Family of Smyth, 77, say cause of his death appears to have been a sudden heart attack

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A British QC who was accused of sadistically beating boys attending Christian holiday camps in the 1970s and 80s has died at his home in Cape Town.

John Smyth, 77, died soon after it emerged Hampshire police had reportedly requested he return to the UK for questioning.



His family told the BBC the cause of death appeared to be a sudden heart attack following a cardiac procedure last week and asked to be allowed to grieve in private.



The scandal over the alleged abuse of boys at so-called “Bash camps” embroiled Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, who worked at the holiday camps in the 1970s. He said last year he had been “completely unaware” of any abuse at the time and first knew of the allegations in 2013.

Welby recalled Smyth as “a charming, delightful, very clever, brilliant speaker”, but said he “wasn’t in his inner circle”. He also issued an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the Church of England, admitting it had “failed terribly” to tackle institutional abuse.

Smyth was the chairman of the Iwerne Trust, which funded evangelical Christian camps for public schoolboys.

A secret report carried out by the trust in 1982 on abuse allegations described “horrific” beatings of teenage boys, sometimes until they bled. Most were carried out in the garden shed of Smyth’s home.

Winchester College, whose pupils were among the alleged victims, was informed of the allegations but neither the college nor the trust reported Smyth to the police. Instead, the headmaster asked Smyth never again to enter the college or contact its pupils.

Smyth moved to Zimbabwe, where he was the subject of allegations of physical abuse by boys in his care at holiday camps he ran. He was arrested and faced charges of killing a 16-year-old boy who was found dead in a swimming pool at one of the holiday camps in 1992. The case was dismissed in 1998.

Smyth later moved to Cape Town. Last year he was removed as a leader of his local church in Cape Town after claims of inappropriate behaviour and a “heavy-handed style of leadership”.

Elders at the church urged Smyth to return to the UK to cooperate with a police inquiry into allegations that he abused teenage boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among Smyth’s alleged victims was Andrew Watson, now the bishop of Guildford, who said he was subjected to a “violent, excruciating and shocking” beating in the former QC’s garden shed.

When the allegations came to light last year, Graham Tilby, the C of E’s national safeguarding adviser, said: “Clearly, more could have been done at the time to look further into the case.”

Smyth represented the morality crusader Mary Whitehouse in high-profile cases in the 1980s. He was chairman of the Iwerne Trust, which has since wound up, between 1974 and 1981.