Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said he is “appalled” by the number of child sex abuse allegations reported to him.
Dr Welby resigned as head of the Church of England in November after a report found he failed to deal with reports of serial rapist John Smith, who had close links to the Church of England.
The report concluded that Smith, believed to be the most prolific abuser linked to the church, could have been brought to justice if Dr Welby had formally reported his suspicions to police in 2013.
In his first interview since resigning, the former archbishop told the BBC he had failed to follow proper procedure because of the scale and scope of the problem.
“Every day more and more cases were coming into the department that had been in the past and hadn't been dealt with properly and this was just another case – and yes, I knew Smith, but it was an absolutely mind-boggling few weeks,” he said in an interview on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, which aired this week.
He added: “It was overwhelming and you had to prioritise, but I think it's easy to start making excuses in that case.
“The reality is that I was wrong. As an archbishop, for me there are no excuses, being overwhelmed is a reason, not an excuse.”
The Makin Review, published on November 7 last year, said Smith had subjected around 130 boys and young men to traumatic attacks over five decades in three different countries in the UK and Africa.
The then archbishop resisted calls to resign for several days after the publication, before announcing his departure on November 12, saying he had decided to leave “in the interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and have been privileged to serve.”
On December 5, Dr Welby made his final speech in the House of Lords, saying that while the Church of England's care of property was “a very different picture to the past”, it was “obvious” that he had to go.
Critics accused him of making light of serious security shortcomings in his speech after his references to 14th-century beheadings drew laughter from the benches, and of adding: “If you feel sorry for anyone, it is my poor diary secretary” who had seen weeks and months of work “disappear in a breath of resignation”.
The worldwide Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is stepping down after… Read more
Smith's victim said she was “shocked” by his “tone-deaf” speech.
The following day, Dr Welby apologised, adding: “It was not his intention to ignore the survivors' experiences or to trivialise the situation – and I am very sorry that I did so.”
Smith died in 2018 in Cape Town aged 75 while under investigation by British police and so was “never held accountable for the violence”, the Makin review said.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
