JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Anglican Church management in South Africa has admitted to failing to reveal sexual abuse allegations towards its former member John Smyth, who mistreated children in the 1970s and Nineteen Eighties within the U.Okay. and Zimbabwe earlier than fleeing to South Africa, the place he died in 2018.
In November, an unbiased overview discovered the Church of England coated up “horrific” abuse by Smyth, who volunteered at Christian summer time camps within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties.
A South African panel, headed by a retired decide, launched its personal report Tuesday through which it mentioned the Anglican Church ought to have reported Smyth, regardless that there was no proof that he had dedicated comparable abuses within the nation. Nonetheless, the chance that he would reoffend was excessive, the panel discovered.
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Smyth fled to South Africa in 2001, the place he labored in parishes till 2014.
The pinnacle of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa mentioned the report discovered that warnings had not been handed on.
“As well as, it criticized us for not sharing with one other church, to which he moved in 2014 (not an Anglican church), the warning we obtained in 2013 of his actions within the U.Okay. and Zimbabwe,” mentioned Archbishop Thabo Makgoba on Tuesday.
Smyth joined the church after fleeing Zimbabwe to South Africa in 2001 following allegations that he had sexually, bodily, and psychologically abused over 100 kids and males throughout Christian summer time camps, the place he volunteered.
Final yr, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned following an inquiry that discovered that he failed to inform police about serial abuse by Smyth when he grew to become conscious of it in 2013.
The inquiry discovered that the Church of England coated up “horrific” abuse by Smyth, with the 251-page report saying he had abused 30 boys and younger males within the UK and 85 in Africa over 5 many years.
Makgoba on Tuesday apologized to members of the church for placing congregants in danger.
“I and the Diocese apologize to our congregants and the broader group that we didn’t shield folks from that danger,” Makgoba mentioned on Tuesday.
“Regardless of the efforts of some people to carry the abuse to the eye of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others have been wholly ineffective and amounted to a coverup,” the inquiry mentioned the time.
