John Smyth.
Cape Town - A report by the Panel of Inquiry into allegations of abuse by serial abuser, John Smyth in South Africa and the conduct of the Anglican Church of South Africa (ACSA) revealed that despite no cases of abuse being reported locally, “the risk of a repetition of abuse during his 18 year stay in the country was at all times clearly high” - and that warnings had been made in a bid to stop him in his path.
The findings come just weeks after respected SA lawyer Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett recused himself from the panel after allegations of abuse surfaced against him by a Wits University lecturer, who was a young man at the time.
The other panel members were Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the South African civil society leader, and Judge Ian Farlam, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
In a statement via Archbishop Thabo Makgoba’s office, it was revealed the inquiry’s report was submitted to him on Friday, and that he had studied it at the weekend before releasing it yesterday to church members and the media.
The Archbishop is also expected to host a press briefing on Tuesday on the matter.
The Panel had set out to investigate Smyth’s interactions with ACSA between 2001 and 2018 and criticised the church’s failure to warn other churches of his prior abuse in the UK, as well as its failure to act more quickly.
The scandal was blown open in November 2024, following the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby after the Makin review revealed an entrenched cover-up of abuse by Smyth, who had lived in Cape Town and worshipped at St Martin’s in Bergvliet.
At least 85 boys were believed to have been Smyth’s victims in various countries.
The review called for a full independent review of Smyth’s activities in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The report detailed that although no cases of abuse in South Africa had been reported to ACSA, “the risk of a repetition of abuse by Smyth in his time in South Africa (2001-2018) was at all times clearly high.”
The panel revealed the Bishop of Table Bay, the Right Reverend Garth Counsell, had received a letter from a Church of England diocese in 2013 and had warned the congregation in which Smyth was worshipping about him.
Also that in 2017, a news channel in the UK had publicly exposed Smyth but that the Bishop Counsell did not recall receiving the letter and that it had been mislaid in the diocesan files.
The panel determined a timeline in which it stated that in January 2014, the rector of the church of which Smyth was a member, Reverend Allan Smith, had written to Bishop Counsell, informing him that Smyth had left the church and moved to an independent Cape Town church, Church-on-Main.
The panel found that “Bishop Counsell and Reverend Smith” erred in failing to inform the authorities at Church-on-Main about what they had learnt about Smyth via the letter.
The report mapped Smyth's movement between St Martin’s in Cape Town to a Durban Anglican Church congregation when he first arrived in South Africa after leaving Zimbabwe.
The Rector, the Reverend Michael Skevington had received so called warnings via phone calls that he had been involved in “instances of abuse in the UK and Zimbabwe”, the ACSA report read.
“Reverend Skevington and a churchwarden confronted Smyth: his reaction was to threaten them with legal suits should these allegations be further conveyed…,”.
“It is to the credit of the Reverend Skevington and the churchwardens that they did not (as the Makin Review unfortunately reflects as the reaction of some individuals and entities, in the UK and Zimbabwe) quail in the face of these threats.
“The Smyth’s were immediately suspended from all ministries at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and left the congregation ‘abruptly’.”
The panel found their inquiry to be limited in terms of their Terms of Reference, which does not include a review of ACSA’s dealing with abuse generally.
The report noted “the disturbing delay… 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.”
“We do not consider that the Pastoral Standards alone afforded members of ACSA sufficient protection against conduct such as that documented in the Makin Review and (Zimbabwe) Coltart Report, and that there was a serious risk of such conduct being repeated in South Africa by Smyth after his arrival in 2001....”
They added that they considered the delays in the implementation since 2016 of ‘Safe Church’ a serious concern and that it raised the risk of similar or other abuse conduct.
In their summary the panel noted that Smyth had “always wanted to be where there were any young adults who could be mentored by him, and because there were not many young men in that category, Smith sought out other churches”.
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