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Sir Keir Starmer has piled further pressure on Justin Welby amid growing calls for him to resign as the Archbishop of Canterbury, saying the victims of a Church of England-linked abuser had been “failed very, very badly”.
A petition, started by three members of the General Synod – the church’s parliament – calling for Justin Welby to quit has received more than 11,500 signatures.
While Sir Keir would not comment directly on Mr Welby’s position, saying it was a “matter, in the end, for the church”, he made clear that the victims had been let down.
The independent Makin Review concluded that barrister John Smyth, who is thought to have been the most prolific abuser associated with the church, might have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally alerted authorities in 2013.
Asked about the case at a press conference in Baku, the prime minister said: “Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific in relation to this particular case, both in their scale and their content.
“My thoughts, as they are in all of these issues, are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly.”
While Mr Welby has apologised, he has insisted he will not resign, with a Lambeth Palace spokesperson saying the archbishop “hopes the Makin Review supports the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world”.
Smyth, who was a lay reader and led Christian summer camps, died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and was “never brought to justice for the abuse”, the review published last week said.
Pressure is now mounting on the Archbishop of Canterbury, with several abuse survivors echoing calls for him to step down.
Mark Stibbe, who was abused by Smyth in the 1980s, told BBC Newsnight on Monday that Mr Welby’s position was “untenable”.
“I honestly don’t believe that Justin Welby can continue – I don’t believe that his position is tenable.
“I would also apply that to the bishops that knew and did nothing, and the senior clergy of the Church of England that knew and did nothing. Their positions are also untenable.”
The Dean of Chapel at King’s College Cambridge added to the calls for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, saying: “This is no longer a person who can carry the representative role of that office”.
“I think he really needs to now tender his resignation and allow there to be significant change”, Dr Stephen Cherry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“There are circumstances in which something happens whereby a person in a position of prominent leadership essentially loses the trust and the confidence and the capacity to do that really wonderful thing that someone like an Archbishop does, which is represent everyone at a certain moment, publicly.
“And the pain in the victim community and the pain of not listening to people and not responding to people who are profoundly hurt by those in positions of power means that this is no longer a person who can carry the representative role of that office.”
On Monday, the Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, warned that the church is “in danger of losing complete credibility” in safeguarding, urging Mr Welby to resign.
Mr Welby knew Smyth because of his attendance at Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence that he had “maintained any significant contact” with the barrister in later years.
The archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013.
Over five decades between the 1970s until his death, Smyth is said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks, permanently marking their lives.
The report said Smyth “could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK, and to authorities in South Africa (church authorities and potentially the police) by church officers, including a diocesan bishop and Justin Welby in 2013″.
When the Makin report was published, Mr Welby admitted he had considered resigning but decided not to after taking advice from “senior colleagues”.
After the petition was launched, Mr Welby’s spokesman said he “reiterates his horror at the scale of John Smyth’s egregious abuse, as reflected in his public apology” and repeated that he does not intend to resign.
