Archbishop apologises as links to ‘child abuser’ emerge

London, Feb 2: The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England for not reporting a child abuser in the 1970s, a media report said. Archbishop Reverend Justin Welby on Wednesday said the Church had “failed terribly” by not reporting John Smyth QC to the police. He apologised after admitting that he had worked at the holiday camps where teege boys were groomed for abuse, the Telegraph reported. Smyth, the head of a Christian charity that ran the summer camps, was accused of carrying out a string of “horrific” sado-masochistic attacks in the late 1970s. The report also said that the Channel 4 News will on Thursday broadcast allegations of Smyth’s use of the camps. The boys from some of Britain’s leading public schools attended these camps. Smyth used them to gain access to teegers, whom he forced to strip ked before subjecting them to savage beatings. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Archbishop said that he had been friends with Smyth, a barrister, during that period, when he worked as a dormitory officer at the camps, run by the Iwerne Trust. Welby had kept in “occasiol” contact with the barrister since, the report said. (IANS)