Makin Report: Analysis by Rebecca Chapman

The Makin review has finally been published - over six years since it was promised and 11 years since the Archbishop of Canterbury was told about the abuse.

What Keith Makin and his review team found during their investigations was truly horrific and readers should be aware that some of the details are deeply distressing. The eminent QC John Smyth, described by one victim as ‘a charismatic personality… the blue-eyed boy, he was Mary Whitehouse’s lawyer, he was in the public domain, everybody knew about him’ was arguably the most prolific serial abuser with links to the church, and accused of abusing as many as 130 boys across five decades in the UK and Africa. The review describes him as ‘a skilled and determined narcissist, who derived pleasure from the sufferings of others’ with abuse of some boys starting when they were as young as 13 years old.

Reading the review is shocking, not just in its detail of the abuse of so many boys, but also of how Smyth spared no-one. He abused two of the godparents of his children. And it is now known that he seriously physically and psychologically abused his own son from the age of seven. Smyth died in 2018 at the age of 75, and the report by Hampshire Police showed that he was ‘never brought to justice for the abuse’. Despite his horrific abuse being first identified as far back as the 1980s, and an ‘open secret’ in evangelical circles for many years, Smyth was able to keep on abusing children late into his life, moving away from the UK to Africa to do so.

In the review, Makin observes that though there were efforts by some individuals to highlight the abuse to the authorities, responses by the Church of England were hugely ineffective and ‘amounted to a cover-up.’ Many victims have PTSD and have been retraumatised by the Church’s response to the abuse, and the repeated retelling of its narrative. Clinical Psychologist Dr Hanson describes ‘the invisible yet central traps and double binds that victims were caught in’ as they struggled with shame, self-doubt and gaslighting. She found that the core motives for Smyth’s abuse were ‘sexual gratification, pleasure from other people’s pain (including their humiliation), status, a desire to be at the top of hierarchy and to be admired and revered and the dominance and control of others’. Smyth's charisma is mentioned again and again through the report: charisma, control, and cover-ups.

Muscular Christianity, too, comes under fire. Dr Hanson suggests that what she sees as ‘a version of masculinity involving endurance, toughness, suppression of vulnerability (‘stiff upper lip’) is valorised’ may have helped to ‘created a formidable invisible web in which he entrapped numerous boys’. Women, meanwhile, were only in a subsidiary role at the Iwerne Camps where Smyth connected with many of his victims.

Names of evangelical leaders appear peppered across much of the review, as do names of evangelical churches. Some commentators would have liked to see more of the theology of those churches and cultures unpicked. But it is the cover-up that comes across most strongly. The abuse was an open secret for so many years; mentioned in conversations but not spelt out clearly; references in a sermon at The Round Church (which later moved to St Andrew the Great), Cambridge as early as 1989. And then there is the question of how much Archbishop Justin Welby knew. In Paris in Spring 1981 a Smyth victim attempted to talk to the Reverend Peter Sertin, Rector at St Michaels Church in Paris. The review notes that it is unclear just what the conversation details were. However, Archbishop Justin advised the review that as a result of this conversation he was warned about John Smyth by Peter Sertin. Makin observes: ‘This demonstrates that Justin Welby had some knowledge of the concerns about John Smyth at that time’. The Archbishop’s statement released alongside the review has him saying 'I had no idea or suspicion of this abuse before 2013.'

Those connected with en also feature in the review - Hugh Palmer, former Rector of All Souls Langham Place, who visited one of the abuse victims in hospital. He is a former member of the en board, and remains one of the 50 or so 'members' of en from which the board is drawn. Also James Stileman, appointed as Operations Director of Titus Trust in September 2013, and who was asked earlier this year to do some management consultancy work for en, which is ongoing. He made personal cheque payments for therapy for victims - agreed to be paid, ultimately, by David Fletcher and Giles Rawlinson. Hampshire police sent him an apology, sometime after the abuses had come to light in February 2017, for giving the impression that he had not passed information on to them.

Connections and networks were a key part of the cover-up - which explains the Archbishop now distancing himself from the evangelical world. Makin states that the Archbishop told him he ‘wasn’t in those (Evangelical) circles’. He further notes that ‘the Archbishop may not have been, in the strictest definition of “being in a circle”, but he was, and is, very closely associated with that network. When he wanted to test the water regarding the extent of knowledge of John Smyth’s abuses he made direct contact with several leading Conservative Evangelical figures, being close enough to that circle to be able to do so’.

Abuse was not stopped and it could have been. Victims were not supported as they should have been. This report’s publication has been delayed repeatedly. It remains to be seen if Smyth’s many victims will think it was worth the wait.

Help and support

If you or anyone you know is affected by the Makin Report in any way, help is available via

FearFree Support, which provides specialist support to victims and survivors of abuse, offering trauma informed and victim led bespoke support. Its head of services has identified an experienced independent advocate for victims and survivors to deliver this service. Contact: nicky.gahagan@fearfree.org.uk telephone 07436795205 (TuesThurs)/helpdesk 01793 317482 during working hours.

Safe Spaces helpline on 0300 303 1056 and safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk; Samaritans helpline-116-123;

The National Association for People Abused in Childhood