Justin Welby: I could forgive John Smyth

Justin Welby says he forgives serial abuser John Smyth

On the BBC this morning, former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby gave his first interview since resigning in November last year. He told Laura Kuenssberg that he was ‘profoundly ashamed’ of his speech in the House of Lords in which he had joked that ‘there is only, in this case, one head that rolls well enough’. He also reiterated his claim that he knew nothing of Smyth’s abuse before 2013, and said he had not moved fast enough while in office because he’d been ‘absolutely overwhelmed’ by the scale of abuse. When Kuenssberg asked if he could forgive Smyth, Welby said he could, but added that it was not him who had been abused by Smyth, and that his forgiveness was ‘irrelevant’. 

Alex Burghart: ‘The risk [with mandatory reporting] is that everyone will over-report’

After watching Laura Kuenssberg’s interview with Justin Welby, abuse survivor advocate Dame Jasvinder Sanghera said on Kuenssberg’s panel that the treatment of survivors ‘hasn’t changed’, and called for ‘mandatory reporting’ of abuse cases.