It came as a surprise when the Anglican Church announced on Monday, 3 February that it was releasing its panel report into how it handled the John Smyth case: the worst abuse scandal in the church’s history, which ended up costing the Archbishop of Canterbury his job.
The timing was unexpected for two reasons.
First, the report is signed and dated 31 January 2025, meaning it was delivered less than two weeks after panel member Jeremy Gauntlett stepped down following an accusation from Wits academic Hylton White that Gauntlett had groomed and sexually abused him as a teen: a charge uncomfortably close to those Gauntlett was investigating with regards to John Smyth.
Given this timing, it is hard not to assume that Gauntlett played a major role in compiling the report — which contains no mention of the allegation against Gauntlett.
The sole mention of Gauntlett in the report is the following: “[Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba] requested us [Ian Farlam and Mamphela Ramphele], together with Mr Jeremy Gauntlett SC KC (who subsequently withdrew) to conduct an inquiry.”
Last week, Daily Maverick asked Makgoba if it might not be prudent to reconstitute the panel given the emergence of a secondary abuse case on top of the first. Makgoba replied that he had confidence “in the integrity of the remaining members of the panel”, but perhaps a more forthright response might have been: “Well, the report is basically already finished.”
The second reason the timing of the report’s release is surprising is that the panel of Farlam, Mamphele and Gauntlett was only formed on 23 November 2024. The report states that even later, on 6 December 2024, the panel issued a public appeal for information about Smyth’s activities in South Africa. (The notification of this, on the church website, had received fewer than 2,000 views almost a month later.)
The panel thus completed its work in under two months, during a festive season period where South Africans are famously awol.
One might commend the panel on its efficiency compared to most investigations, commissions of inquiry or tribunals in South Africa — except that the final report is just 29 pages long, and not massively coherent in either structure or substance.
Highly limited terms of reference
To be fair to the panel, the terms of reference for the review were extremely limited.
The Church of England’s November 2024 report on the Smyth scandal, the Makin Report, noted with concern how little was known about Smyth’s activities in South Africa but concluded that it was “highly likely that [Smyth] was continuing to abuse young men”.
The local report, officially termed “Inquiry into matters relating to Mr John Smyth and Anglican Church of Southern Africa”, takes us no further in learning whether this crucial matter is true or not.
Instead, the review panel looked only at whether the Anglican Church of South Africa (Acsa) recorded any complaints about Smyth, and whether it failed to act on these and to make general recommendations.
In crude terms, the panel looked at who received emails about Smyth; when; and whether anything was done in response.
The panel does not identify any wrongdoing or negligence by Makgoba with regards to the handling of the Smyth case, even though several unanswered questions remain.
Such a conclusion is unlikely to allay concerns about the fact that the panel consisted of three Anglicans with close relationships to Makgoba, two of whom — Farlam and Gauntlett — held non-remunerated posts within the church at the time of being appointed to the panel.
An Anglican insider described the thinking around this as being that of “the church cleaning up its own mess”, but it is very difficult to level a strong argument that it would not have been preferable to appoint independent external figures to the panel.
Not our parish, not our problem
The panel was only tasked with investigating the Smyth case inasmuch as it relates to Acsa and therefore did not look into the lengthy period that Smyth spent at a non-Anglican church in Cape Town, Church-on-Main.
This reflects a wider attitude which permeates the findings of the report as a whole: if it didn’t happen on our turf, it’s not our concern.
This is stated overtly: “What, however, is evident — and central to our own inquiry — is that from 2001 on, young members of [Acsa] were exposed to the real risk of Mr Smyth perpetrating in South Africa the serial abuse documented in the UK and Zimbabwe.”
Not just young members of Acsa. As a result of the Church of England’s failure to deal decisively with Smyth’s crimes, and the subsequent failure of Acsa to communicate to South African churches about Smyth, Smyth had access to all kinds of young South Africans — not just those within the Anglican Church.
The report found that when the Smyths wrote to St Martin’s in Bergvliet in December 2013, their erstwhile church, informing the then rector Reverend Allan Smith of their intention to move to Church-on-Main, one of Smith’s major responses was relief.
Smith wrote to Bishop Garth Counsell, who had finally been informed about Smyth by the Church of England earlier that same year, that Smyth, “about whom you had some concern”, was leaving his church.
According to the report, Smith’s email to Counsell read: “On the one hand it may be some relief and on the other hand one never knows quite what their motive or purpose is? Is it healthy for folk to hop from church to church?”
Crucially, Smith did not inform Church-on-Main that it was welcoming into its ranks a man who was a serial groomer and abuser of young men.
This is the sole damning finding of the review targeting individuals within Acsa: “Bishop Counsell and Revd Smith erred in failing to inform the authorities at Church-on-Main of what they had learned about Smyth.”
When Smyth left St Martin’s Bergvliet, the report states, “the immediate high risk to members of [Acsa …] had thus passed”. But “a basis for anxiety regarding risk existed: Smyth, after all, had joined other [Acsa] congregations before, and might seek to do so again”.
A more accurate phrasing would be: when Smyth left St Martin’s Bergvliet, the immediate high risk to members of Acsa was passed on without warning to members of a non-Anglican church, Church-on-Main.
Unanswered questions are many
The report leaves a great many questions unanswered and mysteries unsolved while reaching at least one questionable conclusion.
One of the extraordinary aspects of the Smyth saga is that in 2017, after the broadcast of a Channel 4 investigation about his savage abuse which made international headlines, St Martin’s Bergvliet permitted him back as a member. (For some context, the legal organisation Smyth headed, the Justice Alliance of South Africa, immediately asked him to step aside after the broadcast.)
“We do not consider that the readmission to membership of Smyth at St Martin’s Bergvliet in his evidently frail state in 2017, on express condition that he was not involved in organising activities, posed material risk,” the panel found.
Maybe — although it’s unclear where the panel got the bit about Smyth’s “evidently frail state” since the Makin report states: “John Smyth’s consultant had expressed real surprise at his death, saying that, following a stent operation, he was in very good health”.
There are other pieces of the report which are confusing.
The report states — based on an email sent by Smyth when leaving the church — that while worshipping at St Martin’s Bergvliet, Smyth “had preached occasionally over the years and had been part of the Alpha course (an outreach programme)”, as well as undertaking “UCT student work”.
Yet the same paragraph concludes: “In the retrospect of his time at St Martin’s there is no reflection of leadership, or any form of ministry performed”.
What is participating in an outreach programme, as well as doing work with UCT students, if not “a form of ministry”? And if they do not meet Acsa’s technical definition of “ministry”, that is surely of little consolation to the young men Smyth may have had access to while doing whatever the church wants to call it.
Other unanswered questions: in 2013, Counsell’s secretary responded to the Church of England’s warning about Smyth with an email stating that Counsell “will consult with the Archbishop of Cape Town, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, as to the way forward”.
Did this happen? There’s no mention of it further in the report, so one assumes not — but it is strange that the reason this didn’t happen warrants no further discussion in the report.
Also not touched: former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s claim, in a TV interview in 2019, that he had written to Makgoba about Smyth in 2013. (This may have been Welby trying to cover his back, but would surely be worth dispelling if untrue.)
Church falls short
The report is not a whitewash.
It does find that “communication of [the Smyth] warning within [Acsa] between 2013 and Smyth’s death in 2018 […] fell short”. It also finds that “The protective measures in place within [Acsa] at the time Smyth lived in South Africa inadequately mitigated the serious risk of such conduct being repeated here by Smyth, or others.”
The panellists also had to balance the reality on the one hand that they could not identify any cases of abuse perpetrated by Smyth in South Africa with the possibility that “there was a very high risk that they could have happened”.
The report criticises “the disturbing delay already noted, at least since 2018, in fully implementing measures evolved over two decades to grapple effectively with abuse within the church and church-related institutions, such as schools and children’s homes”.
But on the basis of this report alone, is there really an appetite for probing, meaningful scrutiny of the church’s handling of abuse? DM