The report was filed away, and members of the trust, including Mr. Ruston, went on to assume influential positions within the Church of England and vowed, one trust insider said, never to speak about the matter publicly.

For decades, the victims suffered in silence, too ashamed to go public with their stories. All the while, they say, the main concern of officials was to protect the reputation of the trust rather than helping them.

“If this came out earlier, Iwerne would have been finished and its members wouldn’t have been able to rise up the ranks of the church in the way that they have,” said one of the victims, Andy Morse, who added that he attempted suicide twice because of the trauma he said was inflicted by Mr. Smyth.

Image John Smyth, 75, a lawyer and evangelical leader who has been accused of severely beating boys in a garden shed at one of the elite Christian camps he ran decades ago.



Credit... Channel 4 News

Archbishop Welby, the principal religious leader in the Church of England, says it was not until one of the victims reached out to the church in 2013 that he learned of the accusations against Mr. Smyth. He said he was working in Paris between 1978 and 1982, when the alleged abuse was taking place, and had not kept in touch with his colleagues at Iwerne.

Although no one has produced proof that Archbishop Welby knew about the beatings at the time they were occurring, his account has been contested by several victims and former Iwerne members.

As an officer of the trust, they say, Mr. Welby was close to other senior members of the group and almost certainly would have been briefed on Mr. Smyth’s absence and the reason behind it when he came back to visit Iwerne after he graduated from Cambridge University.