I was the first person to out serial abuser John Smyth – but I wish Justin Welby hadn’t resigned

So many people knew about John Smyth’s legacy of abuse and did nothing. Why then did everyone gun for the Archbishop of Canterbury, asks Anne Atkins

When the world was reeling from the appalling revelations about Jimmy Savile in 2012, almost as shocking as his abuse was that so many good people had known about it and said nothing.

Years earlier, I had been told that John Smyth, the glamorous, upright Christian barrister I’d known from a distance since I was a child, had committed acts of unimaginable brutality against teenage boys. Immediately, I contacted a clergyman who knew Smyth better than I, and who knew someone I feared might be a victim. He reassured me there was nothing to worry about: he would have known.

Should I have believed him? Absolutely not. Do I wish I’d done more? Absolutely I do.

Nevertheless, in 2012 I wrote an article in the national press about Smyth’s abuse. I was the first to speak up publicly by some years, although many others had known far more and for far longer. I was subjected to a storm of invective on Twitter, and was briefly sacked from Thought for the Day. I have friends whose lives have been all but wrecked by Smyth’s evil. Some close to me have suffered dreadfully, for years or decades, as a result of abuse enabled by the Church of England.

You might, then, think that I would want Justin Welby to go. On the contrary. I have been very much hoping and praying he wouldn’t, and I am devastated that he has decided to step down.

Back in 2012, I didn’t name Smyth; I didn’t have any evidence. But my brave daughter walked into a police station with my article to tell them his identity. They weren’t interested. Those whose job is law enforcement refused to listen. And yet we called for the resignation of a clergyman because he happened to be a high-profile and unwitting acquaintance of the perpetrator? Where are the questions for the police?

Welby knew nothing of Smyth’s behaviour until 2013. (To infer that he was lying, as the Makin report insinuates, strikes me as potentially libellous and particularly spiteful about someone as transparently honest, to his own detriment, as Welby.) He checked it had been reported to police and social services and was told it had. What else is he supposed to have done?

I cannot imagine how much passes across the desk of the head of the Anglican Communion, responsible for over 85 million communicants in over 165 countries. Nonetheless, he took appropriate action.

That Welby admitted to regrets – that he didn’t do more; that he took advice not to meet with victims sooner instead of following his heart – shows what a decent, humble Christian he is.

Fast forward five years to four evenings of Smyth on Channel 4 News. Cathy Newman was lauded for accosting Smyth in the street and thus alerting him to escape to South Africa, where British police – PC Plod having at last woken up – could not reach him. Conveniently for Smyth, he died there and escaped earthly justice. Why are we not examining Channel 4’s approach?

Smyth was never a clergyman. He was not in the Church’s employ. The abuse did not take place in church. So why did everyone gun for the Archbishop of Canterbury? Other than unground axes and personal resentments about his being too liberal, not liberal enough, or preferred instead of someone with my theology.

After my 2012 article, Peter McGrath wrote in the Guardian under the headline, “There is no worse sin than turning a blind eye to a paedophile’s activities”. This is not just wrong: it is seriously unhinged. Is the sin of silence worse than paedophilia itself? Not reporting a crime worse than being the perpetrator? I have seen this bizarre opinion being reiterated just this morning.

John Smyth was evil. He escaped our clutches.

To allow our – understandable – frustration to be vented on someone with huge integrity and humility, who has done an impossible job better than anyone else could have and at great personal cost, is not just scapegoating: it is nasty. I am ashamed of the church I love.