Christian Child Abuse News - How a Christian Cult Facilitated Child Abuse at a Leading UK Private School

Winchester College

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Winchester college society was cult-like, finds report into child abuse | Schools | The Guardian

There is an old saying about people, known as Wykehamists, who were educated at Winchester College, Wiltshire, UK - "Never trust a Wykehamist!" Whether there is any truth in that or not, I really couldn't say, but it's certainly true of an evangelical Christian cult that operated in the school during the 1970s and 1980s. They provided cover for the systematic abuse of boys at the college by a powerful and charismatic barrister to groom and sadistically abuse boys with impunity, according to a review of the case made public yesterday.

Winchester College is a leading UK public school - the equivalent of the fee-paying American private school - constituted as an educational charity. In their response to the review report, the college says:

John Smyth QC, who died in 2018, was Chairman of the Iwerne Trust, a charity which ran evangelical Christian holiday camps for young people. Smyth abused young people in several countries over many years. This abuse was brought to public attention by Channel 4 in 2017 and has since been the subject of a book, Bleeding for Jesus, by Andrew Graystone. In the light of the Channel 4 disclosure, the College commissioned a review from two independent expert reviewers, Ms Jan Pickles OBE and Ms Genevieve Woods. Jan Pickles was assisted in the review of current arrangements by Ms Mary Breen, formerly Headmistress of St Mary’s Ascot.

John Smyth QC.
"Unfettered access" to the boys he sadistically abused.

According to the report, John Smyth QC, had unfettered access to the boys through an evangelical Christian group known as the Christian Forum, over which Smyth exercised a "powerful influence" which enabled him to groom then abuse the boys. The Christian Forum was set up by John Woolmer and was run during the 1970s and early 1980s by a mathematics teacher, named Peter Krakenberger, who is described in the report as Smyth's recruiting sergeant.

Up to 100 boys attended the weekly meetings of the Christian Forum, the inner circle of which was centred on Smyth and resembled a radicalised cult, according to the report.

The boys felt unable to report the abuse and staff who had suspicions did not report them upwards or share their concerns with other staff members. The headmaster, John Thorn, was informed of the abuse in 1982 but did not inform the police. Smyth then emigrated to Zimbabwe where he is believed to have abuse a further 90 boys resulting in the death of at least one of them. He was arrested following the death of a 16-year-old boy at a camp run by Smyth, but the case was dropped prior to going to trial. Smyth them moved to South Africa where he died in 2018 while the subject of an extradition process to answer charges in the UK. Thorn, who is in his 90's was not able to answer questions for the review, so it is not know why he decided not to inform the police of child protection agencies.

Smyth would invite boys back to his house for Sunday lunch and would then beat them in his garden shed, telling them it would cleans them of sin. One of his victims told the reviewers that he had once been subjected to 1000 strokes. Two victims later attempted suicide. One of his victims was Andrew Watson, who is now Bishop of Guildford. He said he had been subjected to "excruciating, shocking and violent" beatings in Smyth's garden shed.

Some of the abuses took place at a summer camp funded by the Iwerne Trust, an evangelical Christian charity and run by the Scripture Union. The camps were designed to promote evangelicalism in the Church of England and more widely in the British establishment. Students from Winchester College and other leading public schools participated in these camps. Attendance was by invitation-only. Most attendees from Winchester College were members of the Christian Forum.

According to an unnamed victim (Victim 002 in the report), Smyth used the Bible to excuse his abuse:

Smyth told the boys that they had been chosen by God to do great things and that he had been sent by God to be his "spiritual father" on Earth. As their spiritual father, he said he had the right and duty to discipline "his sons". He quoted the proverb, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him diligently" [Proverbs 13: 24]. He told the boys that they could show gratitude to Jesus by nailing their sins to the cross. This was the rationale he used for the infliction of physical abuse.

'Victim 002' also told the reviewers:

He was first beaten by Smyth at the age of 17, in the autumn of 1978. He was beaten with six strokes using a gym shoe. The beatings progressed to the use of a cane. On one occasion, he was subjected to a beating of 800 strokes, which lasted all day. This took place in a dormitory of a school house of Clayesmore School, where the summer Iwerne Camps took place. Victim 002 said that he thought it had been rented for the purpose by Smyth and took place on the day following the end of the Iwerne camps one year.

Some aspects of the abuse were sexual in nature. Smyth encouraged the twisting of nipples among the group and also did this himself. Victim 002 was beaten on the buttocks, but if Smyth marked his legs or back, he would apologise. He kissed and caressed Victim 002 on his neck after the beatings. Initially, the beatings took place in the garden shed at Smyth's house. The original shed was replaced with a larger, purpose-built soundproofed shed in 1981.

The same victim also told the reviewers of the psychological hold that Smyth had over him, feeling that if he betrayed Smyth, he was betraying God and would face eternal damnation:

He said that in order to prove his repentance for trying to break away, Smyth made him travel back to his home near Winchester each week for a check and, if his wounds permitted, to be beaten with the cane to "keep him on the straight and narrow". He said he believed that Smyth knew that he would do anything to avoid the psychological despair of feeling abandoned by God and of being outside the group. For Victim 002, the real damage done by Smyth was the mental hell he created for his victims by instilling a sense of overwhelming guilt and then creating a psychological framework where it appeared to the victim that the only way to remain accepted and to experience relief was to be beaten.
[…]

He said that initially Smyth had a fixation on what he perceived as sexual sins, including masturbation, but over time anything and everything became a justification for a beating, including pride, lack of gratitude, lying, lack of commitment and also having improper thoughts. Victim 002 described this as "Orwellian", with Smyth policing his thoughts.

Other victims tell similar stories of regular and intensifying beatings in Smyth's garden shed and at Iwerne Trust summer camps and of the coercion and psychological control Smyth exercised over them. Victim 025 for example, told Smyth of his homosexuality and was told he would not be able to "enter the kingdom of Heaven nor live amongst the righteous on Earth". He was told to "do anything to give himself pain" to stop the "sinful homosexual yearnings". On one occasion, Smyth squeezed his genitals tightly and told him they should be a source of pain, not pleasure. Believing Smyth, he blamed himself for his sexuality and, feeling unable to cope with his guilt, he attempted suicide in 1978.
In attempting to explain the college's response to the abuses, the report says:

It is clear from the evidence provided to the reviewers that Smyth was careful to keep his abuse of pupils at Winchester College secret. He groomed his victims to believe that they were special and 'other', part of an elite group in which outsiders were excluded and seen as lesser. He taught his chosen boys to share information only with him and not with teachers, chaplains or other pupils at Winchester College and was described as using his skills as a barrister to encourage the victims' disclosures. As a result, the victims kept their suffering secret for many years, not only from their teachers and parents, but from one another.

The report lists several ways in which Smyth was able to gain trust and control of his victims, many of which will be familiar to those who have followed these frequent disclosures of institutional abuses of vulnerable children at religious institutions:

1. Celebrity status and the use of special treatment. The boys were flattered that a prominent QC took an interest in them
2. Exploiting vulnerability. For many of his victims, Smyth provided the emotional support they felt deprived of at a boarding school, away from their parents and family.
3. Use of religion and spiritual texts. Smyth could always find passages in the Bible to justify his abuses and to make his victims feel guilt and shame and alienation from God. In the time-honoured tradition of Christian abuse, the Bible was used as a source book of excuses for abusive behaviour.
4. Use of the Christian Forum to act in plain sight. Control of a cult is often a means to control and abuse members of that cult as thoughts, opinions and standards of behaviour conform to the cult norms as determined by the cult leaders. Loyalty to the cult and its leadership prevent disclosure of abuses.
5. Grooming of others. Smyth built relationships with authority figures and some parents, to gain their trust and respect, then abused that trust to abuse those whom he had trusted access to.
6. Taking advantage of the supervision arrangements. Lax or non-existent supervision and a readiness to trust a respected, charismatic and manipulative figure, meant Smyth could abuse with impunity.
7. Overcoming resistance and building trust. Smyth groomed his victims, overcame their resistance and build relationships of trust. This included the use of intense discussions, often with sexual content, the use of his own family to build trust, including by asking boys to become Godparents to his children, and by normalising nudity.
8. Barriers to disclosure. These included steps taken by Smyth to ensure they maintained secrecy, a lack of pastoral care at the College, including by women, a lack of sex education and a culture of 'no sneaking'. In other words, loyalty to the cult and to the college.

In common with other institutions where child abuse has been widespread, the priority was to defend the reputation of the institution at the expense of the victims, so reports of abuse were ignore for fear of the consequences if the news got out. Police and statutory authorities were not informed, instead reports of the abuse was supressed and abuse was covered up. As usual with Christian abuse, the victims were made to feel shame and guilt and responsible for the abuse, so tended to co-operate with the cover ups.

To quote from the report:

Smyth used the Christian Forum to further his grooming of boys at Winchester College. Witness 041 described how he brought high-profile figures to speak as guests and said that the school was "dazzled" by the speakers. In this way, Smyth was grooming the College to accept him and to allow him access, so that he could operate in plain sight and without scrutiny. As a result of these efforts, Victim 002 said that Smyth "came and went as he wished" within the College.4 Similarly, Witness 009 said that "the Governance was flimsy and the wall permeable so Smyth was able to go in and out at his will".

Multiple witnesses and victims described how Smyth invited them to speak with him one on one in order to challenge them about their faith and recruit them to the Christian Forum.

Smyth accessed boys at the College directly, but also through Peter Krakenberger, who has been described to the reviewers as "Smyth's recruiting sergeant". Again, the meetings at Peter Krakenberger's house were seen as a privilege which provided boys with a sense of escape from the strict environment of the school, as they were allowed to eat junk food, play games and watch television. It was also a gateway for Smyth to access his targets. For example, Victim 025 described how Smyth would come to the flat and they would meet alone to talk about scripture and sexuality.

Due to his decision not to participate in this review or to provide any comments on the record, the reviewers have been unable to determine whether Peter Krakenberger's role in providing Smyth with access to Winchester boys at his home was done with full knowledge of Smyth's motives.

Once again, as with the many reports of child abuse by predatory priests and clerics, we see religion being used as a cover for institutionalised abuse, and the interests of the cult/church/institution taking precedence over the welfare of those in its care and of the victims of the abusers. The inclination is to accept and even facilitate the abuses. And of course, once again we see the truth of the adage:

Religion provides excuses for people who need excuses

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