When Child Pornography (Abuse) Is Found at Work; and Did Former Archbishop Welby Forgive John Smyth?

Posted on by April 23, 2025avatar

A star nearing the end of its life goes out in style, and it was all captured by @NASAWebb.

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality. . . asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me.   C. S. Lewis

The Guy Behind the Curtain shared the following with me. The narrative describes what happened when an employee of an MSP (Managed Service Provider) described a very bad Monday morning: Very wild Monday, finally got done with the police and management.

Monday morning i was tasked with backing up a users data / programs and restoring it to a new laptop they had ordered from us. Easy enough

Except it’s complicated.

When i came back i found that the backup was only about 20% complete and i was expecting it to be finishing up or finished at this point. I asked if he had just started and was told no the laptop just has tons of data and the drive was 97% full.

Ugh.. Ok. “Lets poke around and see if he’s caching like 80GB of exchange email or something.”

We poked around and to our dismay a folder on the desktop was the culprit. 172GB folder with the name “Business and Work files”

It was child porn which should be called child sexual abuse online.

Before i could even speak the owner said to us. “Both of you don’t move. No one touch that laptop I’m going to call the police”

The rest of the day was basically a blur of police interviews, between just regular cops that came first, a detective and later a forensic detective near the end of the day. This morning was a long management meeting about the incident and how the client in question is no longer a client and to forward any communication from them direct to our manager or the owner.

I have heard that this is not an uncommon problem in businesses. Have you heard of others using the office computer as a means to abuse children?

Justtine Welby and John Smyth

The following are short videos that lead me to the questions;

  • Is forgiveness mandatory?
  • Who has the perogative to forgive?
  • For what is the former Archbishop Welby forgiving John Smyth?
  • Do you think Welby gets it?

Who was John Smyth?

Since this post is about the aftermath, here is a quick review from Wikipedia. Please pay attention to the last sentence.

John Jackson Smyth QC (/smaɪð/;[1] 27 June 1941 – 11 August 2018) was a Canadian-born British barrister and serial child abuser who was actively involved in Christian ministry for children as chairman of the Iwerne Trust which raised funds for, and in practice ran, the influential conservative evangelical Iwerne camps. He acted as lawyer for Mary Whitehouse, a Christian morality campaigner.

In 1982, the Iwerne Trust was informed that Smyth had performed sadistic beatings on schoolboys and young men associated with the Iwerne Camps and with a Christian group at Winchester College. Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in 1984, where he continued to run children’s camps. The police were not informed of the 1982 report until 2013, and it became public in 2017. Church of England bishop Andrew Watson disclosed that, as a young man, he was a victim. Smyth died while under investigation and was not charged.

An independent review published in 2024 concluded that he subjected more than 100 boys and young men to “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks”[2]: 1  over a period of four decades. The review found that his abuse was an open secret, which was covered up by “powerful evangelical clergy”, and that the beliefs and values of conservative evangelicalism were critical to his evasion of justice, and to how he manipulated his victims.[3]

On 12 November 2024, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced he would resign due to the part he played in the church’s failure to acknowledge Smyth’s child abuse.[4]

Smyth was caught on camera by a journalist.

This is here so the readers can see him. As far as I know, Smyth never confessed. In the following video, a journalist confronted Smyth between 1:31 and 2:41. The rest of the video discusses Welby’s resignation.

What did the former Archbishop say about forgiveness?

Welby became aware of the allegations in 2013. Some say he knew about them even longer.

A victim of Smyth describes his abuse by Smyth when he was a teen.

Heartbreaking…

Welby said some of the “right” things, but I felt he came off as a practiced cleric. Maybe I’m a bit cynical. Depending on how things go, I may look at this issue more on Friday.

Comments

When Child Pornography (Abuse) Is Found at Work; and Did Former Archbishop Welby Forgive John Smyth? — 37 Comments

  3. John Smyth.

    “Jack the Whipper” Smyth; as zealous a Christian activist against THOSE HOMOSEXUALS as Fred Phelps or Ted Haggard. Fundraiser for the prophetically-named “Bash Camps” to teach upper-class Brit kids “Muscular Christianity”.

    “Jack the Whipper” Smyth, who would whip naked teen boys until they bled all over the floor. At which point he would press his naked body against the boy’s bleeding naked body and whisper in their ear. But he NEVER got an erection while doing so, so NO HOMO! NO HOMO1 NO HOMO1

    And when he took his show on the road to South Africa and Comrade Bob’s Zimbabwe, there was one known fatality.

    Excerpt summaries from Wikipedia, John Smyth (barrister):

    Over time the number of strokes increased, and the caning would be undertaken not as punishment for any particular “sinful” deed or thought but as “prophylaxis; a spiritual discipline to keep the soul in order”.[42] Adult nappies and lotion were given to boys after the beating to prevent them from bleeding on the Smyth family furniture when they returned across the garden lawn to the house.[42] Smyth later had a special garden shed designed, soundproofed and equipped with a variety of canes.[42] When he was carrying out a beating a white yachting pennon would be planted on the lawn so that his wife Anne and members of his family knew that he should not be disturbed.[43] Upon returning to school, some boys refused to use the communal showers as their wounds were so extensive.

    Graystone states that the evening Bible talks at Iwerne [Bash Camp], in which the organisation’s brand of muscular Christianity was promulgated, were the “whole point of the exercise”.

    It was at the Iwerne [Bash] camp at Clayesmore that one ex-Winchester boy, named only “Tony” by Graystone, was beaten by Smyth for a session that lasted 12 hours, to “crush his spirit”; the duration of these beatings was so exhausting for Smyth that he auditioned others to help him.

    I did not mention the part where Jack the Whipper did all this in a custom-built soundproofed shed and provided “nappies” (adult diapers) for the boys after the session so they wouldn’t bleed all over his furniture.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  6. When i came back i found that the backup was only about 20% complete and i was expecting it to be finishing up or finished at this point. I asked if he had just started and was told no the laptop just has tons of data and the drive was 97% full.

    Ugh.. Ok. “Lets poke around and see if he’s caching like 80GB of exchange email or something.”

    We poked around and to our dismay a folder on the desktop was the culprit. 172GB folder with the name “Business and Work files”

    172 GIGS of CP?
    That’s a Gooning Kit/Stash worthy of Josh Duggar!
    And on the DESKTOP of his WORK system?
    That’s doubly Insane!

    P.S. Go down the link to the Reddit entry and check out the comment thread. There are a lot more equally-insane doozies in that thread.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  7. Headless Unicorn Guy: 172 GIGS of CP?
    That’s a Gooning Kit/Stash worthy of Josh Duggar!
    And on the DESKTOP of his WORK system?
    That’s doubly Insane!

    P.S. Go down the link to the Reddit entry and check out the comment thread. There are a lot more equally-insane doozies in that thread.

    I read the Reddit entry comments. Quite a few other insane stories besides this one.

    As for Josh, it is obvious he was innocent because some evil proggie partitioned his drive into a dual boot Windows/Linux system to get around the Covenant Eyes software (as it would not check the CP on the Linux partition).

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  9. JJallday: Wasn’t it his job to know what his people/staff were up to?!

    I think he’s trying probably did know. This is an extract from a (serious) newspaper report – “ The Archbishop worked as a dormitory officer on camps run by the trust, which Smyth chaired from 1974 to 1981. The Archbishop insisted he was “completely unaware” of the claims against the part-time judge until a victim contacted police in 2013.”

    You can read the whole article here –

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/the-telegraph-john-smyth-abuse-justin-welby-involvement/

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  11. I am curious if anyone has information on studies about religious vs. civil forgiveness and consequences.

    Some time ago, I remember reading several studies that concluded that many religious people believe that once they have been forgiven by their God or religious leader, they no longer feel they are accountable to civil consequences.

    For some reason, Google was not at all helpful when I searched this afternoon.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  12. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself as much as for the other person. But where trauma is involved, there is the irreversible damage to the victim. Some of it involves long term mental health. So forgiveness is ideal, but it would be hard for me to counsel someone the same way I would under other circumstances.

    Even when the perp confesses and takes all the “proper” steps, I cannot imagine victims feeling like they can move on. By God’s Grace I am sure some do, but what a mess.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  14. My first experience with this occurred when I was a late teen. My dad often took me to one of his men’s groups. They were a highly respected local chapter of a group that distributed Bibles.

    What I remember most about the groups were three guys: The owner of a vacuum cleaner repair shop, an accountant, and an apartment owner.

    During the business meeting, they would all rail against fornicators, sodomites (their words), rock music (specifically glam rock), and fantasy like D&D and The Hobbit.

    After the business meeting, one of the wives would serve light refreshments. (their term) Those three guys stuck out because of how blatantly they would brag about stealing from their clients.

    The repair guy would talk about how when someone came in with a non-working vacuum cleaner or sewing machine to be fixed, he would tell them it was impossible and upsell them to a new machine. Then, for a few bucks, he would replace a fuse, repair a wire, and resell the ‘broken’ machine to someone else. These were often little old ladies who didn’t have the money to spend on new machines while they trusted this upstanding man of God.

    The accountant would overcharge for his services. He would brag about treating his wealthy clients well, so they would advertise his business by word of mouth while taking advantage of the less wealthy and less educated clients. This was before Etrade, Charles Schwabe, and others. So you had to work with a local account/broker for investments and accounting.

    The apartment owner worked heavily with subsidized apartments. The population in his apartments often had very few options, so he screwed them for everything he could. A local hotel had to remove all of its carpets because of contaminants. He bought it and put it in his apartments. The local cleaning supply company got a bad product batch; he would buy it at a discount and use it. He would constantly call the police on his clients…. because they had a police record, it would be nearly impossible to rent any other apartment in town.

    They and the rest of the group treated it as good business, as long as they publicly tithed, railed against evil, and donated to the group.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  16. davewis:
    My first experience with this occurred when I was a late teen. My dad often took me to one of his men’s groups. They were a highly respected local chapter of a group that distributed Bibles.

    What I remember most about the groups were three guys: The owner of a vacuum cleaner repair shop, an accountant, and an apartment owner.

    During the business meeting, they would all rail against fornicators, sodomites (their words), rock music (specifically glam rock), and fantasy like D&D and The Hobbit.

    After the business meeting, one of the wives would serve light refreshments. (their term) Those three guys stuck out because of how blatantly they would brag about stealing from their clients.

    The repair guy would talk about how when someone came in with a non-working vacuum cleaner or sewing machine to be fixed, he would tell them it was impossible and upsell them to a new machine. Then, for a few bucks, he would replace a fuse, repair a wire, and resell the ‘broken’ machine to someone else. These were often little old ladies who didn’t have the money to spend on new machines while they trusted this upstanding man of God.

    The accountant would overcharge for his services. He would brag about treating his wealthy clients well, so they would advertise his business by word of mouth while taking advantage of the less wealthy and less educated clients. This was before Etrade, Charles Schwabe, and others. So you
    They and the rest of the group treated it as good business, as long as they publicly tithed, railed against evil, and donated to the group.

    This sounds like the chapter in my town. Maybe it’s because I’m older and I tolerate less, but I don’t understand why when a child can see hypocrisy, why the adults in the room don’t call it out. This is awful.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  20. davewis: They and the rest of the group treated it as good business, as long as they publicly tithed, railed against evil, and donated to the group.

    Which is why if someone keeps telling you how CHRISTIAN they are, flee them as you would the plague.

    ‘RIGHTEOUS and PIOUS Are We, Are We,
    The Moral Majority..”

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  24. Headless Unicorn Guy:
    P.S. I understand why Wondering Eagle had his breakdown last year.

    As in “Section Eight Slumlord”?

    Can you name the group, or do they have Scientology-level Attack Dog Lawyers?

    I knew when I got out of the army that I wanted a career that had nothing to do with people. I knew that I didn’t have the strength or desire to put up with any more BS. Burnout is a really severe problem in mental health professionals and social workers. I volunteer a couple of hours a week, then go home and take the dog for a walk.

    This was in the 1980s, and I was a teen, so I don’t know the specific programs. It would seem comparable to section 8. It was an abyss that, once someone fell into, it was nearly impossible to get back out.

    I prefer not to name names. This is Dee’s blog, and I assume she is careful about what fights she picks. She doesn’t need some random guy picking fights for her 🙁

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  25. quote For what is the former Archbishop Welby forgiving John Smyth? unquote

    Only that it led to musical chairs in the C of E boardroom.

    Throughout all of JW’s formative years there was actually supposed to be something eccentric in “evangelical” spirituality. Feature not bug, as some call it. A claimed “spiritual” angle, without honestly inferring relative degrees of supernatural to supplement the natural (in continuum), was and remains sorcery.

    If Smyth wasn’t on duty that week, probably no-one that was on duty would bother (or dare) to duplicate his exact bodily proceedings? But what effort did they put into the truth of the belief of those younger than themselves? That is, truth, not half-truth.

    I think all those that ever went to those camps and all those that were influenced by the same originators (including at a remove: and I first encountered these in my teens and immediately smelled a rat) have now got to revisit the entire body of doctrine and pull it apart exhaustively.

    Just at the moment their John Stott fixation was distorting the personalities of my 17 year old classmates, was said Stott (protege of camp originator Nash) mutually and patronisingly back slapping with some “great and good” charity head when they bumped into each other, maybe at the BBC next door to Stott?

    Some charity head was close to a Scottish cardinal, who had subordinates more criminal than himself.

    If meantime the English counterpart of same had been sentenced to a noticeably strict probation in his own series of derelictions it would have helped settle public nerves better, in view of the present situation throughout the country.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  27. The videos:

    i ) Andy Morse reminded me how, for several years now, not a day passes that I don’t think about the brick wall I’ve seen in fellow churchgoers’ minds from “beliefs and values of conservative evangelicalism” (in words Dee cites). Does “conservative” mean subtractive, taking away from the words of This Book?

    ii ) what’s with the weird finger gestures all the preachers and prelates make when they give “bible interpretations”?

    At one time much of (not all of) proper evangelicalism was far sounder and of reasonable repute.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  28. Those that really “get” what OSAS says don’t hide behind forgiveness when it comes to consequences and civil punishment. Rather, they are the most likely to fess up to what they have done and take the punishment. And the old time OSAS teaching (not so much currently) also taught you that once saved yep you were going to heaven no matter what you did, you could also lose rewards and face eternal consequences for continued sinning. Along with that came a hefty dose of the idea if you still were happy sinning maybe you never actually got saved.

    Those that don’t really understand it are the ones most likely to use it as an allie allie in free card. Like any other theology, it can be misused, misunderstood, or misapplied.

    IMHO that is.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  29. davewis,

    how i’d love to cut them all down to size. including the enablers who nodded their heads or said nothing at all.

    my, how christians can rationalize cruelty, doublestandards, & their own stupidity away.

    (spoken as a christian in function but not in name – the religion & subculture resemble Jesus of Nazareth barely a whit)

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  31. davewis,

    “Who cares? This country was built and run by men with worse stories than whatever you imagine or hear.”
    Bert Cooper ‘Mad Men’
    Of course some poetic licence taken here, yet also some truth that US capitalism- and many aspects of western capitalism – has evolved from being an economic system and become an all encompassing ideology and idol where all things are consciously or unconsciously rationalised, justified, excused or covered up even within the life of churches and those who run them.
    If you mess with money, status and some degree of privilege. Expect strong push back if not a fight.

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  35. Headless Unicorn Guy: Which is why if someone keeps telling you how CHRISTIAN they are, flee them as you would the plague.

    My type example of this is a politician, Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) from Georgia.
    Some YouTuber mashed up a video of all MTG’s TV campaign commercials from her initial successful run in 2020. All were variations on the same theme — How CHRISTIAN she was. Strong CHRISTIAN, Devout CHRISTIAN, Real CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIAN, CHRISTIAN. Nothing else about her, only how CHRISTIAN she is. (And she hated all the usual Enemies.)

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

  37. Headless Unicorn Guy: Jack the Whipper did all this in a custom-built soundproofed shed

    Anyone here remember “Uncle Raggy” (and his soundproofed studio with blackout curtains and spooky decor) back in 2022?
    “In Unca Raggy’s studio,
    No One can hear you Scream”?
    https://thewartburgwatch.com/2022/04/13/after-48-years-in-the-pursuit-of-justice-glenda-leanne-kay-triumphs-raggy-ragsdale-pleads-guilty-to-molesting-her/#comment-461370

    Well looks like it’s also
    “In Jack the Whipper’s shed,
    No One can hear you Scream.”

      (Reply & quote selected text)  (Reply to this comment)

Leave a comment - Click here for our commenting rules

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *