Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he “got it wrong” when handling child sex abuse allegations.
Dr Welby resigned in November after a report revealed he did not adequately follow up on reports about serial abuser John Smyth, who was heavily involved with the Church of England.
He quit after pressure following a review which concluded the Christian camp leader and prolific serial abuser might have been brought to justice had Mr Welby formally reported him to police five years before the barrister’s death.
In standing down, Mr Welby also noted his “long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England”.
The former Archbishop told the BBC he failed to follow proper procedure because of the sheer scale and size of the problem.
“Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn’t been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case – and yes I knew Smyth but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks,” he said in an interview for this week’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday show.
“It was overwhelming, one was trying to prioritise – but I think it’s easy to sound defensive over this.
“The reality is I got it wrong. As archbishop, there are no excuses.”
The Makin Review last year found Smyth had subjected as many as 130 boys and young men to traumatic attacks across five decades in three different countries in the UK and Africa.
The review found Smyth might have been brought to justice had Dr Welby formally reported him to police five years before the barrister’s death in 2018.
While he initially resisted calls to resign, the former archbishop said in his November statement that he must take “personal and institutional” responsibility over his handling of the abuse allegations.
Dr Welby said he was concerned there could be a “rush to judgment” about public figures faced with controversies and whether to resign.
