‘My father abused 130 children, and finding out the truth was horrible’: the account of the daughter of the Church of England’s biggest abuser

‘I apologize on behalf of my father’, says daughter of attacker BBC The daughter of the man considered the biggest serial abuser associated with the Church of England says that finally discovering the truth about the attacks committed by her father against around 130 boys was shocking and horrible. Fiona Rugg, 47, is the youngest daughter of lawyer and Christian charity chairman John Smyth QC, who died before being brought to justice. ✅ Follow the g1 international news channel on WhatsApp In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Smyth subjected around 130 boys and young men to extreme physical and sexual abuse, which he presented as a form of spiritual discipline. Since then, Rugg, who now lives in Bristol, United Kingdom, has gradually assimilated the gravity of the facts, but says he has often dealt with a feeling that he defines as “shame by association”. See the videos that are trending on g1 “Rationally, I know it’s not my fault, but you feel guilty that your father was capable of doing this to someone and, moreover, he never showed regret,” he stated. “Much of my father’s story and how he escaped accountability involved cover-up and deceit. But I want to address that and bring it all to light.” The so-called Makin Report, published in 2024, concluded that the Church of England’s handling of the case represented a cover-up of the allegations against Smyth. One of the clergy involved even admitted: “I thought this would cause immense damage to the work of God if it became public.” Speaking openly to the BBC for the first time, Rugg said understanding the extent of her father’s “shocking” abuse helped her heal. “I have forgiven him, but that doesn’t take away the pain or make what he did acceptable. I no longer feel trapped by it or as ashamed, but that doesn’t lessen the horror of his actions,” she said. “On his part, there was no sign of regret. I apologize, on behalf of my father, for what he did to these boys.” Warning: This report contains sensitive content and references to child abuse Rugg remembers an oppressive childhood, marked by what he describes as constant “hypervigilance” in the face of his father’s unpredictable moods. “I think the predominant feeling was actually fear, as long as I can remember,” he recalls. “I was scared around my father, he was very unstable.” “He would get very angry, and there was this feeling of emotional instability, of walking on eggshells, trying to guess what his mood would be. A feeling of guilt, because, when I was a child, I didn’t like my father and sometimes I hated him.” Rugg said her father “completely ignored” her when she was a child, to the point of making her doubt her own judgment about his “unstable” character. “What I saw was confusing to me,” he said. “He was so scary and angry and cruel, so hard to face. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible, but what I saw at the same time were people who adored him.” As Smyth laughed and played outside with boys and young men in the sun, she watched from the window, after being told to keep her distance as it was considered an “unwanted distraction”. “We lived with a completely different John Smyth than the one he presented to the world,” he explained. “When you’re a kid, the natural conclusion is to think, ‘He must be right, and I must be the problem. I’m the one who’s not seeing this correctly.'” Smyth gained access to Winchester College in England in 1973 through the school’s Christian union and began abusing students after inviting them to Sunday lunches at his family’s home. He forced his victims to undress and endure violent sessions of beatings with a stick in a soundproof warehouse on the grounds of his residence, where he attacked them with such intensity that they bled. An evangelical Christian, Smyth framed abuse as a form of punishment and repentance for supposed “sins” such as pride or masturbation. Rugg said his father escaped suspicion because he was “admired” by many people Passion Pictures/BBC An internal investigation by the Iwerne Trust revealed the scandal in 1982, describing the attacks as “prolific, brutal and horrific”, detailing how eight of the boys suffered a total of 14,000 lashes. But instead of reporting to authorities, high-ranking evangelical representatives of the Church of England facilitated Smyth’s quiet departure from the United Kingdom, allowing him to evade justice for decades. When the family was taken to Zimbabwe in southern Africa in 1984, Rugg says his father presented the move as a “noble job”, a sacrifice of his “brilliant career” to serve as a missionary. But the trail of destruction followed him around the world. Shortly afterwards, he began to organize Christian camps in which he imposed nudity on boys and beat them. The following year, a tragedy occurred. A 16-year-old boy named Guide Nyachuru was found dead in one of Smyth’s camps less than 12 hours after arriving at the site. The case resulted in a manslaughter charge, but the case was eventually dropped. When he returned to live in England at the age of 18, Rugg began to have more and more questions about his father. Rugg (right) stated that she felt that everyone and her family “orbited” around her authoritarian father Passion Pictures/BBC “Sometimes the comment would come up that I was my father’s daughter, and I would see a shadow pass over people’s faces,” she recalls. “The reactions weren’t ‘oh, what a nice man’. It was the opposite. There was absolute silence. There seemed to be little connection with the UK, which always seemed strange to me.” She confronted her father with the rumors on Christmas Eve. The reaction was an explosion of fury: he accused her of being “disloyal” to the family for daring to question their integrity. “His reaction was so extreme that I remember thinking, ‘Well, now I know for sure’. There’s never so much smoke without fire,” he said. The allegations about the abuse committed by Smyth first became public in February 2017, following an investigation by the British outlet Channel 4. One night, Rugg turned on the television and found his father’s face on the screen, with the name associated with horrific crimes. “They were young, vulnerable children whose lives were destroyed. I have a son,” he added. “As cruel as I had seen him be, I had no idea he had committed so much criminal abuse. It was horrible and shocking, but at the same time, it all started to make sense.” “His whole life revolved around doing ‘the Lord’s work’. Everything was justified by his Christian faith, and I found this hypocrisy truly repugnant.” In August 2018, Smyth received a summons from Hampshire police to return to England and give a statement, under threat of extradition. Eight days later, he died of heart failure, aged 77, without ever being held legally responsible for the trauma inflicted on the boys in his care. Rugg said that today he can talk about his father “without bitterness or hate” and that he finally feels at peace. “In my experience, if you face what your father did, it is possible to heal and then forgive,” he explained. “There are still moments of sadness, but I no longer feel that knot in my stomach when I think about him, and this is progress. This is not something I need to carry or something I should be controlled by.” “It stopped being something that was imposed on me, to ‘I choose what to do with it’.”

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