‘I remember a man who used religious language to justify violence’ says victim of John Smyth

Cathy Newman: Mark Stibbe, for those not familiar with this story, give us a sense if you can, from your own experience and other victims, the particular nature of the sadistic abuse that John Smyth put you through.
Mark Stibbe: Well John Smyth was a predator who infiltrated my school, Winchester College, in the late 1970s into what was then called the Christian Forum, where young boys were learning about Christianity. And he manipulated and coerced using religious language, people like myself, into believing that he could be trusted as a kind of spiritual father. But his intentions were far from fatherly because in the end it led to abuse – of a physical, of a criminal and of a spiritual nature. So in my case, and in the case of many of the survivors that I’m in regular contact with, that meant going to his house just outside Winchester, heading up the garden with him to a shed that had been specially designed and soundproofed for beatings. And these beatings were not six of the best, the sort of normal corporal punishment of the day. They were severe assaults. So I remember a man who used religious language to justify violence.
Cathy Newman: And, you know, we’re talking four decades on now. Give me a sense of the lingering sense of trauma that you and other victims feel?
Mark Stibbe: I think the trauma stays with you and you don’t realise just how much – how negatively and toxically – it’s affected the whole of your life. I read the Makin Review, that’s long overdue – four years overdue – and I read it last week, I saw John Smythe, my abuser’s handwriting, for the first time in 40 years. The way he signed his name in letters and notes to me, all of which were very abusive and manipulative. That all came back when I saw that particular and distinctive and sinister way in which he signed off his name. And so that really triggered the trauma once again. So you think that maybe you’re on top of it. And a lot of my fellow survivors have had years and years and years of counselling, and yet we’re still suffering broken hearts and broken marriages and broken lives as a result of it. So it never quite really goes away.
Cathy Newman: Yeah, you never forget it. So I know that you have called for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign. Just spell out for us now why that is.
Mark Stibbe: I think that the archbishop should resign because he didn’t do the right thing. My father brought me up to believe that there’s never, ever anything to fear in doing the right thing. And now Justin Welby in 2013 became aware of the full extent of Smyth’s abuses of us. Not just boys in the UK like myself, but boys in Africa as well, in Zimbabwe and in South Africa. And I think that he didn’t do the right thing. He and the Bishop of Ely should have made sure that these abuses were properly reported to the authorities. But he admits, and this is covered off in the review, that he failed to act properly and rigorously and responsibly between 2013 and 2017 – until you reported on these abuses. I don’t think he did the right thing. Now, why does this matter? It matters because my fellow survivors, every single day, whilst this was not being dealt with, was a further day of torment. And in one case, my best friend at school tried to commit suicide because of Smyth’s abuses, in 1982, February. But then again, at Christmas, on Christmas Day in fact, 2013, he got very close to doing the same thing again. And if this thing had been properly reported and dealt with in the middle of 2013, when the Diocese of Ely and the newly installed Archbishop of Canterbury knew the full extent of this suffering, maybe this would have been prevented. This attempt would not have had to happen. And I think there is a case to be made, a strong case to be made. And I don’t know any Smyth survivor who doesn’t believe that it should be made – that he should do the right thing now – which is to resign.
​​Cathy Newman: I suppose what Justin Welby’s friends would say is that the report – the Makin Review – criticises multiple bishops, a former archbishop. And he’s taken the flak. He did an interview with me last week where he answered these questions. So if he resigns, shouldn’t multiple bishops resign? Shouldn’t that be a sort of complete overhaul?
Mark Stibbe: I think when you interviewed the Archbishop of Canterbury last week, the comment that really upset us, as survivors, was when he said, ‘I am not going to resign for this’. There was something about the way he said ‘for this’ that almost implied to us that he was trivialising and minimalising seeing the extent of our sufferings. Is it not enough that we went through what we went through? So we feel that Justin Welby doesn’t really fully understand what silence has meant in our case. But I think that the other bishops and senior clergy who are implicated and to whom the finger is pointed in this very forensic report, they bear a similar responsibility. Accountability in organisations is essential and they have not been accountable. I believe that they have believed that they don’t need to be accountable. That they are somehow above that and beyond that. Well, we want there to be a lasting legacy of something good from all this horror. And one of those things could be justice for the survivors, which would mean people standing down by acknowledging their responsibility.
Cathy Newman: Mark Stibbe, thank you very much for joining us. And I should point out that the Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised and he has said that his failings shame him, shame the church. He’s explained why he doesn’t believe he should quit in the full interview, which we now have put out on YouTube, which you can watch.