“This information was a hammer blow to Stileman. Doggart had been his close friend and golf partner for years, and they were godparents to each other’s children… Now it looked as if Stileman would have to challenge his old friend about his abusive past.”
This short extract from Bleeding for Jesus (page 145) contains a series of inaccuracies. The truth is: I was not a close friend of Simon Doggart; I never played golf with him and we definitely weren’t godparents to each other’s children. We were merely acquainted through our sons attending the same school.
Andrew Graystone’s Bleeding for Jesus, quite rightly, exposes the extent and severity of the horrific abuse administered by John Smyth in the UK and in Southern Africa. It also reveals very serious failings by many involved in the matter once his appalling behaviour became known. Undoubtedly major errors of judgment were made, and hard lessons will need to be learned from this terrible saga.
But as someone who features prominently in Graystone’s account, I am astonished how inaccurate some of it is. If material that relates to me is inaccurate, misleading or untrue, what else in the book is wrong? This is not helpful for those who want to know the truth about what happened, particularly survivors who have suffered greatly from the lack of reliable information to date.
However frustrating it may be for John Smyth survivors to be kept waiting for Keith Makin to report the truth about what happened, I believe that Graystone has done them a disservice in publishing his book before Makin’s independent review has completed its investigations and published its findings.
In the list below I have identified 26 passages which I know to be either inaccurate, misleading or untrue and under each I state what actually happened. Fortunately, I kept an extensive, day-by-day record of what took place from the moment I became involved in November 2013 which has enabled me to recall accurately events 7 or 8 years ago. Much of the detail in Graystone’s book comes straight from my notes to July 2014 which I gave him when he was engaged to advise the Titus Trust. However, readers will notice that times and dates become much more vague after that date.
I have no doubt that I got some things wrong in the course of my involvement with the Smyth matter, and I am prepared to accept and apologise for any failings that Makin identifies. But I reject any suggestion that I was involved in a cover-up, which Bleeding for Jesus implies on a number of occasions. Scripture Union made the mistake of not checking with me before publishing their review into John Smyth in March this year and made several defamatory claims suggesting a cover-up. Happily, once SU saw evidence of what I disclosed to the police and other statutory authorities, they published a statement correcting the inaccuracies and apologised.
Graystone was careful to check details with me concerning my disclosure to the police, but failed to verify with me much of what he has written about me. I therefore provide the list below so readers can see where this has resulted in the publication of incorrect or inaccurate statements.
Obviously, these inaccuracies have caused me difficulties, but I am conscious that I have felt nothing compared to the suffering experienced by survivors of John Smyth’s horrific abuse.
James Stileman
Page 1, para 2
What the book says
“….Christian camps run by the Iwerne Trust.”
This is not correct
The camps were run by Scripture Union not the Iwerne Trust. People have assumed that the camps must have been run and overseen by the Iwerne Trust but the latter’s role was very limited. It existed as a fundraising body playing no part in the running and operation of camps or holiday activities which were organised by staff employed by SU. I have seen legal correspondence between Scripture Union and Titus Trust which is clear on this issue.
This error is repeated on pages 12, 37 and 133.
Page 1, para 4
What the book says
“…in 2015 I was approached by an organisation called The Titus Trust.”
This is misleading
On 2nd October 2014 Tim Hastie-Smith, National Director of Scripture Union, suggested that Titus Trust engage Andrew Graystone, a freelance PR adviser used by SU. I welcomed the introduction and later that day I received a follow-up email from Hastie-Smith and Graystone. In other words, Titus Trust did not approach Graystone; rather, he was introduced to TT by SU (in 2014, not 2015).
Page 2, para 2
What the book says
“The Titus Trust told me some, but not all of what they knew had happened. They handed over a bundle of papers relating to the case…”
The suggestion that the Titus Trust withheld information from Graystone is not true
Following the introduction by Hastie-Smith, I had two phone calls with Graystone. The first, on 9th October 2014 to hear his credentials and for me to give an outline of the case; the second on 16th October to discuss his terms and an outline proposal of his services which I could take to the trustees for their approval. Having gained trustee approval Graystone signed a confidentiality agreement and we arranged to meet in London with Hastie-Smith on 11th December 2014. At that meeting I handed Graystone a carefully ordered 29-page report written by me containing all Titus Trust knew about the case at that stage including the Ruston report. I held nothing back. I also gave him a copy of the confidential legal advice the trustees had received from Titus Trust’s lawyers.
Page 2, para 3
What the book says
“I went away and started to research the incident….It quickly became apparent that the abuse Titus Trust Trustees had told me about was far more extensive than they had yet discovered or disclosed.”
This is misleading
The report I handed Graystone on 11th December 2014 gave a comprehensive account of everything the Titus Trust knew about Smyth’s abuse in the UK. It was mainly based on the Ruston Report, written in 1982, which contained extensive details of what Smyth had done up to the point he was found out. But my report also contained information provided by David Fletcher about Smyth’s activity in the UK from 1982 to 1984, his move to Zimbabwe and then South Africa including the fact that he began running camps for boys, reports of him beating boys with table tennis bats and the fact that parents of some of the boys took Smyth to court, even though the court action failed.
The seriousness and extent of Smyth’s abuse was abundantly clear from the information I provided to Graystone. If he had gleaned any additional information from his own research before reporting back to the trustees a month later, on 26th January 2015, he kept it to himself because he did not mention it. See below.
Page 3, para 2
What the book says
“After a few weeks of research, I wrote a report for the trustees of the Titus Trust, detailing what I had discovered.”
This is not accurate
On the 8th January 2015, Graystone emailed a four page document entitled ‘Communications Advice to Titus Trust’. The first page contained his ‘report’ and the other three pages provided options and advice about what the trustees should do. The ‘report’ was just three paragraphs and didn’t say anything that the trustees hadn’t already read in my report about the abuse. The report contained no fresh discoveries. In fact, Graystone acknowledged that my report was very thorough in his first paragraph with these words:
“James Stileman has provided me with a comprehensive briefing together with sight of the relevant documents.’
The second paragraph focused on the news value of the abuse, Smyth’s hypocrisy prosecuting Gay News in 1977 and his being a vocal opponent of gay rights in South Africa. In the third paragraph he warned the trustees that it was “only a matter of time before these matters become public.”
Page 3, para 2
What the book says
“I advised them to take all the information they had to the police, to commission a thorough and independent review of all historic abuse allegations and then make the results public.”
This is partial information and therefore misleading
In his paper Graystone provided ‘scenarios for which the Trust might wish to prepare itself’ and he outlined 3 options with pros and cons for each option. The options were:
- Say nothing. Wait and see what happens.
- Communicate pre-emptively.
- Communicate only reactively. Wait until matters become public and then respond.
He recommended option 2 but acknowledged that ‘Victims may not want this and may be angered’. The trustees needed time to consider Graystone’s advice and decided it would be best to arrange a meeting to discuss his paper with him face to face. I set this up for 26th January 2015.
It should also be noted that I had already disclosed the abuse to the police by then, having initially contacted Hampshire Police on 26th September 2014 and met with the Metropolitan Police on 30th September 2014.
Page 3, para 2
What the book says
“At first, they seemed to agree to my suggestion – but a month later they changed their minds and shortly after, they abruptly terminated my involvement with them.”
This is misleading
At the meeting on 26th January 2015 Graystone presented his paper and answered questions from trustees. After he left the meeting, the trustees weighed his recommendation against the need to protect the identity of the two victims who were known to them. One did not want to be named and the other insisted on anonymity. Because Graystone’s advice was going against the expressed wishes of the victims and because the legal advice from Titus Trust’s lawyers was to maintain victim confidentiality, the trustees considered it inappropriate to make the disclosure public. They therefore chose option 3 and Graystone prepared a holding statement to be used if and when the abuse became public.
Graystone was paid a monthly retainer from December 2014 to July 2015. Because the trustees chose the ‘reactive’ option there was no need to continue discussions with him beyond the meeting in January 2015. He certainly didn’t tell me the trustees were making a terrible mistake or try to persuade them to change their mind.
Page 5, final para
What the book says
“Some people might ask why I went to Channel 4 instead of taking the information straight to the police. The main reason is that information I had at the start of the journey was partial. The Titus Trust had already given ‘some‘ information to the police – but I could not trust they had disclosed everything they knew.”
Any suggestion that I withheld information from the police is not true
I made a full disclosure of everything the Trust knew about the abuse to the police on 30th September 2014. I used the summary of the 29 page report I had written for the trustees in July as my briefing notes because they contained all the essential information about the abuse. The police asked me to send them that summary but remove victims’ names. There were no victims’ names in the summary. The summary contained the key information of the Ruston report including:
- The abuse lasted four years
- Victims included 4 underage schoolboys
- 22 young men were involved, one of which became his protégé and would often administer the beatings alongside Smyth
- The scale and severity of the practice intensified. The protégé confessed that he beat as hard as he could ‘for Jesus’s sake’
- Blood was frequently drawn and the victims were either semi or fully naked
- One victim attempted suicide
- The protégé (who was the same age as the other victims) came to realise that he had been duped
[The full summary can be read on pages 20-22 of a timeline published by the Titus Trust here.]
Page 67, para 2
What the book says
“Nor does his report mention Andy Morse’s attempt to take his life.”
This is not correct
Item 18 of the Ruston Report, on page 71, refers to ‘the known suicide attempt’.
Page 142, para 2
What the book says
“This time Quirk told him much more about the complainant…”
This is misleading
At no stage was I told that either of the two victims that contacted Yvonne Quirk were complainants (in the sense of a person making a formal complaint). Indeed, Quirk made it clear to me that the purpose of her approach was simply to ask for help for one of the victims.
Page 143, para 1
What the book says
“Still they did not feel they needed to share what they knew with their fellow trustees. It had all happened long ago, before the Titus Trust even existed.”
This is only partially correct
The reason Giles Rawlinson and David Fletcher decided not to share what they knew with other TT trustees (and why I agreed to assist them) was:
- To protect the identity of victims. If it wasn’t necessary to tell more people, it would be in the best interests of the victims if they did not. Fletcher stressed that it was the wish of the victims, and those family members who had been told, for victims to remain anonymous. And Quirk told me that both victims wished to remain so.
- They did not think it necessary to tell fellow TT trustees. They were both adamant that TT (which did not exist until 1997) was not responsible for running Iwerne camps when the abuse occurred. SU was responsible. (See page 1, para 2 above.)
- The Church of England had the matter in hand with the relevant authorities. Quirk told me that she had spoken to two police forces (in Cambridge and Chichester), that the Bishop of Ely had contacted the Bishop of Cape Town where Smyth lived, and that she was a safeguarding professional who had the salient details; that the abuse was criminal, involved naked beatings where blood was drawn and that there had been a suicide attempt.
Page 143, last para
What the book says
“On 17th March 2014, Stileman spoke directly to Carolyn Buckeridge. He wanted to know how the sessions were going. Buckeridge said they would need more than the ten sessions that Fletcher and Rawlinson had agreed to fund. Stileman agreed to look for more money, but later had second thoughts and left a message saying they couldn’t offer any more.”
This is not correct
It is true that I spoke to Carolyn Buckeridge (the counsellor) in March and that she told me Graham would likely need more than the agreed 10 counselling sessions. When in May she confirmed more were required I initially said I could probably find someone to contribute. But on reflection I realised it was not up to me to extend the counselling and so I rang back to say that I could not commit to financing more sessions. I did not say that we “couldn’t offer any more.” Indeed, it was the desire to continue to help Graham which ultimately led Rawlinson to tell the TT trustees in the next trustees meeting what he had alluded to in their meeting in December 2013.
Page 144, para 2
What the book says
“Stileman, Fletcher and Rawlinson had been trying to deal with the situation for twelve months…”
This is not correct
It was seven months; from November 2013 to June 2014.
Page 144, para 2
What the book says
“The trustees weren’t shown the Ruston Report,….”
This is misleading
It suggests that I was trying to hide the Ruston Report from the trustees at the board meeting. The trustees were told of its existence and its salient details. They asked me to retrieve the report from Rawlinson and gather as much information as I could from Fletcher and other sources into a single dossier. This has become known as the ‘Stileman Report’ which I sent to trustees on 22nd July 2014. It contained the Ruston Report.
Page 145, para 1
What the book says
“This information was a hammer blow to Stileman. Doggart had been his close friend and golf partner for years, and they were godparents to each other’s children…..Now it looked as if Stileman would have to challenge his old friend about his abusive past.”
This is completely untrue
I was not a close friend of Simon Doggart, I never played golf with him and we definitely weren’t godparents to each other’s children. We were acquainted through our sons attending the same school.
Page 146, para 1
What the book says
“Realising that it would be embarrassing if his continuing links to the trust became known, the trustees sent Stileman to tell Clarkson that he could no longer be actively involved with them.”
This is not true
Michael Clarkson continued to assist the Trust as an IT consultant but I was instructed to make sure that he did not have access to personal information on the database.
Page 147, para 2
What the book says
“They suggested that it would be best if Stileman gave Graham the crime reference number so he could contact them if he wanted to take the matter further. For some reason that remains unclear, Graham did not receive this information.”
This is misleading
I met with the police on 30th September 2014 to report the abuse. Two days later I rang Quirk to tell her that when I made the disclosure I had not used Graham’s name as she had instructed me not to do so. I then offered to give the crime reference number to Quirk for her to pass on to Graham. She told me that Graham was unlikely to want to contact the police. Naturally I assumed that she would speak to him about the offer and contact me if Graham wanted the number. I was never allowed direct contact with Graham.
Page 162, para 2
What the book says
“Intrigued, I suggested that I should meet a representative of Titus Trust in a London coffee shop. He declined. Instead, I was told to go to a disused office above a shop close to Regent Street where I would be briefed. There was no furniture in the room except for two office chairs and no facilities for drinks. At the office I met James Stileman, the Operations Director of the Titus Trust. He told me he was dealing with a disclosure from a man called Graham…”
This is extraordinarily inaccurate and misleading
By the time of my first meeting with Graystone, I had had at least two phone calls with him and we were reasonably well acquainted even though we hadn’t met in person.
On 11th December 2014, Hastie-Smith, Graystone and I met at my office in London. This was at my suggestion as it was an appropriate place for a private meeting. Graystone knew what the meeting was about as I had shared the bare bones of the matter in our previous discussions on the phone. The office was not above a shop, nor was it particularly near Regent Street. It was in York Street above the headquarters of St John’s Ambulances at the time.
The reason there was no furniture in the room was because I had just moved from London to Oxford. This was explained to him and my recollection was that I did use the shared facilities downstairs to provide coffee. This is how Hastie-Smith remembers it as well. I am not as rude or as inhospitable as Graystone implies!
[These inaccuracies are relatively trivial but it does leave one wondering how much else in the book is inaccurate.
It is worth noting that much of the detail in Graystone’s book relating to his interactions with TT are taken directly from the notes recorded in the Stileman Report. This is why reference to events up until 22nd July 2014 are recorded very precisely but after that date details are far more vague. However, I continued to keep a day-by-day record of my actions which is why I can refute many of the inaccuracies above so easily.]
Page 163, para 3
What the book says
“He handed over a green cardboard folder of documents. It included a timeline of events and a faded copy of a type written document from 1982. The Ruston Report.
As I read through the papers on the train back to Manchester, a horrific picture began to emerge. There was far more abuse associated with the network than Stileman had told me.”
This is not true
When Graystone reported back to the TT trustees a month after meeting me, he wrote:
“James Stileman has provided me with a comprehensive briefing together with sight of the relevant documents.’
Not only was my oral briefing of Graystone, in Hastie-Smith’s presence on 11th December 2014, comprehensive, the two documents I gave him contained everything we knew at that point. One was the first 29 pages of my status report to the Trustees of 22nd July 2014. (I withheld the final 6 pages of the report as they were not relevant to the Smyth case.) This was a carefully compiled document which covered Smyth’s abuse in the UK and overseas and all my notes from the time I was first approached about the matter. The second was the legal advice dated 24th September 2014 from TT’s lawyers. I trusted Graystone implicitly and didn’t withhold anything.
Page 164, para 2
What the book says
“In the month since my strange meeting with Stileman I had done a lot of research and I told them what I had discovered. The abuse was far more serious and more extensive than either they had known or they had told me.”
This is not true
This is a repeat of the claim made in the introduction to Graystone’s book (see page 2, para 3 above). Graystone didn’t tell the trustees anything they didn’t already know about the abuse. This is confirmed in the limited background information in his written report, just three paragraphs, which preceded options and recommendations about what the trustees should do.
Page 165, para 3
What the book says
“For many months I heard nothing. The small monthly payments I had been receiving stopped. Eventually I rang Stileman to ask what had happened. I was surprised when he told me he had left the Titus Trust.”
This is not true
Graystone was engaged on a monthly retainer from December 2014. Because the trustees decided to communicate reactively – wait until the matter became public and then respond – there was little need for his advice after the meeting in January 2015. But the Trust continued to pay him until July 2015. I remember talking to Graystone at that time about ending the retainer while I was still working at the Titus Trust. Indeed, I didn’t leave the Trust for another eleven months, in June 2016.
Page 176, para 1
What the book says
“On 8th February 2017, six days after the broadcast, the Honourable David Fletcher wrote to the Charity Commission saying that he and Rawlinson were resigning as trustees of the Iwerne Trust, and the charity was being wound up.”
This is surprising
I cannot vouch for what David Fletcher wrote to the Charity Commission, but I know I had dissolved the Iwerne Trust under his and Rawlinson’s instruction a whole year earlier, on 6th February 2016, and have the paperwork confirming having done so.
Page 180, para 2
What the book says
“The papers were only released when they were requisitioned by Hampshire Police under warrant”
This is not true
I was no longer working for the Titus Trust by then but I have spoken to the acting Operations Director at the time who assures me that the police never asked for the Ruston Report, let alone requisition it under warrant. The Trust took the initiative and voluntarily gave first the Ruston Report and then the Stileman Report (which also contained the Ruston Report) during the summer of 2017.
All the essential details in my report were disclosed to the police in a summary I emailed on 30th September 2014 so there was no need to send more but the Trust felt it would be better if the police had everything.
Page 182, para 1
What the book says
““The network was so inbred that much of the secrecy and fear ran through families. For example, James Stileman was a trustee of Emmanuel Wimbledon, whilst his brother William was vicar of Nash’s old church in Maidenhead, and his son-in-law was working for Hugh Palmer at All Souls Langham Place.”
This is misleading and an extraordinary allegation
I don’t have a son-in-law. My brother, William, is vicar at St Mary’s Maidenhead but he arrived in 2003, 21 years after Nash had died. He does, however, have a son-in-law who works at All Soul’s.
Graystone provides no evidence that ‘secrecy and fear’ run through the Stileman family. The fact that William’s son-in-law tweeted against me after Scripture Union published their deeply flawed review into Smyth which maligned me earlier this year, shows that we are an open family prepared to criticise each other publicly. Scripture Union, have since corrected the errors and both SU and my nephew-in-law have apologised.
Page 192, para 4
What the book says
“The common factor between all of Smyth’s UK victims is that they attended Iwerne and were part of the Iwerne network”
Graystone knows this is not true
In April this year Graystone arranged a Zoom conference call with Archbishop Justin Welby and Smyth survivors. One of the survivors explained he never had anything to do with Iwerne camps but had met Smyth through Cambridge University links.
Page 222, para 3
What the book says
“Remarkably, both of these churches feel his influence on this day, and the latter (Emmanuel Wimbledon) has only ever had a ‘Iwerne man’ as vicar”
This is not true
Cyril Thompson, who was vicar but one prior to the current incumbent, never went to Iwerne or had anything to do with Iwerne camps.
Two additional points for clarity:
Page 19, para 2
What the book says
“Elsewhere in Dear Friends, a book published to mark Fletcher’s retirement, a young parishioner James Stileman writes that…..’
To clarify:
I wasn’t a young parishioner in 2013 when the book was published. I was 53. I was recounting an event that took place 28 years earlier in a way which suggested (without saying) we went skinny-dipping. In fact, we swam in underwear. Of course, I now regret exaggerating for effect.
Page 146, final para and page 147 para1
What the book says
“In his covering letter Stileman flippantly wrote that ‘Having read it you may conclude that the attic isn’t such a bad place!”………”He signed off his letter ‘Happy reading!”
To clarify:
These two quotes, taken out of context, have been posted several times on social media, either as evidence of a cover-up or to imply I had contempt for the victims. I accept that the comments were clumsy but neither of these accusations are true. My report contained a huge amount of unpleasant information and, in a hurry, I tried to inject some levity into the covering letter which accompanied it. Of course I wasn’t suggesting that the Ruston Report was best returned to the loft nor was I expecting the trustees to enjoy reading what I sent them. Both comments are followed by exclamation marks and were clearly ironic. The letter was marked Private and Confidential and was written for a very specific audience. I understand why some victims have concluded that what I wrote was disrespectful and I am very sorry for not being more careful.