Sexual abuse scandal - John Smyth, Jeremy Gauntlett and the shame of the Anglican Church

Warning: This story contains explicit references to the sexual assault of minors.

Brick Court Chambers is rated as the second most prestigious barristers’ chambers in London. South African advocate Jeremy Gauntlett called it his professional home in the UK, with his profile on the chambers’ website describing him as “among the top counsel in the city”.

Now his profile has been quietly removed, while a media inquiry to Brick Court Chambers this week went unanswered. Gauntlett’s career as one of the most high-flying international lawyers South Africa has ever known is over. 

The 74 year-old advocate announced in a letter sent to the country’s leading legal bodies in late January that he had “for some time been planning to retire from practice after what has been a long and fulfilling legal career”, and that he would be doing so immediately. 

What has ended Gauntlett’s career is a credible account of teen grooming and sexual abuse made public by a respected Wits academic. 

Daily Maverick has seen an email sent by Gauntlett in 2022 in which he acknowledged the validity of this account. Gauntlett did not respond to emailed questions this week.

But that’s only one part of a much wider and extraordinarily dark story: one which begins in the UK in the 1970s, ends up taking down one of the most powerful religious figures in the world, and now poses uncomfortable questions for Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba.

John Smyth’s abhorrent double life

“He cut a striking figure as he strode through the Royal Courts of Justice in his full-bodied wig and flowing silk gown. He was one of the youngest and most brilliant QCs working in London. His sharp mind and self-assured manner meant that he was repeatedly engaged for high profile trials.”

This description would in some ways be curiously appropriate for Jeremy Gauntlett, who also became a QC (Queen’s Counsel: a British lawyer of the highest rank), albeit at an older age. 

But the words instead apply to John Smyth, the man described in an official investigation last year as “the most prolific serial abuser to be associated with the Church of England”.

The description appears in the opening passage of British journalist Andrew Graystone’s 2021 book Bleeding for Jesus: John Smyth and the cult of the Iwerne Camps. It was Graystone who was responsible in large part for the public exposing of the Smyth scandal.

John Smyth. (Photo: Channel 4 News / Wikipedia)

By the 1970s John Smyth was a well-known figure in the UK: a charismatic and prominent lawyer by profession. He used much of the rest of his time to groom teenage boys, using Christianity as his cover. 

Smyth would have his victims enter a shed he used specifically for the purpose. There he would strip them naked and savagely beat them with a cane, while demanding that they prayed out loud. While he beat them, he would often groan with ecstasy. The beatings would last sometimes hundreds of lashes.

When he was finished, Smyth would embrace them from behind, nuzzling their back and kissing their neck. The blood would be flowing down his victims’ legs. Smyth would then apply lotion to their buttocks, and give the victims an adult nappy to wear under their clothes so the bleeding was not visible.

One victim, records Graystone, had a beating that lasted 12 hours. Another eventually had to wear adult nappies around the clock, with thick black trousers to “disguise the seeping blood”.

Smyth groomed only sporty and good-looking boys.

“It was not the conventional sexual abuse that people might imagine; it was something more complex,” writes Graystone.

The beatings were regularly scheduled to boys Smyth gave Christian ministry to, in punishment for a whole range of “sins”, but with a tremendous emphasis on masturbation, which Smyth encouraged his victims to confess about at length. One boy attempted suicide on the eve of a planned beating, unable to handle the torture any more but equally incapable of seeing a way out.

Smyth’s actions became known to the Church of England relatively early on, as last year’s Makin Report - also known as the John Smyth Review - has made clear. 

Although Smyth was not ordained in the church, Graystone’s book and the official investigation have established that he spent his time in the UK as a high-profile member of an Anglican parish church where he counselled young men; he was trained and licensed as a lay reader in the Diocese of Winchester; and carried out much of his abuse at the Iwerne holiday camps which were set up to train attendees - including the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby - to be leaders in the Church of England.

His sin, in other words, was the Church of England’s sin.

By the end of 1982, writes Graystone, at least 27 adults in the UK had a “clear-sighted view of what John Smyth was doing”.

Smyth had to be shipped out of the UK. The knowledge that he would almost certainly continue his abuse wherever he landed up seems to have been less of a concern than the reputational liability he posed to the church while in the UK.

And so, with the encouragement and financial support of church figures and rich barrister colleagues, Smyth headed off to southern Africa: first Zimbabwe, and then South Africa.

In Zimbabwe, where Smyth spent around 16 years, he would go on to abuse an estimated 90 boys.

In South Africa, where Smyth spent the final 17 years of his life: we still don’t know. 

Zimbabwe abuse includes one mysterious teen death

There are very few heroes in the Smyth story, but one of them is yet another lawyer: Zimbabwean David Coltart. 

It was Coltart, the current Mayor of Bulawayo, who launched what was at that stage by far the most extensive investigation into Smyth - based on disturbing accounts about what Smyth had been up to since arriving in Harare in 1985.

Smyth had launched Christian camps for Zimbabwean schoolboys where nudity was compulsory in many contexts, and Smyth would shower and sleep in the boys’ area, rather than the adults’.

The beatings, of course, continued. Graystone reported, based on interviews with victims, that Smyth would be “breathing heavily” while he carried out the beatings, and that there was “no doubt that Smyth was emotionally and sexually aroused”.

One boy told Graystone that the beatings were “the first time I realised that black skin could bruise”.

Another Zimbabwean victim recounted to Graystone how “Smyth would call him to his office, stroke his hair and body and tell him he was a good boy. ‘You’re such a good boy that I want to give you a present,’ he would say. The present was sharing a bed with him”.

The tipping point for Smyth’s Zimbabwean sojourn seems to have been the death of a 16 year-old boy at one of his camps, Guide Nyachuru, under mysterious circumstances. (The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, wrote relatively recently to the Nyachuru family to offer his condolences.)

Coltart contacted a well-known Zimbabwean psychologist, Margaret Henning, and presented her with affidavits he had collected about Smyth’s behaviour.

“[Henning] was the first to describe Smyth’s behaviour as sadism, to state clearly that it was motivated by sex, and to note the common characteristics with a cult,” Graystone writes.

Coltart compiled his findings into a 21-page report in 1993. He sent it on to boys’ boarding schools in Zimbabwe and leading private schools in South Africa.

Coltart confirmed to Daily Maverick this week that he also sent the report to the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.

A criminal prosecution was attempted, but it collapsed. Feeling the heat in Zimbabwe, Smyth and his wife Anne packed up shop hurriedly in 2001. Their new destination: Umdloti, KwaZulu-Natal.

Kelvin Grove squash, showers and sex talk sessions

We know frighteningly little about Smyth’s activities in South Africa - except the part of his life that he carried out in full public view.

His background as a prominent London barrister enabled him to rebrand as an outspoken legal commentator advocating for conservative Christian values in South Africa’s democratic laws. Smyth would eventually be seen on SABC as a talking head opining about the Oscar Pistorius trial in 2014.

Soon after arrival, Smyth was elected head of the Christian Lawyers’ Association of South Africa. He worked closely with the organisation Doctors for Life to challenge abortion laws. Graystone writes that he gave occasional lectures at the University of the Free State; one, in 2008, saw Smyth tell students that homosexuality is “almost always caught, not inherited”, sometimes from “some older man or woman”.

He also began work on his passion project, the Justice Alliance of South Africa, which was involved in some significant Constitutional litigation against the government.

One 2011 case brought by Smyth’s group, involving term limits for the Chief Justice, saw Jeremy Gauntlett represent one of the amicus curiae (friends of the court) in the matter. 

By 2005 the Smyths had moved to Cape Town and settled in Bergvliet, worshipping at St Martin’s Anglican Church in Bergvliet. 

St Martin’s did not respond to Daily Maverick’s inquiries this week. But the Reverend David Beyer, who led the church at the time, previously told ITN: “He just passed a remark that he had some youngsters who came to his home, and that they had ministry time together, and I said ‘Well, well done, because I’m sure you’ll do it very well’.”

The Smyths left St Martin’s suddenly after a few years, for reasons which are not clear, and moved to a southern suburbs church popular with young people: Church-on-Main.

There, pastor Andrew Thomson told Daily Maverick this week, Smyth’s charm, erudition and seemingly distinguished British background opened doors for him to enter church leadership.

“This is a senior guy, he’s been in the church for a long time, he’s a barrister…” Thomson remembers the attitude of the time being.

It was only in 2016 that Thomson began to get an inkling of what they were dealing with.

“In that time period, a young guy came to us and said they weren’t happy with John Smyth. He had this practice where he would meet people at Kelvin Grove [members’ club] and they would play squash together, shower in open showers, go for breakfast and he would talk to the young guys about sexuality”.

Thomson notes that Smyth was not just active within his own church.

“His ministry range wasn’t only at Church-on-Main. He ministered at a couple of other churches around, and he ran a Bible study of his own at home.”

Thomson and the church leadership team decided to suspend Smyth and his wife from church leadership, in response to which he said Smyth became “obstreperous”.

Says Thomson: “It was awkward. This was a man who was many years senior to any of us. But in dealing with him, we realised there’s a serious problem here.”

In February 2017, the skeletons came tumbling out of Smyth’s closet. Channel 4 News in the UK aired an expose on Smyth’s abuse, produced with Graystone’s research, which shocked the country and sent the Church of England into its biggest crisis in decades. 

It was front page news for all the British papers. One of Thomson’s congregants happened to be flying back to Cape Town that day, and brought him a newspaper.  

“We went to John and advised him to fly to the UK, ask for a legal officer of the Anglican church to represent you, and hand yourself over,” says Thomson.

“We even offered to pay for his tickets. He was adamant that was the worst idea: he would sit it out in South Africa.”

Smyth and his wife were excommunicated from Church-on-Main. Yet they were permitted back, even after the international headlines, to worship at the Anglican St Martin’s - on condition that Smyth had no contact with minors.

John Smyth died in Cape Town on 11 August 2018, 8 days after being told he needed to submit himself to questioning from UK police or face extradition.

Suicide?

“I don’t put it out of the question,” says Thomson.

What did Archbishop Makgoba know? 

The Smyth scandal would ultimately cost the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, his job - due to the evidence that Church of England leaders had first heard of Smyth’s abuse more than four decades ago, and yet failed to take meaningful action.

But serious questions have yet to be asked of Welby’s counterpart and friend in South Africa, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, about what the local church knew - and when.

There are already inconsistencies between what Makgoba has said about the case and what journalists have been told. 

In a November statement, for instance, Makgoba seemingly sought to allay concerns about Smyth’s time in South Africa by stating that “St Martin’s reported that Smyth neither counselled young people, nor were any allegations of abuse or grooming made against Smyth by any member”. 

Yet in the interview given to ITN in 2017 referenced above, Reverend David Beyer of St Martin’s told the journalist that Smyth “had some youngsters who came to his home, and they had ministry time together”.

The Makin Report states that South African church authorities were informed about Smyth, his home address and email address in an email from the Bishop of Ely in the UK in 2013 - and yet heard nothing back, despite multiple attempts to follow up. 

Graystone writes that if the Diocese of Cape Town had conducted a basic Google search after receiving this email, “they would have realised that Smyth was leading a prominent Christian organisation based in Cape Town. They would have seen him engaging with the South African government on multiple levels, and appearing regularly as a Christian spokesperson on local and national television.” 

Archbishop Makgoba himself said in a statement last November that he first became aware of the Smyth saga “in 2017, when Channel Four in the UK broadcast an expose of Smyth’s abuse”.

Yet the Makin Report details an “acknowledgment from Bishop of Cape Town having received letter [about Smyth] from Bishop of Ely” on 9 August 2013.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Welby also claimed in a live TV interview with Channel 4 in April 2019 that he personally had written to the Archbishop of Cape Town in 2013.

In response to questions on this from Daily Maverick this week, Archbishop Makgoba replied: “The matter is the subject of the inquiry panel’s investigation”.

Which brings us to the matter of the review panel looking into the handling of John Smyth by the church in South Africa.  

Anglican Church “marking its own homework”?

The Makin Report concluded that a separate review needed to be undertaken into John Smyth’s activities in South Africa and the handling of the scandal by the relevant local church authorities.

“It is highly likely that he was continuing to abuse young men [in South Africa] and there is some evidence to this effect,” the report found.

“There are some records of him returning to the UK, but these visits do not appear to be for fundraising. How John Smyth funded his quite opulent lifestyle, living in a large house in a quiet suburb of Cape Town, is not known.”

When the report was released in November last year, Makgoba accordingly announced a panel to “review my and the church’s past actions in relation to the John Smyth abuse scandal”.  

Makgoba had assembled a panel seemingly beyond reproach: Dr Mamphela Ramphela, Judge Ian Farlam - and Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett. 

“Three prominent South Africans experienced in human rights issues,” as Makgoba termed them.

Perhaps it didn’t hurt that two of the three already held church posts. Gauntlett, at the time of the panel’s announcement, was the Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town, and Farlam was the Chancellor of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

These are not paid posts, Makgoba told Daily Maverick this week; chancellors “give advice on the implementation of canon law and perform functions such as advising a court for the trial of a bishop”.

Makgoba denied that appointing two people who already held church posts to a review of the church’s actions could amount to a conflict of interests, because Farlam and Gauntlett “are not involved in safeguarding matters”.

Not everyone agrees. 

Graystone, who as a result of his years-long work on the Smyth case has become well-versed in church protocol, told Daily Maverick: “If Makgoba wanted to demonstrate that the church was subjecting itself to external scrutiny, in this case over Smyth, you would have thought he would choose people who aren’t already part of the system.” 

Added Graystone: “It smacks of the church marking its own homework”.

Gauntlett faces accusations of predatory past

Not a lot of media attention was paid to the announcement of the review panel - until Wits anthropology academic Hylton White went public with his sexual abuse allegations against Gauntlett after realising with horror that Gauntlett would be one of those reviewing the handling of Smyth.

White has recounted in a public Facebook post, now well-publicised, how he met Gauntlett when he was in his early teens and Gauntlett in his mid-30s, in the 1980s. 

“In my early teens I went up the Hogsback peak with him,” White wrote.

“At a pool halfway up the mountain he undressed me and gripped me between his own naked legs in the water. What he did behind me I can’t say.”

White went on to describe additional grooming by Gauntlett, and incidents including a visit to Gauntlett’s hotel room in Port Elizabeth “where he had me undress so he could bathe me then have sex with me”.

Later on, in Cape Town, White “swam naked with him in his pool at his Constantia home, was groped by him while his wife was a room away, then finally threw him out of my residence room at campus when he dropped me off one day”.

White has stressed that he “consented to all these acts insofar as consent meant anything at that time in my life”.

The academic confronted Gauntlett about the abuse over email in 2022, when White was 52 and Gauntlett 72, and received an apology from Gauntlett seen by Daily Maverick.

Gauntlett told White, as per White’s Facebook post, that there were “no others”.

Multiple legal insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity because Gauntlett is still judged an intimidating and powerful individual, have told Daily Maverick that rumours about Gauntlett demonstrating inappropriate behaviour towards younger men have swirled for years.

Gauntlett did not respond to Daily Maverick’s emailed questions this week.

There are, however, no additional accusations of underage abuse and no known official complaints.

White this week declined to comment further to Daily Maverick as he felt his version of events had already been aired sufficiently.

White added only that he had been disappointed by homophobic and otherwise divisive commentary on social media since the story broke, having had several completely consensual sexual relationships with male peers in his youth.

“I have been very grateful for how these and other queer friends have stepped up for me and my family during this time,” White said.

He added that child sexual exploitation should be treated as child sexual exploitation and not conflated with prejudices around race and sexual orientation.      

Did the Church once again ignore a warning about an abuser?

What prompted White to go public with his story was his frustration with the fact that a mutual friend, Anna-Maria Makhulu, had emailed Archbishop Makgoba to warn him about Gauntlett’s past with regards to the Smyth inquiry on 9 January - and did not receive a response, an out-of-office reply, or an email bounceback.

Makgoba subsequently told News24 that this was due to the church’s poor quality “internal communication during the holiday period”.

This week, the Archbishop told Daily Maverick that the explanation behind his non-response to the Makhulu email should not be released because he had already given it to White and Makhulu, and “it is critical to our safeguarding process that survivors of abuse should know that their interactions with the church are kept confidential”.

The additional complication, however, is that Makhulu also sent her complaint regarding Gauntlett on 9 January to Smyth panel member Mamphela Ramphele. 

Whether Ramphele took any action is unknown; Ramphele has since referred all questions on the matter to the church.

Makgoba told Daily Maverick that when it came to the question of whether Ramphele attempted to alert anyone to the Gauntlett complaint, “I will consider addressing the matter after the [Smyth] panel has reported”.

Ramphele was one of scores of high-profile South Africans, including Democratic Alliance federal chair Helen Zille, who previously nominated Gauntlett for a position on the Bench of the Constitutional Court. 

Makgoba released a statement on the White matter on 18 January, in which he said with regards to White’s Gauntlett account: “No complaint is known to have been made to Safe Church [the Anglican church safeguarding body] or to the church itself on this matter over the past 40 years”.

It was a strange comment, since there was never any suggestion from White that Gauntlett’s abuse took place in any context involving the Anglican church.

Makgoba said that he had accepted Gauntlett’s resignation from the Smyth panel on the grounds of “the well-recognised principle in the law that even the appearance of a conflict of interest can be enough to trigger a recusal from a matter”.

Gauntlett has not made any public statement on the matter, beyond his letter to legal bodies explaining that he was resigning due to “a blitz of media reports concerning my private life” which had become “intolerable for me and for my family”.

The work of the Smyth panel will continue from Farlam and Mamphele.

Asked by Daily Maverick if it might not be preferable to reconstitute the panel in its entirety, Makgoba replied:

“Between [Farlam and Ramphele’s] reputations for the impartial administration of justice and commitment to telling truth to power, I am confident in the integrity of the remaining members of the panel and that their report will reflect this”. DM 

Rebecca Davis can be reached on [email protected]

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