by Julian Mann
In the year since the Church of England published its Makin Review into the savage abuses committed by John Smyth, seven clergy are facing disciplinary proceedings and another cleric is awaiting to hear whether the complaint against him can go forward.
The latest cleric to get a disciplinary complaint from the C of E’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) for alleged failings in the Smyth cover-up is the Revd Iain Broomfield, former vicar of Christ Church Bromley in Rochester Diocese, now retired.
But it has emerged that Broomfield has already been sanctioned by his former diocese and does not have permission to officiate (PTO). The National Register for Clergy shows no PTO entry for him, which means he is not licensed by any diocesan bishop to take church services or preach.
The NST last month sought permission from the President of Tribunals, the senior judge who oversees the Church’s disciplinary processes, to bring an out-of-time complaint against Broomfield under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM). Broomfield was criticised in the Makin Review whose findings led to the resignation of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in November last year.
Sir Stephen Males has already granted permission for complaints to proceed against seven clerics criticised in the Makin report, including Bishop Paul Butler, Ven Roger Combes, Revd Sue Colman, Revd Andrew Cornes, Revd Tim Hastie-Smith, Revd Nick Stott and Revd John Woolmer. He did not allow NST complaints to proceed against three other clergy named in the report, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, Canon Hugh Palmer, former Rector of All Souls Langham Place in central London, and Revd Paul Perkin, former vicar of St Mark’s Battersea Rise in south London.
From 1987 to 2000 Broomfield was leader (commandant) of the Iwerne evangelical camps in Dorset where Smyth groomed his victims in the 1970s and early 1980s. In its news story about the NST complaint against Broomfield the Church Times incorrectly stated that he undertook his role in 1982 when the scale and savagery of Smyth’s beatings of boys and young men were disclosed to an inner circle of senior Iwerne leaders.
It was in fact five years later that Broomfield succeeded the late Revd David Fletcher as Iwerne camp commandant. Fletcher, who was at the centre of the Smyth cover-up and earlier this year was unmasked by Channel 4 News as an abuser himself, stepped down as Iwerne leader in 1986 to become Rector of St Ebbe’s, the conservative evangelical flagship church in Oxford.
The Iwerne camps aimed to attract pupils from the ‘top 30’ English fee-paying boarding schools. Broomfield did not attend such a school and previously had not been on the camps but was regarded as ‘the most camp-able non-camper’ after Iwerne failed to find an insider to replace Fletcher.
Rochester Diocese suspended Broomfield in 2021 after complaints about his behaviour at Christ Church Bromley and brought an action against him under the CDM. Rochester later announced: ‘Following a complaint being made by the Archdeacon of Bromley and Bexley…on 7 November 2022 the Reverend Iain Broomfield accepted a rebuke from the Bishop of Tonbridge and agreed to undertake appropriate training in anger management and the appropriate recognition of professional boundaries after Mr Broomfield had admitted to an incident of uncontrolled anger and a failure to maintain professional boundaries.’
In 2017 when Channel 4 News broke the story of Smyth’s abuses Broomfield was chairman of the Titus Trust, which in 2000 had taken over the running of the Iwerne camps from the Iwerne Trust, chaired by Smyth in the 1970s. Soon after the Channel 4 broadcast, the then Bishop at Lambeth, Nigel Stock, wrote to Broomfield:
‘I am writing to the Titus Trust as the successor body to the Iwerne Trust. I regret to say that the Archbishop {of Canterbury, then Jusin Welby} feels that the {Titus} Trust has not been transparent in its response to these scandals, and the lack of transparency is a cause of suspicion to the outside world and distress to survivors. It is absolutely essential that there is a formal and unqualified apology, and an offer of help and support.’
Broomfield replied that it was ‘not correct to refer to The Titus Trust as the successor body to The Iwerne Trust, though this has been suggested in various media reports’. He said the Titus trustees had ‘legal duties under Charity law not to infer liability of the Trust by claiming responsibility through an apology for matters which occurred prior to its formation, while the holidays were under the governance of other legal bodies’.
Broomfield was not interviewed for the Makin Review because of his suspension. But the report records that around 1998 he informed a younger minister that there was a ‘previous issue’ regarding Smyth and that ‘something bad’ had happened at Winchester College, the elite boarding school in Hampshire near Smyth’s home where many of his victims were pupils.
Lord Justice Males has yet to adjudicate on whether the out-of-time complaint against Broomfield can proceed.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK. He was a junior leader on the Iwerne camps from 1985 to 1988.