Evangelicals have questions to answer over the John Smyth scandal

Justin Welby has said he considered resigning as Archbishop of Canterbury over the findings of the Makin Review into the serial abuser John Smyth. That report, which emerged this week, found the Church of England had, from 2013, missed opportunities to bring Smyth to justice: from that point onwards, Welby and other senior figures knew about the abuse that Smyth exacted on his victims in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

Smyth, a barrister and Christian leader, was accused of beating and abusing boys in the shed in his garden in Winchester. Instead of ever being brought to justice, Smyth was allowed to move to South Africa, where he ran summer camps. The authorities had not been alerted to concerns about his behaviour in the UK, and he was later charged with the manslaughter of a 16-year-old boy on a camp in Zimbabwe.