John Smyth horror — Anglican Archbishop Makgoba appoints panel to probe handling of abuse reports

The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, has brought in a three-person panel to review how the Anglican Church in South Africa handled allegations that former British lawyer John Smyth had abused children in the UK and Zimbabwe.

Smyth – who was allowed to attend services at the church in the last years of his life on condition that he not interact with young people – ran Christian summer camps in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s and was responsible for physical, psychological and sexual abuse. 

After the first allegations in 1982, he moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where he continued running similar camps, and was arrested in 1997 following the death of a 16-year-old boy at one of the camps. The case was dropped before trial, and Smyth later relocated to South Africa, where he died in Cape Town in 2018 at the age of 75.

Three-person panel

• Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the South African civil society leader and businesswoman. She has held notable positions, including vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and managing director at the World Bank;


• Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett SC KC, a barrister who practises in South Africa and in Brick Court in London. He has offered expert testimony on many times regarding South African and Namibian commercial law, as well as contract, tort and admiralty law; and


• Ian Farlam, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal. He chaired the Marikana Commission of Inquiry into the tragic events of 2012 when 34 striking miners were killed by police at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana.