Andrew Graystone was brought in as a journalist to do some reputation management for the Anglican-led youth organisation Titus Trust. He ended up uncovering evidence of John Smyth’s abuse, working with Channel 4 News to bring it to light and try to get justice for the survivors. His book Bleeding for Jesus tells the story of the abuse and the Church’s failure to respond; an updated edition will come out later this year

We don’t need to go into the details of the abuse John Smyth inflicted. That’s on the record. But do you have a sense of the damage that he did?
Yes, I speak to victims of John Smyth every day. For many of them, the impact has been lifelong and daily. It affects marriages, it affects health. It has affected many people’s careers and the lives they might have lived.

It seems strange to say, but nearly everybody who speaks to me as a survivor of Church abuse says that they were harmed by what was done to them by an abuser, and then they have been harmed as much or more by the way the Church has responded to them over the years. I find that really shocking.

After all that physical violence and the violence to people’s being, and the repercussions it has had, you would hope that the role of the Church would be to do whatever it can to bring justice and truth-telling and healing to those abused in its care. But the Church of England has only added to the damage.
The Church as a body seems to find it really difficult to repair the damage it does. There are a number of reasons for that. One is that the Church, in its leadership and structures, often feels ashamed of what it’s done. It feels out of its depth, feels that it is supposed to have all the answers and therefore can’t go to people outside the Church for help. There’s pride. And frankly, the high places in the Church are full of secrets, and that’s deeply damaging….

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This is an extract from an article published in the Issue 3 – 2025 edition of Reform

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