Welby was ‘overwhelmed’ by number of child abuse allegations he was informed of
The former archbishop of Canterbury made the comments during his first interview since his resignation.
Former archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he was “overwhelmed” by the number of child sex abuse allegations he was informed of.
Dr Welby resigned in November after a report revealed he did not adequately follow up on reports about serial abuser John Smyth, who was heavily involved with the Church of England.
The report concluded that Smyth, thought to be the most prolific abuser associated with the Church, might have been brought to justice had Dr Welby formally reported allegations to police in 2013.
In his first interview since his resignation, the former archbishop told the BBC he failed to follow proper procedure because of the sheer scale and size of the problem.
“Every day more cases were coming across the desk that had been in the past, hadn’t been dealt with adequately, and this was just, it was another case – and yes I knew Smyth but it was an absolutely overwhelming few weeks,” he said in an interview for this week’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show.
He added: “It was overwhelming, one was trying to prioritise – but I think it’s easy to sound defensive over this.
“The reality is I got it wrong. As archbishop, there are no excuses, being overwhelmed is a reason, it isn’t an excuse.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Welby said “we don’t treat our leaders to be human” and “we expect them to be perfect” when asked about social media and rushing to judge others.
He said: “The first question one hears on most interviews, I heard one yesterday is, ‘are you going to resign?’ and having been the object of that question, it’s a very difficult one to answer, because you think, am I letting people down?
“Is it the right thing to do? You know, it’s a complicated question.
“I think there is a rush to judgment.
“There is this immense, and this goes back half a century, immense distrust for institutions and there’s a point where you need institutions to hold society together and there’s an absence, I’m not talking about safeguarding here, there is an absence of forgiveness.
“We don’t treat our leaders as human.
“We expect them to be perfect.
“If you want perfect leaders, you won’t have any leaders.”
Andrew Graystone, an advocate for victims and survivors of Smyth’s abuse, said: “Justin Welby says that he was ‘overwhelmed’ by the volume of safeguarding failures he was dealing with.
“My experience and that of the victims I speak to is that the church is still overwhelmed.
“After 12 years of Justin Welby’s leadership there is very little improvement in the way that senior church leaders understand and care for victims.
“Victims and survivors are still coming forward every day with complaints about how they have been treated – not just by their abusers – but by the church. And the treatment they get is still woeful.”
Lucy Duckworth, policy adviser at the Survivors Trust, said: “If you’re overwhelmed by the scale of abuse then you outsource it, you speak to experts, you stop everything you’re doing, and you get in people who can help and the Church of England have never done that.
“Even when they commissioned Professor Jay to review safeguarding they voted against her recommendations of independence only last month.”
The Makin Review, published on November 7 last year, found Smyth had subjected as many as 130 boys and young men to traumatic attacks across five decades in three different countries in the UK and Africa.
The then-archbishop resisted calls to resign for several days after its publication before announcing he was stepping down on November 12, saying he has decided to go “in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve”.
On December 5, Dr Welby gave his final speech in the House of Lords saying that while safeguarding in the Church of England was “a completely different picture to the past”, it was “clear” he had to quit.
Critics accused him of making light of serious safeguarding failures in the address after his references to a 14th century beheading drew laughter from the Lords benches and he suggested “if you pity anyone, pity my poor diary secretary” who had seen weeks and months of work “disappear in a puff of a resignation announcement”.
A victim of Smyth said he was “appalled” by the “tone deaf” speech.
Dr Welby apologised the next day, adding: “It did not intend to overlook the experience of survivors, or to make light of the situation – and I am very sorry for having done so.”
Smyth died in 2018 in Cape Town aged 75 while under investigation by Hampshire Police, and so was “never bought to justice for the abuse”, the Makin review said.
Last month, the Church of England voted to delay making its safeguarding procedures fully independent, which was branded a “punch in the gut” for victims of abuse.
Victims had pleaded with the General Synod, the Church’s parliament, to endorse a new model which would have seen all Church-employed safeguarding officers transferred to a new independent body.
But the Synod members instead voted for a less independent model “as the way forward in the short term” and for “further work” to be done to implement the move to full independence.
Former chairwoman of the national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Professor Alexis Jay, who previously led a review into church safeguarding, said the vote had been a missed opportunity to improve safeguarding.
The interview with Dr Welby will air on BBC One with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday at 9am.
