson Mandela, Mr Huddleston’s aid, Lord Bob Hughes, Ben Jackson and Lela Kogbara
Lela Kogbara, an assistant chief executive for Islington Council, was vice chairman of Action For South Africa (ACTSA) when she was invited to have breakfast with Mr Mandela and six others.
Islington Council/Mandela
The IRA’s Martin McGuinness is being compared to Nelson Mandela
According to the Sunday Herald, UK:
“Nelson Mandela is … named as an MI6 agent…
“Allegations of Mandela’s recruitment by the British intelligence service … is revealed in a controversial new book, ‘MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations,’ by the acclaimed intelligence expert Stephen Dorril.”
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2017/01/kincora-cia-mossad-mi5-mi6-bigger.html
Jimmy Savile at the 2007 GNR with Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair’s former spin doctor)……and former sports minister Richard Caborn.
Trevor Huddleston – friend of Mandela was a paedophile
Toby Austin Richard William Low, 1st Baron Lord Aldington
...the governing body of Winchester in 1982 (the warden and fellows) was led by Lord Aldington who, of course, was famously accused (fairly or unfairly) by Count Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky of having sanctioned and covered up the deportation of Cossack POWs held by the Germans to the Soviets, who then executed them.
I suppose that, when faced with a problem of the type presented by Smyth, the first instinct of Aldington (deputy chairman of the Tory party during the Vassall and Profumo affairs) and his urbane headmaster, John Thorn, would be to clean things up, make sure everyone did not start blabbing, close ranks and move on.
…Any enquiry must focus on the response of the Iwerne Trust in 1982-83. John Smyth was its chairman, and evidently used his position to groom a group of Winchester boys whom he physically abused at his home. Although none of the abuse took place at Iwerne camps, his central role in the Trust and at the camps, puts the spotlight on the leadership of the Trust and especially the then Trustees.
The Trustees knew very well the extent of John Smyth’s behaviour and its profound impact on his victims, thanks to Canon Mark Ruston’s report, parts of which have appeared on Channel 4 and in the Daily Telegraph. I am not clear whether Mark Ruston was himself a Trustee at this point, or merely acting on their behalf. Given his graphic descriptions of the abuse and the trenchancy of his commentary (eg the ‘cult’ around Smyth), it is surprising that he did not insist the matter be reported to the police; but he may have been constrained by the collective view of the Trustees. One wonders what minutes or correspondence survive from this period: it will important for any enquiry to get statements from the surviving Trustees and those Iwerne leaders ‘in the know’.
Also there are questions about what the Trustees knew of Smyth’s subsequent activities in Zimbabwe, after they had banished him from this country, and whether they could have done anything to prevent the catalogue of further abuse. Smyth seems have been keen to stay in touch with his erstwhile colleagues in Iwerne circles.
….”Justin Welby had no knowledge of what is alleged to have happened over 40 years ago at VPS camp”
Yes he did: he was told in 2013. He says that quite clearly in his statement.
The much deeper question is why, when the matter was raised in 2013, was nothing done. And why, when the matter was raised at some earlier point, or perhaps when rumours circulated (it doesn’t sound like it was terribly secret) was the perpetrator, to use a phrase of the racing world, “warned off” rather than prosecuted? Post 1994, ie post R v Brown, the defence of consent would not have availed him. Post Peter Ball, this is even more worrying.
By Srdja Trifkovic http://www.rockfordinstitute.org/NewsST121900.htm 12-19-00 (Dr. Rimland’s comments are ‘Zundelsite’).
Trifkovic: Lord Aldington, 86, a former British trade minister and Conservative Party vice chairman who filed one of Britain’s most famous libel cases against a man who labeled him a war criminal, died of cancer Dec. 8 at his home in Kent, southern England. In 1989, Lord Aldington was awarded $2.2 million in damages after winning a libel suit against historian Count Nikolai Tolstoy, a distant relative of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who had written a pamphlet accusing Lord Aldington of war crimes.
Zundelsite: Censoring history by way of libel actions is unfortunately the method the rich and well-connected use against their pesky critics.
Trifkovic: As a British army officer in Austria at the end of World War II, Lord Aldington — then known by his given name, Toby Low — oversaw the repatriation of thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav refugees [ Ed. … and, of course, the ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states] . Many were subsequently killed or interned in prison camps.
At the libel trial, Lord Aldington agreed that the refugees’ fate was “ghastly” but said he had not known that many faced execution if returned to their homelands (The Washington Post, December 9, 2000).
Zundelsite: To assume that a high-ranking British Army officer in the field, whose unit daily interrogated refugees and prisoners-of-war, all of whom had either fled from, fought against, or at one time were part of Stalin’s army, is stretching credulity a bit too far. Only a fellow Lodge or Club member sitting as judge on a bench in London could be hypocritical enough to seem to believe such an answer.
Trifkovic: An obituary sometimes begs a thousand words – well worth doing in this case, especially since it’s been over a decade since we wrote about Aldington, Tolstoy, and one of the greatest untold tragedies of World War II. Zundelsite: The tragedy was not untold. There were millions of people affected by it, and detailed accounts have long been written about it. Only the British, and to a lesser degree, the American power elite suppressed it, because their clique had formulated and approved these vicious pro-Communist policies in Teheran and Yalta. They are co-guilty of what happened. They share in the responsibility for these atrocities.
Trifkovic: This is a story of heinous crimes that went unpunished and of establishment conspiracies to cover them up, of a miscarriage of justice, of one man’s quixotic efforts to tell the truth and another’s quiet campaign to keep it suppressed.
Zundelsite: Is it really “quixotic” to expose the deliberate murder of millions? At least there is now an admission that one man – not to mention his network of accomplices – tried to suppress this crime.
Trifkovic: The story starts at Yalta in February 1945, when the return of all Soviet citizens who found themselves in the Allied zone was demanded by Stalin — and was duly agreed to by Churchill and FDR. Accordingly, hundreds of thousands of Soviet POWs liberated by the Allies were sent back home, regardless of their wishes, and regardless of what Stalin had in store for them.
Zundelsite: What does that make Churchill and Roosevelt? Knowing and willing accomplices who had for years been briefed about Soviet war aims and the policies of Stalin and the behavior of his secret police and murderous Red Army. Yet they agreed to hand these people over!
Trifkovic: In addition, in May and June 1945 tens of thousands of refugees from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union — unarmed civilians escaping communism, as well as anticommunist resistance fighters and assorted collaborationists — were rounded up by the British in Austria, and forcibly delivered to Stalin and Tito. Most of them were summarily executed, sometimes within earshot of the British.
Zundelsite: Within earshot not only of the British! Also the Czechs, the Hungarians, the Yugoslavs, Tito’s bunch of murderers, AND the Americans.
Trifkovic: Forced repatriations were known as Operation Keelhaul — the “last secret” of World War II, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn called it. Men, women, and children were forced into boxcars headed for the Soviet zone in the east, or for Slovenia in the south.
Trifkovic: Enter Lord Aldington, then a politically well-connected 30-year-old brigadier called Toby Low, who was the Fifth Corps chief of staff. He was also an aspiring Tory politician, hopeful of being nominated as a candidate at the forthcoming general election in Britain. Low had no qualms about acting upon Macmillan’s suggestions.
Zundelsite: No qualms? He admitted that the effect of his orders would be “ghastly”. It must be recalled that his orders were given after the war was lost, the shooting had stopped, the German Wehrmacht was defeated and had surrendered. There was no military justification for his actions – even of “military necessity”!
Trifkovic: On May 21, 1945 he issued an order to 5th Corps officers as to how to define Soviet citizenship: “Individual cases will NOT be considered unless particularly pressed . . . In all cases of doubt, the individual will be treated as a SOVIET NATIONAL.”
The émigrés’ fate was thus sealed. Tolstoy named Aldington in his last book as the chief executor of the policy of forced repatriation on the ground, the man who went way beyond the call of duty in carrying out Macmillan’s instructions, and who did so in contravention of orders.
Zundelsite: By this phrasing of the order – “. . . unless particularly pressed” – it is clear Aldington knew exactly what he was doing. It was premeditated. This was his “escape clause” to hypocritically be able to claim, should anyone find out what he had done, “Well, all they had to do was to press their claim!”
From behind barbed wire? At bayonet point? While being clubbed into submission by rifle butts?
The British Establishment clearly recognized that all of their wartime and post-war policies would one day become open to scrutiny – if Revisionists like Tolstoy would gain broad acceptance. That would have threatened their house of cards. No wonder they came to the rescue of their own disgraceful policies!
Trifkovic: The charges were serious, by British standards quite scandalous in fact, but Aldington was reluctant to sue Tolstoy over the book. He did sue one Nigel Watts instead, however, an obscure property developer who distributed a pamphlet — written by Tolstoy — in which Aldington was called a war criminal. The pamphlet included the following statements:
“As was anticipated by virtually everyone concerned, the overwhelming majority of these defenceless people, who reposed implicit trust in British honour, were either massacred in circumstances of unbelievable horror immediately following their handover, or condemned to a lingering death in Communist gaols and forced labour camps. These operations were achieved by a combination of duplicity and brutality without parallel in British history since the Massacre of Glencoe. . . The man who issued every order and arranged every detail of the lying and brutality which resulted in these massacres was Brigadier Toby Low, Chief of Staff to General Keightley’s 5 Corps, subsequently ennobled by Harold Macmillan as the 1st Baron Aldington . . . The evidence is overwhelming that he arranged the perpetration of a major war crime in the full knowledge that the most barbarous and dishonourable aspects of his operations were throughout disapproved and unauthorised by the higher command, and in the full knowledge that a savage fate awaited those he was repatriating… a major war criminal, whose activities merit comparison with those of the worst butchers of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.”
Trifkovic: As the author of the text Tolstoy felt honour-bound to include himself as Watts’ co-defendant.
Music teacher baronet jailed after ten-year-old pupil he abused breaks 30-year silence
- Sir Peter Newson-Smith jailed for five-and-a-half years for indecent assault
- Former pupil John Cartwright gave evidence to finally see justice
- Incidents occurred at prestigious boarding school Clayesmore Prep, Dorset
A titled music teacher has been jailed for sexually abusing a ten-year-old boy 30 years ago – after the former pupil broke a lifetime’s silence.
Sir Peter Newson-Smith was found guilty of two charges of indecent assault while head of music at a prestigious boarding school, Clayesmore Prep, in Dorset.
He received a five-and-a-half-year sentence after victim John Cartwright flew from his home in Australia to give evidence against him.
A court heard how Newson-Smith, the 3rd Baronet of Totteridge, lured the ‘vulnerable and isolated’ pupil into a cupboard on ten separate occasions, before making him strip naked and molesting him.
Newson-Smith – who was described by his neighbours as a ‘pillar of the community’ – had also denied taking photos of the naked ten-year-old on a polaroid camera in 1981. The 66-year-old retired from the £7,500-a-term school in 2003 after 24 years.
Mr Cartwright, now 40, chose to waive his anonymity to speak to The Mail on Sunday in the hope that other victims of abuse will come forward.
The property developer said: ‘I just feel relief now that he has been jailed. I still don’t know whether I have fully come to terms with what happened to me but at least, for the first time, I have justice.’
Mr Cartwright, who has a eight- year-old daughter, said he decided to make his complaint in 2010 after he ‘thought about how I would react if the same thing were to happen to her’.
‘I never told anyone because it is extremely humiliating and embarrassing. I felt ashamed. It took 30 years for me to be able to say it. It’s not something that’s easy to mention.
‘It always stopped me from trying to do really well at anything because after those experiences, I never wanted to stand out, and that takes a long time to overcome.
‘At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening to me. Even now, I haven’t told my wife everything. But, when I saw how many pastoral awards the school had won, it made me angry, so I emailed the headmaster and told him what I’d gone through.’
Mr Cartwright also revealed how testifying in court was ‘without question the scariest thing I’ve ever done’.
He added: ‘I don’t think there is anything more harrowing than having to stand up and talk openly about those kinds of experiences.’
Mr Cartwright’s sister Susan Callaway, 40, said: ‘I was also at that school and I understand how this could happen. You didn’t have anybody you could turn to. It is horrific.
‘He had his innocence taken away from him and that’s just not right.’
Sentencing Newson-Smith at Dorchester Crown Court, Judge Roger Jarvis said: ‘There is scarcely a greater breach of trust, when a young boy is entrusted to the care of a boarding school, and that very considerable trust is abused.’
As the guilty verdict was read out, Newson-Smith’s wife Mary-Ann, with whom he has four children, broke down in tears. ‘It can’t be true,’ she said. ‘What will I tell the children?’
A titled music teacher jailed for sexually abusing a ten-year-old pupil has had his conviction quashed.
Sir Peter Newson-Smith was found guilty last May of two charges of indecent assault while head of music at boarding school Clayesmore Prep, in Dorset, 30 years ago.
But the Court of Appeal has now ruled that the evidence given by his alleged victim, John Cartwright, now in his 40s, was misleading because he failed to disclose he planned to sue Sir Peter and the school for damages.
- Michael Jeremiah Colman , 3rd Baronet
- Birth: 7 JUL 1928
- Death: in Malshanger, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England
- Note:
ir Michael Jeremiah Colman, 3rd Bt. was born on 7 July 1928.1 He married Judith Jean Wallop William-Powlett, daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Peveril Barton Reibey William-Powlett and Helen Constance Forbes-Crombie, on 29 October 1955.1
He is the son of Sir Jeremiah Colman, 2nd Bt. and Edith Gwendolen Tritton.3 He was educated at Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire, England.1 He gained the rank of Captain in the service of the Queen’s Own Yorkshire Yeomanry (RARO).1 He succeeded to the title of 3rd Baronet Colman, of Gatton Park, Gatton, Surrey [U.K., 1907] on 8 January 1961.1 He was a director of Reckitt & Colman plc between 1970 and 1995.1 He was chairman of Reckitt & Colman plc between 1986 and 1995.1 He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law (LL.D.) by Hull University, Hull, Yorkshire, England, in 1993.1 He was 1st Church Estates Commissioner between 1993 and 1999.1 He was decorated with the award of Cross of St. Augustine.1 He was invested as a Fellow, Royal Society of Arts (F.R.S.A.).1 He lived in 2003 at Malshanger, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.1
Friday, October 25, 2013
Colman/Brown engagement
One25 reaches out to women trapped in street sex work
Cassandra Cogno @CassandraCogno
Sir Edward Heath accusers also claim parents ran a satanic sex cult http://dailym.ai/2kCtsPQ
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
South Africa & Satanismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_van_Rooyen …
Barbara Hewson twitter pal Matthew Scott attended Winchester College
http://barristerblogger.com/2013/05/09/barbara-hewson-is-wrong-she-must-be-defended/
Matthew Scott’s on John Smyth QC and Winchester College
Beating posh boys for Jesus: John Smyth
Here I need to make a disclosure: I was a pupil at Winchester College from 1975 to 1979, both my parents taught at the school and my father was “second master” (in effect the deputy head) for about 17 years from 1962, although he had reverted to being merely an assistant teacher by 1982. I therefore grew up surrounded by the school. It was my home as well as my school so you will understand that I feel a considerable affection for the place, and indeed for the excellent former Headmaster, John Thorn, a good and wise man who is now in his 90s.
As far as I know I never met Smyth, although in the late 1970s his name was certainly familiar to many people in the school community. Within the college there was an organisation of evangelical Christians called “Christian Forum” with which Smyth was in some way associated, although how formally I have no idea. He was not a teacher at the school, although his name would crop up from time to time. Some of my more evangelically-minded contemporaries used to receive invitations to Sunday lunch at his house. I never received any of this hospitality, if that is the correct term, so I certainly cannot speak to the truth of his “infamous shed” or of the canes with which he is said to have administered savage beatings
http://barristerblogger.com/2017/02/09/beating-posh-boys-jesus-john-smyth-fanatical-evangelicalism/
In the Daily Telegraph Matthew Scott said that the Director of Public Prosecutions was right in her original decision that prosecuting former MP Lord Greville Janner would not be in the public interest, and indeed would be pointless.
And Matthew Scott Scott — — rushed to Proctor’s defence.
Madam in Sir Edward Heath sex case claims she was sent hush money while in jail
Funny how Judge Seed can remember the Heath allegations and press interest but her defence council Matthew Scott can’t.
Matthew Scott, of Pump Court Chambers
Matthew Scott Pump Chambers. #Heath#Forde#OperationMarble
Ahhh, may explain his interest.
Much like Hewson didn’t disclose her familial connection to alleged paedos, neither does @Barristerblog disclose his connection
@IanKerr Memory recall…Matthew ? You wanna get that checked mate.
Matthew Scott’s on John Smyth QC and Winchester College
Barbara Hewson’s twitter pal Matthew Scott – the Barrister Blogger attended Winchester College when John Smyth was abusing students there and both of Matthew Scott’s parents taught at Winchester College…
Beating posh boys for Jesus: John Smyth
By Matthew Scott
Here I need to make a disclosure:
I was a pupil at Winchester College from 1975 to 1979, both my parents taught at the school and my father was “second master” (in effect the deputy head) for about 17 years from 1962, although he had reverted to being merely an assistant teacher by 1982.
I therefore grew up surrounded by the school. It was my home as well as my school so you will understand that I feel a considerable affection for the place, and indeed for the excellent former Headmaster, John Thorn, a good and wise man who is now in his 90s.
As far as I know I never met Smyth, although in the late 1970s his name was certainly familiar to many people in the school community. Within the college there was an organisation of evangelical Christians called “Christian Forum” with which Smyth was in some way associated, although how formally I have no idea. He was not a teacher at the school, although his name would crop up from time to time. Some of my more evangelically-minded contemporaries used to receive invitations to Sunday lunch at his house. I never received any of this hospitality, if that is the correct term, so I certainly cannot speak to the truth of his “infamous shed” or of the canes with which he is said to have administered savage beatings
http://barristerblogger.com/2017/02/09/beating-posh-boys-jesus-john-smyth-fanatical-evangelicalism/
Matthew Scott’s father, Martin Scott:
Martin Scott, who died aged 76, was for 17 years Second Master of Winchester College.
a Royal Marine Commando
His first job schoolmastering was at Clifton College, where he taught from 1950 to 1962, making lifelong friends among both his colleagues and his pupils. It was here, too, that he met his wife Mary, the elder sister of one of his first pupils.
In 1962 he moved to Winchester, where, as Second Master, he was in charge of the 70 scholars in College
Scott’s features still gaze down on the present generation of scholars in Chamber Court in the shape of a strikingly lifelike stone gargoyle for which he sat as model; it is one of only two created for the college in the last 600 years.
http://www.winchestercollege.org/UserFiles/College-%20Colour%20feature.pdf
After stepping down as Second Master, he continued to teach at Winchester for several years before retiring in 1986 to a farmhouse on the North Yorkshire Moors.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1408658/Martin-Scott.html
Winchester College knew in 1982 about allegations of sadomasochistic abuse at the hands of John Smyth
Barrister Blogger, Matthew Scott’s father, Martin Scott, continued to teach at Winchester until 1986.
Clifton College
THREE headteachers of £33,000-a-year private school failed to act over pervert teacher now jailed for videoing 130 children with secret cameras even though he was found tied to chair half-naked several times
- Jonathan Thomson-Glover was a teacher for 31 years at Clifton College
- He was jailed last year after admitting filming 130 children over 16 years
- New report reveals three headteachers ignored parents’ complaints
- Parents complained as early as 1998 about ‘unsuitable rewards’ including beer, pizza and computer games nights held at German teacher’s home
A court heard he hid cameras at different places around the school and was found with 2,500 hours of video and 1,400 indecent images on 330 tapes.
In July he had six months added to Thomson-Glover’s sentence after he admitted a string of further sex offences against children while he was teaching in Winchester.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of gross indecency involving a boy under 14 and one count of inciting a boy under 14 to commit a grossly indecent act.
Winchester’s head of English, the sixth former and a ‘compromising situation’
4 October 2006
Lucia Quinault, the head of English at Winchester College, who is in her late 30s, was found with an 18-year-old boy after a celebratory dinner at the school.
Mrs Quinault, who is married to a senior civil servant in Whitehall and has three children, received a “severe warning” but kept her job.
It is the latest in a string of troubles at the 600-year-old school, including the 2003 arrest of an ex-housemaster over sex abuse allegations, which were later dropped.
According to a school insider, the incident happened after a leavers’ supper at a school boarding house with the nickname Hopper’s.
When approached by The Mail on Sunday at the home he shares with his wife in the Hampshire town, Mr Quinault shouted ‘**** off’ and slammed the door.
The incident is the latest problem at the £25,000-a-year school – motto Manners Makyth Man – which regularly tops league tables.
Three years ago, the school’s head, Nick Tate, resigned after complaining of a campaign of vilification against him by the school’s “dons”.
In the same year, the school was caught up in allegations of fee-fixing with other schools.
It was later found guilty of anti-competitive practices by the Office of Fair Trading.
Winchester College Alumni
- Hubert Doggart cricketer and schoolmaster[240]
Geoffrey Howe, cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher‘s government
- Alasdair Milne, Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation between July 1982 and January 1987.[253]
- Ian Gow, politician[273]
- John Whittingdale, Conservative MP[318]
Matthew Scott and John Whittingdale were at school at the same time
Matthew Scott:
I was a pupil at Winchester College from 1975 to 1979
John Whittingdale: was a student at Winchester College 1973-1977 when sadomasochist John Smyth was beating students’
The leading QC is accused of having brainwashed 22 young men Britain’s oldest public school, Winchester College in what victims now describe as a “cult”, persuading his victims the beatings could purge them of their sins.
Among them was Andy Moorse, who was 14-year-old pupil at Winchester College in 1975 when he was groomed. In less than two years, Moorse was accepting regular and violent beatings in Smyth’s garden shed, he told the BBC.
John Whippingdale likes to be beaten and is into torture porn…
The scale and severity of the practice was horrific…
John Whittingdale MP’s father – educated at Sherborne Preparatory School
John Whittingdale’s half-brother, convicted paedophile, Charles Napier, was the treasure of PIE and lived and worked in Dorset
Historic abuse allegations at Sherborne Preparatory School back in the spotlight as part of disturbing ITV documentary
Retired police chief makes shocking revelation to documentary makers
19 FEB 2018
An ITV documentary has investigated three decades of abuse carried out by a former head teacher at Sherborne Preparatory School.
The school – one of the top prep schools in the country – was rocked by scandal in 1998 when it was alleged that the then-headmaster, Robin Lindsay, had committed a catalogue of abuse dating back to 1972.
Shockingly, the former Chief-Superintendent of Dorset Police, who investigated the allegations, reveals to documentary presenter Alex Renton that parents of pupils at the school hampered police and social services investigations into the school. They dismissed his behaviour as being “eccentric”, being more concerned about their children’s ability to pass the common entrance examination to other schools.
Lindsay, who was banned from teaching and branded a “fixated paedophile” who posed a serious risk to children, was given a huge send off from the school at Sherborne Abbey, with a standing ovation and parents and pupils singing “for he’s a jolly good fellow.”
What the disturbing documentary reveals
Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame follows journalist and author Mr Renton – himself a survivor of sexual abuse at a boarding school – as he investigates the private schools who appeared to turn a blind eye to predatory paedophiles who groomed and assault pupils for decades.
The documentary is to be broadcast at 10.45pm on Monday (February 19).
During his investigation he interviews a number of abuse survivors and exposes systemic failures that allowed paedophiles not just to go unpunished, but also allowed them to continue teaching.
It also tells the story of one pupil who took his own life after struggling with depression and mental health issues after being abused at a teacher St Aubyn’s in Rottingdean.
In one disturbing scene, Mr Renton meets with a paedophile teacher, who claims the sexual abuse at boarding schools continues to this day because it is “traditional” and has been going on for “generations”.
What does the documentary say about Sherborne Preparatory School?
The abuse at Sherborne Preparatory School is described by Mr Renton as “among hundreds of cases, the one that stood out”.
“Here, the abuser wasn’t just a lowly teacher,” he explains, “It was the owner and head master, whose abuse spanned three decades.
“It is a fascinating case,” he says, as he is shown researching the story in old copies of the Western Gazette. “And not least because this man, dismissed as a harmless eccentric, turns out to have been a serious abuser while running that school.
“For a child there, this is the authority figure. There are no governors, no trustees. So where does a child go?”
What happened at the school?
Head teacher and owner of the school Robin Lindsay was accused of committing a serious sexual assault against one pupil of the school, encouraged children to share his bed and joined them naked in the showers.
Police had investigated him in April 1986, but he claimed the accusations against him had been made maliciously. When investigated again in 1993, he admitted a string of allegations and accepted his physical intimacy with pupils was open to misinterpretation.
Dorset Social Services had also warned Lindsay about his behaviour in 1993, while their follow-up report in 1997 was “damning in the extreme”.
But it was not until 1998, when concerns over his behaviour became so extreme that the Department for Education held a tribunal and barred him from teaching.
As a result of the findings he retired from the school, saying he wanted to concentrate on clearing his name.
What did the tribunal find?
The tribunal found that Lindsay weighed boys naked for the rugby team, was sexually abusive, walked about the school in his pyjamas often exposing himself, and repeatedly refused to move out of the boys’ boarding accomodation.
It found three allegations of sexual assault not proven and ordered them to rely on file. The tribunal found that there was enough evidence from police and officials for the notice to have been issued in 1995, at the latest.
Mr Renton interviewed three former pupils at the school, who speak about the abuse they suffered at Lindsay’s hands.
They speak of being watched in the showers, groped, and him rubbing them down with embrocation if they were injured.
Another speaks of being held down in his bed, while Lindsay performs a sex act over him.
Another says that when he tried to talk to his parents, his allegations were dismissed and ignored.
What did the parents say when the allegations came to light?
Despite the tribunal finding him unfit to run a school and branding him a “fixated paedophile” and “a serious risk to children”, parents of pupils at the school rallied to his defence.
When the Western Gazette reported on the allegations against him, parents at the school began to contact the paper in their hundreds, with one claiming: “His only fault is to have a little of the eccentricity that we British are famed for.”
The letter writer continues: “You have denied this headmaster a dignified and happy start to his retirement.”
Another wrote: “We are sicked by your prurient obsession with child sex, and your regular bullying of wretched individuals.”
A former pupil of the school contacted the paper to say: “I firmly believe that many of the allegations made against him, particularly those concerning inappropriate behaviour towards young boys have been blown out of proportion.”
When he was ousted from the school, a service was held for him at Sherborne Abbey, where 700 people sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ and gave him a standing ovation, before handing him a bronze bust as a leaving gift, as well as cigars, chocolates, a T-shirt and socks.
Why did he not face criminal charges?
Gill Donnell was the chief superintendent at Dorset Police and oversaw the investigation in Lindsay in 1993.
When interviewed for the documentary, she said : “I’ve remembered this case over the many, many cases over the many, many years I’ve worked in the police for the challenges that we had getting the evidence that’s necessary. And in the case that we’re talking about, the main place that evidence is going to come from very small children.”
She added that parents of pupils at the school were reluctant to allow police to talk to their children.
“It was said to me on more than one occasion that the most important thing for the parents was that their parents went to the required public school and that anything that was done to endanger that, they weren’t terribly supportive of at all.
“Their priority was about the future of their children, and not what may or may not have been happening to them at the time.”
What happened to Lindsay?
Lindsay joined the school in 1953, when he joined his father who was the headmaster at the time. After his father’s death in 1972, he served as the school’s headmaster.
He was 70 when he retired from the school in the face of the findings of the Department for Education panel.
Speaking after his retirement, he said he had withdrawn his appeal against the findings of the panel to spare the school the publicity of a contested hearings.
He said that he “categorically denied” the allegations against him and that they described “events which simply did not take place. The welfare and happiness of the children in the school and those who have been there has been the prime objective of my life.”
Following the complaint, he was banned from the school premises and had to sever all links with the school. He said it was “scandalous” that the DfEE banned him from teaching.
In a statement released through his solicitors, he criticised the way evidence was gathered and the handling of the case by the tribunal but accepted that “in years past he, like many other schoolteachers did things which are now considered unsuitable.
“In earlier times those in his position were accepted as being ‘in loco parentis’ and fully justified in doing anything a good parent might have done.
“He absolutely denies he was in any sense a paedophile who put at risk children in his school.”
Lindsay never faced police charges, and died in July 2016.
What have the authorities said about the findings of the documentary?
Sherborne Prep School response to the documentary
Somerset Live contacted the school on Monday (February 19) for a response to the content of the documentary.
Nigel Jones, the current chairman of governors at Sherborne Preparatory School said it is a completely different body to the school owned and operated by Robin Lindsay.
He said: “The preparatory school was formed as a charitable trust when he (Robin Lindsay) was removed from the school. Governors were appointed.
“It acquired the school from him in 1998.
“It is a completely different financial, legal and governance organisation.
“We don’t know what happened because we are not in any way party to things that went on.
“If the allegations are true, they are totally abhorrent and we accept that.
“It is very difficult when we are approached by people. It happened 20 years ago.
“I have huge sympathy for anyone who has been assaulted.
“If there is something we can do to help, we are happy to talk to them.”
“Safeguarding of children is the number one priority in the school.”
“We have a nominated safeguarding governor.
“We have a strict policy and follow it to the letter, which includes talking to the regulatory authorities, police and charity commission.”
The Independent Association of Prep Schools said it is “appalled by the events of the past.”
It added that the education, care and welfare of young people is its primary concern and they demand “the most exacting standards” of themselves and their schools.
- Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame is scheduled to air on ITV on Monday (February 19) at 10.45pm.
Were you affected by abuse at Sherborne Prep School? You can contact us in confidence by e-mail at laura.linham@midsomnews.co.uk
Historic abuse at Sherborne Prep: Council silent over findings of report
Report found shocking conditions at school five years before headteacher was disgraced and ousted
3 MAY 2018
A council has refused to comment in detail on a 25-year-old report that revealed concerns raised by boarding pupils at a school five years before its head was ousted as a “fixated paedophile”.
A report released from Dorset County Council’s archives documented deeply troubling behaviour by the now disgraced head of Sherborne Preparatory School, Robin Lindsay.
These included accusations that he had interfered with male boarding students and dismissed an allegation of abuse made by one pupil as a dream.
Lindsay’s behaviour in the decades before he was forced to leave the school in 1998 has been investigated in recent months after survivors of abuse came forward to Somerset Live and ITV.
Following a Freedom of Information request by this website, Dorset County Council has released the report of an inspection carried out by its social services department in 1993 .
Dorset County Council said it would co-operate with any inquiry into how Lindsay was able to get away with his actions for so long.
But it declined to answer questions about why the second report has gone missing and why Lindsay was able to continue in his role as headmaster at the school given the extraordinary allegations against him.
The questions Dorset County Council refused to answer
We invited Rebecca Knox, leader of Dorset County Council, to say if she believed the council had done enough to help and protect the children who were at Sherborne Preparatory School during Lindsay’s reign.
She did not respond to us directly but the council’s press office did get in touch, to offer a no-comment statement.
Here’s the questions they refused to respond to:
- How do you feel about Dorset County Council’s role in what is said to have happened in the school?
- Can you explain why the second report has gone missing or been destroyed?
- Why was Lindsay was able to continue in his role as headmaster at the school given the extraordinary allegations against him in the ’93 report?
- Why didn’t social services not go back into the school to find out if there had been any progress on the recommendations in the report?
- Do you support calls for an inquiry into the case, as made by Sherborne’s MP and former pupils at the school?
Instead, the council released a short statement which read: “We take allegations of abuse very seriously and would always urge victims to come forward and report it.
“We are not able to comment any further on the matter. However, if an inquiry is called we would fully co-operate if asked to take part.”
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/historic-abuse-sherborne-prep-council-1435620
Sherborne Prep
The Notice of Complaint that was sent to Robin Lindsay
The Notice of Complaint that was sent to Robin Lindsay was signed and dated, on Tuesday 5 May, 1998, by the Treasury Solicitor for the Secretary of State for Education and Employment.
Printed below are the particulars of the matters complained of:
TO MR R. T. M. LINDSAY, PROPRIETOR OF THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL, ACREMAN STREET, SHERBORNE, DORSET DT9 3NY.
SCHEDULE TO NOTICE OF COMPLAINT under section 469 of the Education Act 1996
PARTICULARS OF MATTERS COMPLAINED OF
These particulars (see section 469 (2) of the 1996 Act) set out in more detail the complaints which are made against you grouped under the main headings of the two statutory grounds relied upon by the Secretary of State.
GROUND S. 469 (1) (d) PROPER PERSON
The proprietor of the school . . . is not a proper person to be the proprietor of an independent school or . . . to be a teacher or other employee in any school.
COMPLAINT 1
1. Mr Lindsay has engaged in behaviour of an inappropriate nature. Mr Lindsay places himself in situations where he shows that he has, or could reasonably be suspected of having, an inappropriate interest in children (especially boys) and where he would be in difficulty in refuting allegations of inappropriate behaviour or abuse.
2. Mr Lindsays inappropriate behaviour takes, or has taken, the following forms:
(1) Personally supervising the boys showering arrangements despite numerous warnings in the reports referred to below (see Complaint 2) that this should cease. This behaviour has been coupled with a failure to implement frequent recommendations that the boarders showers be altered from their current institutional layout so as to allow privacy;
(2) Following a visit in June 1985, the Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools warned Mr Lindsay of his foolish and indiscreet behaviour and advised that he should move out of the boarding house by September 1985. While it is believed that Mr Lindsay initially complied with this advice, he has for a number of years been resident again in the boarding house;
(3) Night-time supervision of pupils, including sitting on boys beds in the dormitory and inviting boys into his bed. Mr Lindsay is, or has been, involved in after-lights-out activities with small groups of boys, such as late-night runs, showers and mathematics lessons;
(4) Inappropriate physical contact with boys (and to a lesser extent girls), often causing distress and discomfort to those pupils, to which Mr Lindsay appears to be oblivious;
(5) Inordinate interest in the physical and, in particular, sexual development of pupils and their physical appearance;
(6) His treatment of the rugby team, which manifests itself, for example, in requiring the team members to be weighed while naked, putting them on diets, seating boys on his lap when driving the bus back from rugby matches (supposedly as a treat), and occasionally taking individual boys to a sauna;
(7) The possession of photographs of young boys in swimming costumes, discovered by a member of staff at the school in early 1998. The photographs were not of pupils at the school and may have been taken on one of Mr Lindsays holidays abroad;
(8) The possession of condoms, discovered in his suitcase by members of staff at the school, prior to departure on a ski-ing trip with a group of boys in February 1998. When confronted with one of the condoms Mr Lindsay denied knowledge of it and sought to suggest that it had been brought into the school by one of the boys;
(9) Taking groups of boys on ski-ing trips unaccompanied by other staff members, despite warnings in the above-mentioned reports that he should be accompanied by another staff member. The latest such trip was in February 1998; and
(10) He sexually assaulted pupils of the school, in particular X, Y and Z.
COMPLAINT 2
3. The history of the school over the period since 1993 has been one of considerable and unreasonable delays in implementing the improvements and safeguards recommended by the Dorset County Council Social Services Department and by the Department for Education and Employment. The school has been inspected:
(1) (under section 87 of the Children Act 1989) by Dorset SSD in February and March 1994 and in May 1996. There were brief visits to the school in March 1994 and June 1995. The most recent full inspection occurred in June 1997. Mr Lindsay has been in receipt of reports from Dorset SSD dated 22 July 1993; 16 November 1994; June 1996 (the draft copy of which Mr Lindsay failed to respond to) and July 1997;
(2) By Ofsted/ HMI in November and December 1993, November 1996 and February 1998. There have also been a number of follow up visits (eg 16 February 1995). Mr Lindsay has been in receipt of written recommendations with regard to the school arising out of those inspections.
4. Mr Lindsay has consistently failed to take the action recommended in those reports within a reasonable time or in some cases at all. The DfEE formally requested Mr Lindsay by letter dated 17 January 1997 that (among other things) he should put into place recommendations made by the Dorset SSD without delay. The letter expressed concern as to the length of time that was being taken to implement recommendations.
5. For example, the latest Ofsted report (following inspection on 5 February 1998) noted that at the date of the last Dorset SSD inspection some 47 matters remained outstanding from the previous SSD inspection.
COMPLAINT 3
6. Mr Lindsay has manifested an unco-operative and at times hostile or obstructive attitude towards public authorities, most notably towards Dorset SSD. His attitude to that department and its officers is characterised by an unwillingness to recognise or admit the relevance of their views or advice to the proper running of the school, as demonstrated by:
(1) delay in implementing recommendations contained in the above mentioned reports (see Complaint 2), and his unwillingness to deal effectively with the substance as opposed to the form of such recommendations made over a number of years;
(2) his expressed attitude towards health and safety, as illustrated by his disputing the recommendation of the fire officer to fit fire doors of a modern standard, and his explicit condoning and encouraging of the dangerous practice of wedging existing fire doors open (ostensibly to ease the supervision of dormitories):
(3) his attempts to pre-empt and undermine inspections. For example, Dorset SSD and Ofsted/ HMI inspectors have reported that Mr Lindsay has put pressure on staff and pupils with regards to what they say to inspectors;
(4) his inability or unwillingness to recognise and remedy many of the problems highlighted in inspections (e.g. the issue of the supervision of showers).
7. Further, the school has been dismissed from the professional organisation ISC (formerly known as ISJC) in the light of the most recent Dorset SSD report.
COMPLAINT 4
8. Mr Lindsays management and organisation of the school is confused, inadequate, inappropriate and inefficient. In particular, as regards Mr Lindsay:
(1) he is closely involved in the detailed running of the school and is unable and/or unwilling to delegate responsibility in an effective or consistent manner;
(2) he is unable to manage properly his time as between his teaching and administrative duties and is frequently late for (or misses) lessons;
(3) his teaching methodology is out-moded;
(4) his administration of discipline is fundamentally flawed in a number of respects (see Complaint 5, below)
(5) his inappropriate behaviour (see Complaint 1, above):
(6) his management of staff is poor and unstructured. He is isolated from many members of staff who regard his influence as counter-productive and divisive, especially with regard to discipline. Relations with staff generally are frequently poor and chaotic;
(7) his conduct of staff meetings is dictatorial, unstructured and generally unhelpful. They often are little more than a monologue and do not encourage serious comment or discussion from members of staff.
COMPLAINT 5
9. Mr Lindsays administration of discipline in practice in the school is irregular, inconsistent, unequal and partial. In particular:
(1) Mr Lindsay has shown an inability or unwillingness to back up members of the teaching staff seeking to discipline children appropriately. His interventions are often counter-productive to the proper discipline of the pupils and inconsistent with the approach initially adopted by the member of staff;
(2) on occasions where it has fallen on Mr Lindsay to deal with matters of discipline he has failed to act properly, adequately or consistently;
(3) disciplinary procedures in practice are haphazard, uncoordinated and inadequate;
(4) in the face of bad behaviour (e.g. disturbance in dormitories at night) Mr Lindsay has failed to enforce discipline and has pandered to the wishes of those pupils misbehaving;
(5) on occasions, Mr Lindsay has singled out pupils for punishment or criticism who did not merit such treatment.
10.The above matters have contributed to a worsening of behaviour in the school.
COMPLAINT 6
11. Mr Lindsays treatment of and dealings with pupils are often characterised by unequal and unfair treatment. Such treatment is not only inappropriate but is not conducive to proper discipline and fails to instil in pupils a proper approach to their own conduct. In particular, Mr Lindsays treatment includes:
(1) the singling out of individuals for undue blame;
(2) obvious manifestations of favouritism to certain pupils (including in disciplinary matter): and
(3) the lack of equal opportunities between pupils, including between boys and girls.
12. Mr Lindsays unequal treatment of pupils also manifests itself in relation to discipline (see above).
COMPLAINT 7
13. Mr Lindsays appearance and behaviour are not, or have not been, in a number of regards fitting and appropriate for the proprietor of a school, namely with regard to:
(1) his excessive consumption of alcohol and cough mixture, which has sometimes been apparent to other members of the school:
(2) his personal hygiene and appearance (in particular he strongly smells of smoke, something that causes discomfort to children with whom he comes into close contact):
(3) his appearance from time to time in the school inappropriately dressed (including appearing dressed only in pyjamas): and
(4) the matters referred to above (see Complaint 1).
COMPLAINT 8
14. Mr Lindsay has shown a lack of proper regard to child welfare management, see Complaints 1,2 5 and 6 above and, generally, see below. Further, gap-year staff (who are heavily relied on by the school) do not come to the school with appropriate letters from their local police station.
15. As a result of these matters, the children at the school are exposed to an unnecessary risk of harm in many aspects of their welfare. The fact that the most recent Dorset SSD report contained 47 recommendations which had to be addressed before the proprietor could be said to be properly ensuring the welfare of his boarding pupils in itself raises severe doubts as to his ability to manage the school. This is all the more so given that there have been numerous Dorset SSD reports and recommendations since 1993 (see Complaint 2 above)
SECTION 469(1)(e) CHILD WELFARE
There has been a failure, in relation to a child provided with accommodation by the school, to comply with the duty imposed by section 87 of the Children Act 1989.
Section 87 of the Children Act provides:
(1) It shall be the duty of – (a) the proprietor of any independent school which provides accommodation for any child . . . to safeguard and promote the childs welfare.
The complaints under this general heading demonstrate both failure to safeguard and promote the welfare of the pupils of the school and the creation of situations where that welfare has been put at risk.
COMPLAINT 9
16. The matters referred to under Complaints 1-8 (above) are repeated.
COMPLAINT 10
17. The supervision of boarders and boarding houses and the organisation of staff allocated to supervise pupils is unsuitable and inadequate. The school is over-dependent on young, inexperienced gap-year staff, and rosters do not appear to stay in place for long once Dorset SSD and Ofsted inspections are over. The result is that pupils at the school show increasing behavioural problems and children are exposed to a greater risk of harm than they should be in many aspects of their welfare.
COMPLAINT 11
18. Records of boarders are not kept and are not coordinated with the records of incidents and accidents, the result being that children are exposed to a greater risk of harm than they should be in regard to this aspect of welfare. These failings are another example of the mismanagement of the school and the attitude of the proprietor to child welfare management; for example, members of the care committee find that Mr Lindsay has taken arbitrary action before meetings are held. See also Complaints 4, 5 and 6 above.
COMPLAINT 12
19. Despite the establishment of a Care Committee there are considerable doubts as to its efficacy and as to the level of pastoral care in the School generally. Meetings do not always result in effectual action and the minutes do not clearly indicate in each case what action is required and who has responsibility for his. The Care Committee suffers from the wider problems of mismanagement of the School and the attitude of the proprietor to child welfare management: for example, members of the Care Committee find that Mr Lindsay has taken arbitrary action before meetings are held. See also Complaints 4, 5 and 6, above.
COMPLAINT 13
20. There is, or has been, unsatisfactory management of health and safety issues, in particular as regards fire safety, caused by the expressed attitude of Mr Lindsay towards such matters (see Complaint 3, above). Further, security at the school is poor, which further demonstrates Mr Lindsays failure to manage the school properly.
Former Jersey Senator, Whistle blower and Health Minister, Stuart Syvret
http://freespeechoffshore.nl/stuartsyvretblog/
Misc
John Whittingdale’s boast to former lover Stephanie Hudson on their first date that he was an arms dealer fresh back from Ukraine has a curious echo of another aspect of his personal and political life.
Whittingdale has links with Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian gas oligarch and ally of Vladimir Putin.
Mr Firtash owns a mansion in Knightsbridge and is wanted by America’s FBI on bribery and corruption charges.
Mr Whittingdale has declared thousands of pounds worth of trips paid for by the Firtash-backed British Ukraine Society (BUS) – to which the MP belongs – in the Commons Register.
Caught between Russia and the US? The curious case of Ukraine’s Dmytro Firtash
In London, Firtash enjoyed better contacts. In the days after Maidan, he had briefed the Foreign Office on events in Ukraine, in a meeting apparently set up by Conservative MP John Whittingdale and the Tory peer Richard Spring, both of whom are part of the British Ukrainian Society, set up by Firtash.
Firtash and Prince Philip
He is accused of leading a criminal organisation allegedly involved in bribery and corruption while trying to win a foreign business contract.
The Justice Department alleges that at least $18.5m (£11m) was transferred via US financial institutions to be used as bribes.
“He knows a whole lot of things about the elites in Russia and Ukraine,” the source said.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27235510
Dirty money from the East has become a resource for dozens of European structures and politicians. Sergii Leshchenko reports on some of those that are only too happy to open their doors to a Ukrainian oligarch willing to invest millions in cleaning up his image.
Until he received his peerage, Lord Risby was a member of the House of Commons. As an MP, Richard Spring, as he then was, was obliged to declare payments he received in compensation for his work in his capacity as BUS director. In 2007 and 2008 the future Lord declared receiving between 35,000 and 40,000 British pounds annually for this work.
Apart from Lord Risby, Firtash’s circle of UK lobbyists includes the MP John Whittingdale. He is the former chair of the parliamentary group on cooperation with the Ukrainian parliament…
Whittingdale has attended numerous events abroad, with expenses paid by BUS. In particular, he took part in Ukraine Tomorrow, the Vienna meeting that launched the Ukrainian Modernization Agency. Over the past five years BUS has reimbursed Whittingdale for travel expenses to the tune of almost 15,000 pounds, as documented on the British parliament website.
…Apart from the individuals listed above, Firtash enjoys the PR support of Lord Bell, former political consultant to Margaret Thatcher
(On 19 November 1977 Bell was fined £50 for indecency. He had exposed himself while masturbating at his Hampstead bathroom window on 21 October in full view of female passers-by.[4][5] ), who helped her win three parliamentary elections. Lord Bell, whom Thatcher rewarded with a peerage, uses the company Bell Pottinger to represent his clients’ interests. The person who provides the link between Firtash and Bell is Anthony Fisher, senior consultant with Bell Pottinger and director of the Firtash Foundation.
….the British Ukrainian Society is but a front for Dmytro Firtash’s agents of influence – Vladimir Granovsky, Robert Shetler-Jones and Lords Oxford and Risby.
http://www.eurozine.com/the-firtash-octopus/
John Whittingdale and Lord Risby
The Ukrainian connection: John Whittingdale amongst MPs criticised for close ties with ex-Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych’s favourite energy magnate Dmitry Firtash
February 24, 2017
Erstwhile Yanukovych ally Firtash closer to extradition to the U.S.
Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian mogul whose political tentacles extend to Washington, London, Moscow and the Ukrainian diaspora community, faces extradition to the U.S. on bribery charges following a Vienna court ruling on February 21.
Vienna’s Higher Regional Court reversed a lower court’s ruling from April 2015 that said U.S. authorities were partially politically motivated in their pursuit of Mr. Firtash over $18.5 million in kickbacks that he allegedly arranged for Indian officials in order to mine titanium for Boeing, a major aerospace company and mainstay U.S. military government contractor.
Trump, Clinton, ties
During his three-year extradition battle in Vienna, Mr. Firtash has relied on a heavyweight legal team that includes former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, according to a Wall Street Journal report published on February 21. Mr. Chertoff served as national security adviser to Hillary Clinton when she served as secretary of state.
President Donald Trump’s former election campaign chief, Paul Manafort, is also a business associate of Mr. Firtash. The two embarked on an $885 million property development project in 2008 at New York’s Drake Hotel in 2008, according to U.S. court documents and media reports, including Bloomberg.
Both Mr. Firtash and Mr. Manafort deny the allegations. Mr. Manafort, who was instrumental in getting Mr. Yanukovych elected as president in 2010, quit his campaign post for Mr. Trump when his business dealings with Russia-aligned Ukrainians emerged.
British connections
Mr. Firtash is known in the U.K. for having connections with senior British parliamentarians, including former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport John Whittingdale and Lord Risby (Richard Spring) through his backing of the British Ukrainian Society, a parliamentary organization, according to a Financial Times report.
He cultivated these connections through British citizen Robert Shetler-Jones, whom he has known since the 1990s. Mr. Shetler-Jones headed the oligarch’s parent company, Group DF, and is still on the company’s supervisory board together with Lord Oxford (Raymond Asquith), who once headed MI6’s Moscow station and helped exfiltrate former KGB officer-turned British secret agent Oleg Gordievsky in the 1980s.
http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/erstwhile-yanukovych-ally-firtash-closer-to-extradition-to-the-u-s/
Chinese students in UK on the rise
There’s been a sharp rise in recent years in Chinese students attending British public schools. A growing number of Chinese parents are opting to spend thousands of dollars a year on an expensive British education. But as Olly Barratt reports, this often means children boarding in the UK, thousands of miles away from their families.
Caldicott school in Buckinghamshire, near London – one of the top preparatory schools in the UK.
It takes boys aged 7 to 13, many of them boarders.
And it, like other British schools, is seeing a rise in interest from Chinese parents.
This class contains Caldicott’s brightest pupils – studying hard for scholarships to major public schools like Eton, Harrow and Radley.
http://english.cntv.cn/program/newshour/20120122/113022.shtml
On 6 March 1986, a gang of burglars broke into the Saward family’s home at lunchtime. Saward and his daughter Jill’s then-boyfriend, David Kerr, were tied up and beaten, both suffering fractured skulls, while Jill (who died in 2017) was raped. Jill became an author and campaigner for victims of rape and sexual violence. She was the first rape victim in England to waive anonymity.[11][12][13]
Canon Saward served on many councils and committees, among which were the General Synod (1975–1995), the Church Commissioners (1978–93) and the Church of England‘s Evangelical Council (1976–93). He served as Chairman of the Billy Graham London Mission 1989 Media Task Group
Though retired from the church appointments, Saward continued to minister. He was granted a permission to officiate in the Diocese of London from 2002 and in the Diocese of Rochester from 2013.[10] At the time of his death, he had preached in hundreds of churches across the world, including the United States, on the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship and twice at the Tower of London.[3]
Canon Saward was also a holder of a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, a Freeman of the City of London and a member of the Athenaeum Club, London.[2]
Saward’s grandfather was Captain Henry Kendall, the first person to use radio to capture a criminal; he recognised the murderer, Dr Crippen, who was attempting to escape the UK on Kendall’s liner.[2]
Truthseeker1 @thewakeupcall09
Crusaders launch Network for Revival
General Eva Burrows, Rev David Coffey, Rt Rev Michael Hare-Duke, Rev Selwyn Hughes, Rev Dr Donald English, Gerald Williams, Rt Rev Dr James L Weatherhead, Jill Dando, Most Rev Desmond Tutu, Rt Rev Stanley Booth-Clibborn
Alun:
Another member of Longford’s fact-finding team was Bishop Trevor Huddleston, a ‘father’ figure to ‘Prince of Darkness’ Mandelson and a cleric accused of child abuse:
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/the-bishop-of-stepney-trevor-huddleston/amp/ …
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/the-bishop-of-stepney-trevor-huddleston/amp/ …
Alongside John Selwyn Gummer, another member of Christians for Europe was the Bishop of Leicester Ronald Williams, the man who accompanied Lord Porn Longford, Cliff Richard and Jimmy Savile on a ‘fact-finding’ mission to study the seedy side of Denmark.
Indeed, Lord Porn was himself closely associated with the pro-EU pressure group Christians for Europe:
Leon Brittan and Chris Patten were honorary governors of Ditchley
Francis Maude – on Ditchley Foundation with Peter Gummer aka Lord CHADLINGTON
Francis Maude was PPS to noted pederast Sir Peter Morrison. Maude then became an assistant government whip (1985–87)
Chelsea FC – Matthew Harding’s great friend, Tory MP Francis Maude, gave his funeral address
along with Lord ALDINGTON
Convicted establishment paedophile, Patrick Rock, was a special adviser to John Gummer
SPECIAL ADVISORS
Gavin Barwell was SPAD to Gummer
Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell replies to X-rated PORN tweets showing clips of graphic sex scenes
Married father-of-three Mr Barwell responded to the explicit tweet “in error”, a Downing Street source says
14 FEB 2018
Prime Minister Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell “regrets” replying to a tweet that showed three porn videos with graphic sex scenes, a source says.
Married father-of-three Mr Barwell responded to the X-rated tweet “in error” at 9.21pm on Monday, a Downing Street source said.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-mays-chief-staff-gavin-12023404
Convicted Establishment paedophile, PATRICK ROCK – SPAD to JOHN GUMMER
PATRICK ROCK – JOHN GUMMER
In 1979, John Gummer returned to the House of Commons, securing Eye in Suffolk, following the retirement of veteran Tory MP Harwood Harrison. He held the constituency and its successor Suffolk Coastal until his retirement from the Commons in 2010.
Gummer was MP when paedophile Peter Righton was living at Lord Henniker Major’s Thornham Estates.
In Eye in Suffolk in 1994, Peter Righton was arrested and quizzed about indecent assaults on children.
John Gummer/Harvey Proctor/Panorama
Alun@ciabaudo:
Barbara Hewson has many times accused me of being anti-Semitic. How hypocritical of her to ignore her cousin’s bosom buddy Harvey Proctor who was urged to sue Panorama, which exposed their right-wing loony views, by Jonathan Denby, even offering to finance the case.
Ah, yes: Jonathan Denby (the man caught tailing his associate in a Ford Sierra) urged his mate Proctor to sue in the Panorama case and even fund it. I wonder who took that briefcase from the back of that car?
Malcolm Rifkind, Virginia Bottomley and Paul Boateng, are Ditchley governors
John Gummer’s brother- Lord Peter Chadlington – Peter is also a Trustee of the Atlantic Partnership and a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation
Peter Gummer’s daughter – Naomi Gummer is public policy adviser at Google, and was previously political adviser to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
http://www.gpwltd.com/lord-chadlington.html
John Gummer’s son Ben Gummer is a patron of the Longford Trust.
Ben Gummer has been PPS to Alan Duncan, Michael Gove, Nicky Morgan, Lord Andrew Feldman,
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Ben_Gummer.html
Anne Widdecombe is also a patron of the Longford Trust
https://www.longfordtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Longford-Trust-Annual-Report-2016.pdf
Spread of Lord Brittan child abuse dossier allegations is ‘wicked’
MPs making unsubstantiated claims about late home secretary should shut up, says former cabinet colleague John Gummer.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/23/lord-brittan-child-abuse-allegations-wicked
27 August 1995
John Gummer’s best friend is Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the minister talks happily of dinners with celebrities such as Stephen Fry. Not all of this is popular with colleagues who moan of him leaving his government driver waiting until the small hours outside Annabel’s or missing a vote because of a first night with Mr Lloyd Webber.
JOHN SELWYN GUMMER was born into a church family in Stockport in 1939. His father, Canon Selwyn Gummer (the sons were given his Christian name), was a vicar there, later becoming Canon of Rochester Cathedral. They remain close: Canon Gummer lives with the Gummers and invariably appears in the Commons to hear environment questions. A younger brother, Peter, is now chairman of Shandwick, one of the world’s largest public relations firms and a paid-up member of the Tory great and good.
John Gummer didn’t marry until age 37.
After Cambridge and a brief spell teaching religious education, Mr Gummer edited a business publication, worked as an executive for BPC and then for Shandwick. He contested his first seat in 1964 and (sporting a beard) won Lewisham West in 1970 at the age of 30.
Seven years later he married Penny Gardner, a former personal assistant to Ted Heath, who still works part-time for the Government whips’ office (in 1995)
...the man who once surprised the world by telling of the Gummer “his and hers” pillows, one reading “sex, sex, sex”, the other “yes, yes, yes”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/profile-john-gummer-not-as-daft-as-he-acts-1598227.html
1993 Francis Wheen:
Corrupt Fr Seed, prepared John Gummer and Ann Widdecombe to become Catholics
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514662/Catholic-Masses-for-the-Blairs-at-No-10.html
‘Cats’ Final West End Curtain and After-Party
LONDON – MAY 11: Tory politician, John Selwyn Gummer and TV presenter Esther Rantzen at the After-Party for the closing night of the West End musical ‘Cats’ on 11th May 2002.
1 June 2013
Revealed: The incredibly close links between Google and the politicians who refuse to step in to porn row
Both David Cameron and George Osborne have met with Google executives
Google boss Eric Schmidt is a trusted business advisor to Mr Cameron
Google’s refusal to block grotesque child abuse websites is matched by the refusal of ministers to intervene.
But why is the Government so strangely reluctant to tackle the internet search company?
Google barely pays any tax and merrily snoops on Britons with its notorious Street View cars, so it is not as if ministers lack any provocation.
By stunning coincidence, the cosy links between Google and the upper echelons of the Conservative Party could scarcely be more entangled.
On a beautiful summer’s day at a society wedding in Oxfordshire last year, the nexus was all too clearly illustrated.
David Cameron, accompanied by his wife Samantha and their daughter Florence, was among the congregation clapping enthusiastically outside a pretty Cotswold church.
The bride was Naomi Gummer, 29, a senior Google executive with the brief of ‘public policy’.
She was previously a political adviser to Jeremy Hunt when he was Culture Secretary in charge of internet regulation – so he was in attendance too, resplendent in his morning suit.
Lord Chadlington (Peter) has spent his working life in journalism, public relations, and politics.
Peter Chadlington is a serial entrepreneur. He founded two of the largest public relations networks in the world. First, Shandwick the international PR firm which he floated on the London Stock Market and later sold to IPG in 1998. It became the largest PR firm in the world. And, then, Huntsworth, the international public relations and healthcare communications company which has a number of operating public relations brands within it – specifically Grayling, Huntsworth Health and Citigate. With 1700 people, 72 principal offices in 31 countries, the group provides clients with global reach and international cultural sensitivity.
Throughout his career, he has been active both in local and national politics. He worked for Prime Minister John Major and Prime Minister David Cameron, and was elevated to the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in 1996.
http://www.prcompany.org/2017/10/23/lord-chadlington-in-conversation-with-lord-bell/
Lord Chadlington has spent his entire working life in communications, as a journalist after graduating from Cambridge University and later in Public Relations both in-house and consultancy. He founded Shandwick in 1974 and the company was publicly listed in 1984. He established Shandwick as the largest PR consultancy in the UK, holding that position for the next 17 years. He built the firm overseas and it was sold to The Interpublic Group of Companies in 1998, forming the group that became the largest PR consultancy in the world.
Lord Chadlington is now Chief Executive of Huntsworth plc, the listed international public relations group. Peter Chadlington invested in this company in the summer of 2000 and over the last eleven years has built it into an international consultancy group focused on public relations and integrated healthcare communications, with over 1600 people, operating from 70 principal offices in 31 countries around the world.
Lord Chadlington is a former director of Halifax plc and has written and lectured extensively on communications, politics and Public Relations. He was created a life peer in 1996.
He has a number of charitable interests but is particularly involved in prison reform and the problems of addiction.
He is married with four children and lives in London and Oxfordshire.
https://www.speakers4schools.org/speakers/lord-peter-chadlington/
Brothers Peter Gummer and John Gummer
John Gummer at niece Naomi Gummer’s Wedding
CHIPPING NORTON, UNITED KINGDOM – MAY 26 2012
Peter Gummer greeting Camilla at the wedding
1 June 2013
Revealed: The incredibly close links between Google and the politicians who refuse to step in to porn row
Both David Cameron and George Osborne have met with Google executives
Google boss Eric Schmidt is a trusted business advisor to Mr Cameron
Google’s refusal to block grotesque child abuse websites is matched by the refusal of ministers to intervene.
But why is the Government so strangely reluctant to tackle the internet search company?
Google barely pays any tax and merrily snoops on Britons with its notorious Street View cars, so it is not as if ministers lack any provocation.
By stunning coincidence, the cosy links between Google and the upper echelons of the Conservative Party could scarcely be more entangled.
On a beautiful summer’s day at a society wedding in Oxfordshire last year, the nexus was all too clearly illustrated.
David Cameron, accompanied by his wife Samantha and their daughter Florence, was among the congregation clapping enthusiastically outside a pretty Cotswold church.
The bride was Naomi Gummer, 29, a senior Google executive with the brief of ‘public policy’.
She was previously a political adviser to Jeremy Hunt when he was Culture Secretary in charge of internet regulation – so he was in attendance too, resplendent in his morning suit.
Lord Chadlington (Peter) has spent his working life in journalism, public relations, and politics.
Peter Chadlington is a serial entrepreneur. He founded two of the largest public relations networks in the world. First, Shandwick the international PR firm which he floated on the London Stock Market and later sold to IPG in 1998. It became the largest PR firm in the world. And, then, Huntsworth, the international public relations and healthcare communications company which has a number of operating public relations brands within it – specifically Grayling, Huntsworth Health and Citigate. With 1700 people, 72 principal offices in 31 countries, the group provides clients with global reach and international cultural sensitivity.
Throughout his career, he has been active both in local and national politics. He worked for Prime Minister John Major and Prime Minister David Cameron, and was elevated to the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in 1996.
http://www.prcompany.org/2017/10/23/lord-chadlington-in-conversation-with-lord-bell/
Lord Chadlington has spent his entire working life in communications, as a journalist after graduating from Cambridge University and later in Public Relations both in-house and consultancy. He founded Shandwick in 1974 and the company was publicly listed in 1984. He established Shandwick as the largest PR consultancy in the UK, holding that position for the next 17 years. He built the firm overseas and it was sold to The Interpublic Group of Companies in 1998, forming the group that became the largest PR consultancy in the world.
Lord Chadlington is now Chief Executive of Huntsworth plc, the listed international public relations group. Peter Chadlington invested in this company in the summer of 2000 and over the last eleven years has built it into an international consultancy group focused on public relations and integrated healthcare communications, with over 1600 people, operating from 70 principal offices in 31 countries around the world.
Lord Chadlington is a former director of Halifax plc and has written and lectured extensively on communications, politics and Public Relations. He was created a life peer in 1996.
He has a number of charitable interests but is particularly involved in prison reform and the problems of addiction.
He is married with four children and lives in London and Oxfordshire.
https://www.speakers4schools.org/speakers/lord-peter-chadlington/
Peter Gummer – opera
ROYAL OPERA HOUSE COVENT GARDEN
Director along with
LORD JOHN DAVAN SAINSBURY, Lady Sainsbury, LORD ROBERT ARMSTRONG, Gail Ronson.
Gummer’s association with Christians for Europe was the subject of a question in Parliament by Little John:
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
The intriguing case of Harriet Harman, John Masterson and Harriet’s uncle Lord Porn: John Masterson was a serious criminal, a friend of the Kray twins, a stalker of Harriet Harman and a close friend of her uncle Lord Longford, better known as ‘Lord Porn’:
^ Lord Longford was friends with Lord Boothby & Harold Wilson
^ Harriet Harman’s aunt and uncle
Lord Boothby, left, with Ronnie Kray, centre, and Leslie Holt,
Cliff Richard and Lord Boothby
Masterson’s beef with the Harwoman dated back to 1974 when he spent 6 months at Wakefield’s special control unit. In a subsequent case in which he turned to the NCCL for help, he felt betrayed by Harman, who did not wish to bring an organisation close to Labour into disrepute.
Masterson even went as far as staging a hunger strike at Labour HQ to attract attention to his case. Harman called for him to be charged with threats to kill. In the end, the case was dropped after he had been in custody for five and a half weeks.
For me, the most intriguing aspect of this case is that Harriet Harman was afraid of John Masterson while her uncle Lord Longford was John Masterson’s friend and defender, even wining and dining him at the House of Lords.
Lord Longford’s friend Masterson even wrote to Tony Blair, the Queen, John Major and Margaret Thatcher alleging that Ms Harman, the MP for Peckham, was corrupt. I wonder what dirt Masterson had on the PIE enabler Harriet Harman? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/02/how-paedophiles-infiltrated-the-left-harriet-harman-patricia-hewitt …
Interestingly, it is claimed that Kray friend John Masterson was subjected to sensory deprivation and mind control experiments at Wakefield prison. Even Dr Pickering, in charge when Masterson was subject to torture, admitted that control units were a mistake!
The Paedophilia Secrets of BORIS JOHNSON
Crime, Sex Orgies, Politics, the Forces That Drive Westminster – Part 2 – Ultra Right Wing – Top Tory Orgy Organiser
David Russell Walters
David Russell Walters, 44 – Tory Senior Central Office Executive and boss of anti-Europe Democracy Movement.
By night, orgy master tending to guests. Looked on as four girls, one a Dutch rowing champ, pleasured each other.
Fever Club parties first became notorious when senior Conservative Party strategist Douglas Smith was exposed as a founding member in 2003.
The 42-year-old, who preached the Tories’ morally-focused back-to-basics policy, was forced to cut his links with Fever and is now an adviser and speech writer to senior MPs.
The club started in January 1998 with a debauched launch party in a Central London penthouse.
The 2,500 worldwide members include captains of industry, celebrities and multi-millionaire tycoons.
Critics have accused the secretive organisation of being a sinister networking organisation.
Orgies for the rich and beautiful are hosted twice yearly in London and Manchester but there are parties over the summer in New York and Ibiza.
Fever receives over 400 applications for each party and the vetting process is extremely strict.
But the upper age limit of 40 was recently raised from 35 to take account of the advancing years of some of the organisers.
http://www.bilderberg.org/apostasy.htm#orgy
Russell Walters Was Chief of Staff to Adam Afriyie, MP for Windsor.
Russell joined the Party in the Glamorgan-shire valleys in 1976, and was a Y.C. and university branch Chairman and Chairman of South East Region F.C.S.
On graduating, he took a year’s sabbatical at the Adam Smith Institute, and became a Vice Chairman of the National Association of Conservative Graduates and researcher in the House of Commons.
He has worked in both the commercial and not-for-profit sectors, was a political adviser in Central Europe and Africa and has run several campaigns, most recently the cross-party, anti-euro Democracy Movement. Walters is a Trustee of Conservative Way Forward.
http://www.uclconservatives.co.uk/last-chance/
4 October 1989 – Forsyth Tightens Grip On Scots party – But Russell Walters is In Charge, He Runs the Show”
Moderate Tories are becoming increasingly alarmed as party chairman Mr Michael Forsyth completes his right-wing revolution at Scottish Conservative Party headquarters in Edinburgh.
Mr Forsyth’s grip on the party is now virtually total with the appointment to senior Central Office posts of a string of young men with a background on the ultra-right, libertarian wing of the party.
The party chief executive Mr John MacKay is on holiday but he will not be returning to his desk at Chester Street.
Although he is to retain the nominal title of chief executive, he has been marginalised as a force and the real administrative power within the Scottish Tory Party now lies with Mr Russell Walters, the man appointed by Mr Forsyth to be his chief of staff.
Mr MacKay’s departure places Russell Walters firmly in the political spotlight. A Chester Street insider said: “Make no mistake, Russell is in charge. He now runs the show.”
Mr Walters was the first appointment made by Mr Forsyth who was himself the personal choice of the Prime Minister.
She perceived him as the man with the qualifications to run the new-model Tory Party in promoted stories recommended to Scotland.
Mr Walters, a Welshman, was hired as part of Mr Forsyth’s campaign to cleanse the party of those not in tune with his philosophy that “politics is a battleground” and that many Scottish Tories had forgotten how to fight.
Two senior Chester Street men, organisational director Mr Bob Balfour and director of campaigns Mr Peter Smith, were soon seeking terms which would allow them to leave.
Meanwhile, right-wingers Mr Simon Turner and Mr Douglas Young, in the Walters-Forsyth mould with a political past on the libertarian right, are also to be part of Mr Forsyth’s team.
The chairman has surrounded himself with zealous young men whose background is in the controversial world of the disbanded Federation of Conservative Students and similarly rightist groupings.
The FCS was subject to an internal inquiry after a rowdy conference at Loughborough in 1985.
Scottish Secretary Mr Malcolm Rifkind, in an interview with the Scotsman today, reaffirmed his authority within the Scottish Tory Party and denied reports of a rift between him and Mr Forsyth.
“When we are in government the Secretary of State is at the top. Michael is a friend and a colleague and a very loyal junior Minister in my ministerial team,” he said. “We work extremely well as a team.
Power in Scotland rests with the Scottish Office and I am in charge of the Scottish Office.”
Mr Rifkind said Mr Forysth’s chairmanship did not signal any policy change and he described Mr Forsyth’s changes at headquarters as a long overdue conversion of the organisation into a “modern professional fighting organ.
Inevitably that can involve some elements of controversy, but I have no doubt that the thinking behind it is absolutely right and justified,” Mr Rifkind said.
Over the years the libertarian wing of the party, which has had a solid base in Scotland — Mr Forsyth was FCS chairman in the mid-seventies — has gloried in its image as the Blue Trots with more radical elements advocating legalisation of incest, hard drugs, and much else besides.
Conservative Central Office has been unusually reticent about discussing Mr Walters’s background, even to the extent of declining a request for a photograph.
Details of his employment history have trickled into the public domain. Initially it was revealed that he had come from the Adam Smith Institute.
In 1987 Mr Walters was an unsuccessful candidate for vice-chairmanship of the Young Conservative wing of the party and he has also been an office bearer with Greater London Young Conservatives.
In his 1987 campaign material Mr Walters described himself as having served as an officer with the Association for a Free Russia and the International Society for Human Rights.
He stated: “You may have been misled by one of the scandalous lies put into circulation about the Thatcherite team: that we support apartheid and legalisation of hard drugs. Discount such propaganda . . .we are not nutters or extremists.”
The closed world which exists on the far right flank of the Conservative Party is a tangle of inter-connected organisations and personnel.
While Mr Walters was on the executive of the Greater London Young Conservatives a colleague and friend was one Mr Andrew Rossindell.
Mr Rossindell, 23, is a publisher who runs Britannia Press Features Ltd in Romford, Essex.
He has recently been admitted to the Scottish list of Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates.
Many of the pressure groups of the right, such as the Committee for a Free Britain, have links with individuals who were once active in the Federation of Conservative Students.
An indication of how inter-linked, casual or otherwise, this brotherhood of libertarians is can be gauged from the response to a telephone inquiry to the CFB office in London.
Asked if Mr Russell Walters was around, the man in the committee’s office first asked who was calling and then said: ”You won’t find Mr Walters here.
06 December 2002 – Liberty and Conservatives warn Downing Street on EU arrest warrant dangers
On Monday afternoon, Parliament opens the debate on the Government’s Extradition Bill, which will include the incorporation into UK law of the EU Arrest Warrant.
On Monday morning (shortly after 10am), Oliver Letwin (Conservative shadow home secretary) and John Wadham (Director, Liberty) will deliver a letter to Downing Street highlighting the serious concerns that they and others have about the Extradition Bill.
From 10.30am-12 noon, there will be a rally at Parliament to oppose the Bill – with speakers including Oliver Letwin, John Wadham, Russell Walters (Director, Democracy Movement). John Burnett MP – the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the issue will also raise his party’s concerns about the Bill.
Russell Walters Lead Researcher For the Right Wing Economic League
The London-based league is an organisation funded by business subscribers which compiles lists of so-called political agitators and trade union activists.
Subscribing companies use such information when recruiting.
Mr Walters was one of the senior operatives in the league’s intelligence gathering department.
Mr Michael Noar, the man who ran the league until this June, was unwilling to be interviewed.
However, he conceded that so far as he was aware Mr Walters had been with the organisation until mid-July.
“He was a much valued member of the research department,” said Mr Noar before concluding the conversation.
In April, 1988, Mr Walters was involved in a House of Commons row when it emerged that a list he was said to have compiled contained details of the alleged activities and affiliations of Labour MPs, including a number on the moderate wing of the party.
The Economic League was formed in 1919 to defend ”free enterprise, individual liberty, and parliamentary democracy.”
In addition to compiling lists of ”subversives”, it was also active in the propaganda war waged at the gates of strike-hit factories and saw it as its function to counter trade union and left wing literature with pamphlets of its own.
It achieved an unwelcome high-profile as a result of an investigative series by the World in Action TV programme.
Mr Walters also figured in this as the Granada team sought to highlight the link between the league and its activities and the Conservative party.
Mrs Maria Fyfe, Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, is concerned about Mr Walters’s involvement in the Economic League.
She has been a leading campaigner against the league and last year unsuccessfully proposed a Commons Bill which was intended to make its activities illegal.
She is astounded that Mr Forsyth should appoint one of the league’s principal research-intelligence officers to high office in the Scottish Tory Party.
She said, “Basically, we wanted to amend the Data Protection Act so that the Economic League could not keep card index files on individuals without their knowledge.
They have blacklisted thousands of people who know nothing whatever of it and they very often get things wrong.
”There are now 70 MPs who are members of our campaign.
We have representatives from all parties except the Tories. ”I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Michael Forsyth appoints someone like Russell Walters. They both belong to the hard right after all.
This will not go down well with the people of Scotland, though. Appointments such as these will backfire on the Tories because these people hold attitudes which are alien to most Scots.”
One Scot who has figured in the Economic League’s blacklists is Dalkeith High School history teacher Mr Derek Philips. He is an SNP activist and organiser of the party branch in Penicuik.
He appeared on the blacklist, wrongly, as a member of the anti-apartheid movement. He found out about it through the World in Action programme. Mr Philips said: ”As it happened, I wasn’t a member although I did once carry a Free Nelson Mandela banner during a miners’ strike march in Edinburgh.
I also wrote a letter about Nelson Mandela to the Scotsman.
I leave people to make up their own minds about how I then appear on an Economic League blacklist, not as an SNP activist, but as a supporter of the anti-apartheid movement.
It is sinister. ”I wish Russell Walters all the bad luck in the world as he begins his new job.”
23 October 2013 – Police Colluded In Secret Plan To Blacklist 3200 Building Workers
Police officers across the country supplied information on workers to a blacklist operation run by Britain’s biggest construction companies, the police watchdog has told lawyers representing victims.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has informed those affected that a Scotland Yard inquiry into police collusion has identified that it is “likely that all special branches were involved in providing information” that kept certain individuals out of work.
The IPCC’s disclosure confirms suspicions voiced by the information commissioner’s office last year that the police had been involved in providing some of the information held on the files.
The admission has been welcomed by campaigners for the 3,200 workers whose names were on the blacklist that was run for construction companies as “absolute evidence” of a conspiracy between the state and industry that lasted for decades.
Dave Smith, an engineer who had a 36-page file under his name and was repeatedly victimised for highlighting safety hazards on sites, including the presence of asbestos, said he was delighted that the IPCC had revealed “the truth”.
He added: “For the past five years, when we have been saying the police were involved, we were told we were talking nonsense and it was a conspiracy theory. They wanted it to go away.
Now we have the absolute evidence and this is no longer about industrial relations but is a major human rights scandal involving a conspiracy between the police and the industry.”
The blacklist, run by a company called the Consulting Association, funded by 40 major firms in the construction industry including Balfour Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine, was discovered in 2009 after a raid by the information commissioner’s office.
Since then, the victims have fought to find out who was providing information against them. The IPCC’s correspondence is regarded as a major breakthrough.
However, the watchdog’s disclosure has been disputed by a subsequent letter to the victims’ solicitors.
This was sent by a recently appointed senior investigating officer for the inquiry into the activities of undercover police officers, known as Operation Herne.
In a letter, detective inspector Steve Craddock insists that the IPCC’s statement is incorrect and that he has seen “no conclusive evidence” that Scotland Yard shared information with the blacklisters.
The IPCC is standing by its correspondence, which it says was informed by discussions with the Metropolitan Police and that “developments since that … are a matter for the Metropolitan Police”.
In response, a spokesman for Craddock said Operation Herne’s investigating officer was “aware of the apparent contradiction and is looking into how that may have arisen”.
She added: “Operation Herne will report on the ‘blacklisting’ matter to the Metropolitan Police commissioner in due course.”
The developments come as the group fighting for justice for the blacklisted workers has received confirmation of a meeting between undercover police officers and those running the blacklist in November 2008.
The information commissioner’s officers have confirmed in a freedom of information response that they hold notes from a meeting between the Consulting Association and officers from the police national extremism tactical co-ordination unit, which runs undercover officers.
The notes of the 2008 meeting are part of a haul of documents seized by the information commissioner’s office when it discovered the existence of the secret blacklist during a raid on an office in Droitwich, Worcestershire.
Sir Robert McAlpine, which was allegedly a major player in the establishment and funding of the blacklist, is currently being sued in the high court over an unlawful conspiracy to amass a database of information against thousands of people.
Last week, in a dramatic twist, eight major construction companies, including Sir Robert McAlpine, announced that they would compensate some of the 3,213 workers whose names had been on a blacklist.
A statement said: “The companies – Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and Vinci – all apologise for their involvement with the Consulting Association and the impact that its database may have had on any individual construction worker.”
Sean Curran, a solicitor representing 69 victims in the high court, said he cautiously welcomed the announcement but raised concerns over the involvement of the unions, which are also suspected of providing information to the blacklist operation in some cases.
He said: “We note that there has been reference to the consultation of Ucatt and Unite in the formulation of the proposed compensation scheme.
We express serious concern about the involvement of those organisations.
“We have seen evidence that implicates Amicus (which evolved into Unite) and Ucatt officials in the supply of negative commentary about the suitability of their members for employment.
That commentary frequently made its way onto the Consulting Association database and was no doubt one of the factors that led to denials of employment.
“It is also worthy of note that those unions refused to support their members in bringing a High Court claim so that they could seek redress for the hardship that they suffered.
Many of those that we represent are firm that they object to Unite or Ucatt playing any part in negotiations with the relevant companies for these reasons.”
Claire Windsor, solicitor for the victims in regard to the complaint over police collusion, said her clients had lost any faith in the ability of the police to investigate themselves and that the blacklist support group was now calling for a judge-led independent inquiry into blacklisting.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/12/police-blacklist-construction-workers-watchdog
10 December 2013 – The Shrewsbury 24 Conspiracy
I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the outside world if I sound somewhat repetitive, but I genuinely believe that the more people that say this and listen to it, the more likely we are eventually to get somewhere on the issue of transparency.
If we look at the Press Gallery, we see that there is very little interest in this issue from the press—apart from, of course, the regular and reliable Morning Star.
For some reason, other newspapers, apart from some in the Trinity Mirror group, are not covering it.
In a week when we have discussed the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, we can see how difficult it is, when it comes to what happened 40 years ago, to get transparency from this coalition Government.
It is somewhat ironic that we are still discussing this issue in 2014.
To reflect on the Shrewsbury 24 issue, the conditions that existed in the building industry in the 1970s were a blight on our society.
Sites with hundreds of thousands of men were given two rat-infested, filthy toilets. There was nowhere to change, so if workers got soaked in the rain, they would either have to go home and lose their pay, or continue to work—sodden and freezing.
The health and safety conditions were appalling. In 1973 alone, there were 231 fatal accidents in construction.
When talking about this issue, I am reminded of why these people were victimised—it was because they were raising serious health and safety concerns to ensure that workers were safe in the workplace.
That is why the then employers turned against the trade unions—to make sure that health and safety issues were not raised at the appropriate time.
The employers’ agenda was not about looking after their workers.
We look on some of the working conditions in some countries with disgust, and we call on UK-based companies working in those other countries to look at their supply chains and improve their human rights records.
The Shrewsbury 24 were picketing in conditions that we would be horrified at today, so the calm and dignified protest they led is to be commended.
It was a difficult task—something that has not been repeated—trying to organise building workers who often moved to new temporary sites and it was a struggle to organise them on account of that.
The Shrewsbury 24 wanted to highlight the issues caused by colleagues “on the lump”, but they did not get violent and did nothing illegal.
At this stage, I am reminded of what the Scottish Affairs Select Committee is doing on the issue of blacklisting.
Only yesterday I listened to some of the evidence that the trade unions gave to that Select Committee.
Even today, trade union organisers are refused access to building sites, simply because they want to raise health and safety issues that the employer does not want to listen to. Ordinary trade unions are still struggling to get recognition.
The Shrewsbury 24 hired six coaches and picketed large sites around Shrewsbury, which were chosen because they were not as well organised as some places in the bigger cities.
It was peaceful—there were no cautions and no arrests. They had the permission of site owners. Chief Superintendent Meredith even shook the hand of Des Warren and thanked him for the co-operation of the UCATT and the then Transport and General Workers Union.
For that reason, when 24 men were arrested on conspiracy charges months later, they were shocked and confused.
Six were sent to jail, and over four decades later, the pickets still deny that they were guilty of any of the charges levelled against them.
The sentences had a devastating impact on these men. While in prison, Des Warren was regularly forced to drink “liquid cosh”, which has been blamed for his death from Parkinson’s disease in 2004. These men struggled to get work afterwards.
Let me finish by saying that if there were any sort of national security issue, it would never be viewed as acceptable in this day and age that information for which people are looking should be denied to them.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab): What lies behind this motion is a belief by many that there has been an abuse of state power and a subversion of the legal process.
Successive Governments have said repeatedly that there are just a handful of files relating to the Shrewsbury trials.
I would like to focus today on just one single file—PREM 15/2011, with which I hope the Minister can acquaint himself. It is described as “Woodrow Wyatt’s TV programme, ‘Red Under the Bed’”. On 27 August 2012, the National Archives website said that this file was “retained” by the Cabinet Office under section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958.
Why would such a file be kept back when it relates to a current affairs programme that was broadcast on ITV in November 1973?
Following a freedom of information request by the Shrewsbury 24 campaign’s incisive researcher in August 2013, the Cabinet Office finally conceded and released some of the papers.
Why is this file relevant? It is relevant because the film was broadcast on 13 November 1973, the day on which the prosecution completed its case against the pickets.
It was featured in the TV listing section of the local evening newspaper, the Shropshire Star, which would have been read by many of the jurors.
The film included a highly tendentious commentary by Woodrow Wyatt, interspersed with footage that showed the following: two of the six defendants, John Carpenter and Des Warren; Shrewsbury Crown Court, surrounded by police officers, with a group of demonstrators attending a meeting nearby; images of a march through Shrewsbury in which the defendants could be made out; violence and damage alleged to have been caused by pickets on building sites during the national building strike of 1972; and violence and damage alleged to have been caused by pickets during a recent coal strike and a recent dock strike.
The next day, the defence applied to the judge for the television company to be held in contempt.
The judge viewed the film and dismissed the application, even criticising the defence for raising the point.
The file shows that the film, which lasted for one hour, was followed by a studio discussion of 30 minutes.
Interestingly, the discussion was not broadcast in every ITV region—Granada, for example—but it was transmitted by ATV, the region covering Shrewsbury.
The final words of that discussion were from the then Conservative MP Geoffrey Stewart-Smith. He was asked by the studio chairman, the late Richard Whiteley:
“Can you give me one example in 1973 of blatant communist influence?” Stewart-Smith replies “The violence in the building strike was called by a group, The Building Workers Charter, operating in defiance of the union leadership indulging in violence and flying pickets and this is an example of these people operating, opposing free trade unions”.
Can you imagine anything more blatantly prejudicial to a trial than that, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Imagine what the reaction would be today. Just think of any current high-profile trial, and what a defence team would say, and how that would be reported in the print media now.
We have to ask ourselves why that film was made, and why it was shown on that particular date.
It is my contention that the file reveals the highest level of collusion between the Government, the security services and the producers of the film.
The first document in the file is a memo from Mr Thomas Barker of the Information Research Department to a Mr Norman Reddaway.
For the benefit of younger Members, I should explain that the IRD was formed after the second world war as a covert anti-communist propaganda unit operating within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and was closed down in the late 1970s. Mr Barker boasts:
“We had a discreet but considerable hand in this programme….In general, this film, given national networking, can only have done good.”
He praises the studio discussion after the broadcast. The file contains more documents, including a note from the Prime Minister, Ted Heath, supporting the film after being sent a copy of the transcript by the Cabinet Secretary.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140123/debtext/140123-0003.htm
23 January 2014 – Who Was It Who Funded the Economic League’s Secret Committee?
Who was it who funded the Economic League’s secret committee—a secret committee in a secret organisation? Lord McAlpine.
Even I was put on a blacklist. Who put me on it? I believe that it was one Russell Walters, who today works as Tory researcher, and who was chief of staff for that would-be Tory leader, the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). He was working for the Economic League.
There was also a bloke called Ned Walsh, a liar, who said throughout these events that he worked for the unions.
In fact, during the 1960s and 1970s he was working for the Economic League, infiltrating the unions. That is the conspiracy.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140123/debtext/140123-0003.htm
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/blacklisted-james-poulter-192
Blacklisting in Employment. Caprim Ltd. Jack Winder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1mh2N7OOg (90 minutes in parliament)
Multinational construction companies have been illegally blacklisting trade unionists in the UK building industry for years using the Consulting Association blacklist – the successor to the notorious Economic League. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRB9DjmhBHg
Walters listed as the sole director, (from 2003) of Second Circle Symposia Ltd, (a media company)
Walters listed as a director of the Democracy Movement (from 2006) A right wing Tory Think Tank
http://www.cbetta.com/director/david-russell-walters-3#ap98546900
Tuesday 27 January 2015 Right-wing Group Young Britons’ Foundation Has Begun To Earn Reputation As “Conservative Madrasa” Russell Walters actively involved in Teaching Young Graduates
Behind the heavy wooden doors of House of Commons committee room 10, a little-known group of young Tories gathered in private on Wednesday to rally their forces ahead of the general election.
The chintzy decor provided an incongruous backdrop for the Young Britons’ Foundation, which has begun to earn a reputation in Tory circles as “the Conservative madrasa”.
Evoking al-Qaida indoctrination, the name has stuck because the offshoot from Conservative Future, the party’s official youth wing, harbours an extremist edge.
The YBF’s leader, Donal Blaney, is on record expressing what could be viewed as extreme positions on everything from the NHS to waterboarding.
So what were leading members of David Cameron’s top team, including party chairman Eric Pickles and shadow defence secretary Liam Fox, doing at their annual gathering?
The answer may lie in the group’s influence within the Conservative party and its growing role in training young Tories and even some parliamentary candidates who will stand against some of Labour’s big guns at the election this spring, including the foreign secretary, David Miliband.
The organisation was formed in 2003 by Blaney, a Kent solicitor and former leader of Conservative Future, the party’s official youth wing.
Ideologically, his heroes are Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and he encourages his young charges to hark back to their free-market, libertarian, low-tax ideals.
He has managed to carve out a niche in the Conservative movement training young members and activists in handling the media and is now also offering training in right-wing policy issues.
With strong links with the American neo-conservative movement, the YBF regularly sends activists on subsidised trips to conferences in the US. “We go into schools and we proselytise conservatism and we get hold of the best kids and train them up,” Blaney has said. “We have been described as a Conservative madrasa, so we bring the next generation out to the States and bring them back radicalised.”
Blaney even takes his charges on firearms training courses. In 2008 he took activists and young Conservatives to the Blue Ridge Arsenal in Virginia, reporting that the feeling of “hot brass, gun recoil and smell of gunpowder was incredible”.
There are also partnerships with American right-wing think-tanks and foundations. The trips are all part of a plan to place “young radical free-market Anglosphere Conservatives in public life”.
Supporters stress the leadership’s own views are rarely directly espoused.
Michelle Donelan, 25, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Wentworth, who has attended the YBF’s training weekends, said it would be wrong to characterise it as extreme and indoctrinating.
“What Donal says, he says,” she said. “I have never heard these kinds of views expressed at a YBF event. It is a wonderful organisation. It brings young people into politics and is a forum for discussion.”
Donellan said that contrary to Blaney’s position and that of the YBF’s executive director, Matthew Richardson, she is “wholeheartedly” in favour of the NHS.
The organisation has also won endorsement from Cameron’s top team.
Even though the audience was modest at this week’s conference, it revealed strong support from the Tory hierarchy. As well as Pickles and Fox, speakers included Cameron’s former chief of staff, Alex Deane, and Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford.
But for all the credibility these speakers give the YBF, a closer look reveals that the views of its chief executive move quite dramatically off-message,.
Perhaps most shockingly for a man who claims responsibility for training young politicians in the UK, Blaney appears to suggest on his website, Blaney’s Blarney, that waterboarding is acceptable. He also argues that the UK should adopt America’s liberal gun ownership laws.
In another article headlined “Scrap the NHS, not just targets”, he asked: “Would it not now be better to say that the NHS – in its current incarnation – is finished?”
It is the exposure of such views that will worry Tory high command.
Former deputy prime minister John Prescott said: “It shows the conflict between the smiling, liberal face of Cameron and the real gut feeling that some Tories have,” he said.
Tory party officials repeatedly stress that the YBF is independent from the party.
But Blaney has secured a place close to the party’s power-base. The YBF claims to have trained 2,500 party activists and sources familiar with Conservative central office said there is an informal understanding that the YBF is the main provider of training for young Conservative activists.
But most significantly, at least 11 Tory parliamentary candidates have either been delegates or speakers at its courses since 2003.
With many in winnable seats, it seems the graduates of the “Conservative madrasa” could be about to take power.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/06/radicalised-tories-young-britons-foundation
http://www.ybf.org.uk/about/speakers/
10 October 2009 – Political War games For Young Tory Activists – Russell Walters Now With Right Wing Conservative Way Forward in Attendance
This year’s YBF Conference will be much more interactive, with students working closely with mentors as they discuss how to handle a political war-game over the course of the weekend.
Students will also get the chance to devise campaign strategy and design campaign materials, debate issues with conservative movement leaders and hone campaigning skills in readiness for the general election next year.
All very useful stuff for any budding activist!
- Eric Pickles MP, Conservative Party Chairman
- Daniel Hannan MEP, Co-Author of The Plan
- Rt Hon Lord Forsyth, Former Secretary of State for Scotland
- Gerald Howarth MP, Shadow Defence Minister
- Andrew Rosindell MP, Shadow Home Office Minister
- Greg Hands MP, Shadow Treasury Minister
- Paul Goodman MP, Shadow Local Government Minister
- Douglas Carswell MP, Co-Author of The Plan
- Paul Staines, Guido Fawkes
- Iain Dale, Blogger & Publisher
- Jonathan Isaby, Conservative Home
- Nick Wood, Former CCHQ Head of Communications
- Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers’ Alliance
- Douglas Murray, Centre for Social Cohesion
- Simon Richards, Freedom Association
- Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society
- Russell Walters, Conservative Way Forward
- Peter Whittle, New Culture Forum
http://bucf.co.uk/2009/10/14/ybf-6th-activist-training-conference/
Survivors:
BIGGEST EVER FILTHY-RICH ORGY: UPPER CRUST ORGANISERS AND STAFF.
EDWARD DAVENPORT, 38
MADE first million in his teens organising the infamous Gatecrasher balls – now a property tycoon worth pounds 133m. Spends six months a year in Monaco as a tax exile. Pictured here posing on a bed with two women. Shares pounds 15million London pad – the orgy venue – with three more. Seen kissing and fondling a girl on the orgy bed last Saturday.
He bought the venue, a former ambassador’s residence, from the Sierra Leone government in 2002 for the knockdown price of just pounds 50,000.
DAVID RUSSELL WALTERS, 44
By day ex-Tory candidate and boss of anti-Europe Democracy Movement. By night, orgy master tending to guests. Looked on as four girls, one a Dutch rowing champ, pleasured each other.
JONATHAN FRIEDMAN, 42
Brains behind Fever’s image. Spends hours “dressing” rooms with pink satin, chocolates, fruit, and jelly babies for energy. Seen canoodling on the bed with beautiful American blonde.
EMMA SAYLE, 26
Diplomat’s daughter. Dad was colonel with the Welsh Guards and has an OBE. She is regarded as one of Britain’s best and most upmarket party organisers – didn’t join in the orgy.
JAMES HAYTER, 26
Professional rugby player. Hayter, who is over 6ft tall and weighs 220 lb, was hired as a bouncer but became overwhelmed with lust. Stripped off and joined in the night’s action.
WEALTHY, GOOD-LOOKING PUNTERS
CHARITY BOSS
International charity director had sex with female TV production company boss.
CRIME BOSS
Heir to a multi-million crime empire bonked French, Russian, Italian models and a designer.
WILD CHILD
Raunchy daughter of a legendary rock star had public sex with a top media lawyer.
FILM DIRECTOR
Movie bigwig and his catwalk model lover had sex with at least seven other couples
Russell Walters
Special Assistant, Mayor of London’s Office
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Adam Afriyie MP
In today’s paper a reference to the wealth of Windsor Conservative MP Adam Afriyie was based on an email from his chief of staff, Russell Walters.
Mr Walters has now told us he made a mistake in mentioning figures without discussing it with Mr Afriyie beforehand, for which he has now apologised to Mr Afriyie. Therefore, there was no “immodesty” on Mr Afriyie’s part. In addition, we are happy to make it clear that Mr Afriyie is not amongst those shadow ministers who are giving up external paid positions in advance of the disclosure deadline of 1 July. Mr Afriyie does not have any paid occupation outside the House of Commons.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/corrections/adam-afriyie-mp-1713808.html
Experience
-
Chief of Staff
Company Name House of Commons
Dear Friends,
Please join me in remembering George Miller.
Tragically, he died far too early, in 2009, at the age of just 54. Like me, you will remember him as a gifted and relentless campaigner against the Soviet Union – someone whose tireless work helped to bring about the fall of communism in Russia. He deserves a fitting memorial, which is why I’m writing to ask for your help today.
George is buried in the grounds of St Edmund’s Orthodox Monastery in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. It’s a beautiful spot but his grave is marked only by a thin wooden cross that will not last forever. I’m hoping that with your help, we can raise the funds for a more fitting and permanent tribute to this great man.
Some of us worked with George, mentored and helped him in his jobs and campaigns. For others it was friendship with George that led them into activism and what some look back on as the bravest deeds of their lives. Many are proud of the small roles he gave them that helped towards the collapse of the USSR. The peaceful dissolution of the Soviet regime was greatest single advance of mankind since the Second World War and freed hundreds of millions of people from spiritually and materially impoverished lives.
His achievements aside, he was a dear friend. Like me, you may recall the warm, kind and charming man with twinkling eyes whose charisma attracted so many to the cause.
The monastery and George’s family have given their permission for a headstone to be placed over his resting place. We have looked for the most affordable options and we envisage nothing extravagant, simply an ordinary stone that will commemorate his campaigning life and mention that it was raised by his friends and admirers – something that will preserve his memory and stand the test of time.
Throughout his work George received unstinting support from his dedicated and devoted mother Kira. She is buried by his side and our aim would be to commemorate her too.
I hope this is something that we would all want to see. Of course, it can only happen if enough of us chip in. We have set-up a JustGiving webpage where donations can be made online.
Once the memorial is in place, we will host a brief ceremony for subscribers so you can view it and hopefully see some old friends at the same time.
I know we all have many calls on our resources, but if you feel George deserves at least this, please do join me in supporting this appeal generously. As those of us who knew him well are relatively few, every extra pound counts and what you give really could be the difference between success or failure.
Thank you in advance for your help – it’s very much appreciated and I look forward to seeing you when the new memorial is in place.
Kind regards,
Rt Hon Julian Lewis MP
Also writing on behalf of Nigel Linacre, Richard Thoburn and Russell Walters.
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