Thirty members of the Church of England could be sacked over their failure to stop a barrister thought to have been the most prolific abuser associated with the institution.
The officials are being examined by the Church’s safeguarding team after they were named in a damning report as having knowledge of John Smyth KC’s “abhorrent abuse” of children and young men.
It comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned following increased pressure to stand down over his “failures” to alert authorities to Smyth’s behaviour.
Smyth was said to have subjected as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK and Africa to traumatic physical, sexual and psychological abuse across five decades.
Despite knowledge of Smyth’s abuse at the highest levels of the Church, Hampshire Police only opened an investigation in 2017 after Smyth was the subject of a Channel 4 News report.
He died aged 77 in Cape Town in 2018 and so was never brought to justice for the abuse, according to the Makin report.
Dozens of church leaders, including several bishops, could now be removed for their roles after an internal review of the case, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The separate document was drafted by an independent barrister to help work out if the failings of those named in the Makin review are serious enough to warrant removal from office.
On Tuesday, Dr Welby said it was “very clear I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024”.
He said: “The Makin review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.
“The last few days have renewed my long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England.
“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve.”
Dr Welby said he had had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013, but acknowledged the review found that after its wider exposure that year he had “personally failed to ensure” the case was investigated.
