Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigns over abuse scandal

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Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, has resigned after intense pressure over his role in the Church of England’s failure to halt years of sexual and physical attacks carried out by a child abuser associated with the institution.

“Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty the King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Welby said on Tuesday.

Welby said that when he was informed in 2013 about the “heinous abuses” carried out by John Smyth, a Christian barrister, he was told that the police had been notified and he believed “wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”.

He added that a review into the church’s handling of the allegations about Smyth by Keith Makin, released last week, had exposed a “long-maintained conspiracy of silence”.

“It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024,” Welby said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Sir Keir Starmer called the revelations in Makin’s report “horrific”.

Speaking in COP29 in Baku, the prime minister said: “Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific . . . both in their scale and their content. My thoughts . . . are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly.”

He added any decision was “a matter, in the end, for the church”.