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John Smyth was a sadistic predator who used to groom the boys in his care then beat them with such viciousness that he would have to provide adult nappies for them to wear afterwards lest they leave blood on the chairs in his home when he brought them back from his shed. He upgraded the shed at one point, to make it soundproof. One of the men who suffered at Smyth’s hands as a boy remembers bleeding for weeks after. Another says: “I honestly thought I was going to die.” Another says that despite the pain the worst part was afterwards, when Smyth would cover the boy’s bloodied body with his and nuzzle his sweaty face into the boy’s neck and give him butterfly kisses. In his nightmares it is “that draping” he relives.
Smyth, who died in 2018, was also a husband, a father of three children, a respected barrister, a prominent Christian evangelist, a moral campaigner, a man deeply involved with Winchester College (where he would give talks about the law and Anglicanism and invite interested boys to his family home for further discussions over Sunday lunches) and with the Church of England. He ran the Iwerne Christian summer camps for boys in Dorset and Zimbabwe throughout the 70s and 80s. All of this gave him uncountable opportunities to indulge his sadism. One boy in his care, Guide Nyachuru, died. An accidental drowning, said Smyth. Nyachuru was a strong swimmer. His family remains convinced that their 16-year-old boy died as a result of abuse by Smyth and was placed in the water afterwards. Smyth succeeded in discrediting the lawyer who was set to prosecute him for culpable homicide and fled back to England.
See No Evil, an immaculately made, deeply harrowing two-part documentary about the man a report (that came far too long after the fact) would say was probably the most prolific serial abuser ever associated with the Church of England, covers all this and more. The details from the men who remember him are viscerally upsetting, not just when they recount what happened in the shed but the quiet reflections in between. “He turned into someone whose intentions I couldn’t calculate,” says Andy Morse, a Wykehamist who suffered from terrible homesickness and was drawn to the charismatic visitor to the school who offered himself as a perfect father figure. He, his best friend, Mark Stibbe – an orphan by the time Smyth met him and sniffed out his vulnerability “like a pheromone” – and “Graham” talk with such eloquence and dignity through their mass of internal strife that it is humbling to witness.
There were, as there so often are, chances to stop this diabolical predator over the course of his 35-year career of inflicting terrible harm under the guise of punishing boys for their sins and calling them back to the Lord. The story of Channel 4’s investigation into who knew what and when is interwoven with the testimony of survivors (though “Graham”, with unfailing politeness, says that he would prefer not to be referred to as such. “I know this is very contentious,” he says, “but I remain a victim. I am not sure I have or will ever come out the other side of this.”)
The former archbishop of canterbury Justin Welby was, as a young man, an instructor at the Iwerne camps at the same time as Smyth, but denies knowing anything that happened at the time. The independent Makin report later found that from at least July 2013 Welby, along with many other senior Church of England figures, were made aware of the severity of Smyth’s abuse, and that Welby “had a personal moral responsibility” to reassure himself that the matter was being pursued by authorities.
See No Evil also takes in Smyth’s family’s experiences. Theirs was a household riven with dread, built round the command not to “dishonour” their father. Daughters Fiona and Caroline lived in fear of his temper and always knew, as Fiona puts it, that their father was “an unsafe grownup … always something ‘off’ about him”. Peter John, the only son and – his sisters used to tease him with this – the “golden boy”, lived to please his father and followed him into Christian ministry. His memories, when they come, are awful. Anne, their mother, met Smyth when she was 16 and dedicated herself to being the perfect Christian wife. Fiona considers her “his first victim” though the question of whether this entirely absolves her of responsibility for what she knew of his crimes is raised among them.
The film gives all its participants’ contributions time to breathe, and time for the viewer to reflect on the many delicate, intelligent insights offered. The grace and – towards Anne – forgiveness offered are breathtaking and only throw into further relief the evil of the man who made, who makes it necessary. The family still believes in God. Those of us who don’t will probably find ourselves hoping that there is at least a hell.
I hope too that Welby is watching.
