Overview

• Seven clergy, including retired Bishop Paul Butler and Reverends Sue Colman, Roger Combes, Andrew Cornes, Tim Hastie-Smith, Nick Stott and John Woolmer, will face disciplinary tribunals for their roles in handling abuse allegations against John Smyth.
• The National Safeguarding Team secured permission from the President of Tribunals to bring these cases under the Clergy Discipline Measure despite a 12-month time limit on proceedings.
• The Makin review found widespread failures to act on reports of Smyth’s decades-long abuse at Christian camps, a scandal that prompted Justin Welby’s resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Disciplinary sanctions under the current measure range from a rebuke to a lifetime prohibition from ministry, and newly approved defrocking powers will not apply to these ongoing cases.
• Lord Carey, along with Reverends Paul Perkin and Hugh Palmer, was cleared of further action after being named in the Makin report.