Justin Welby is getting worse Pressure to resign following a report slamming him for turning a blind eye to sexual abuse by the Church of England’s most prolific abuser.

The Archbishop of Canterbury admitted he was a ‘personal failure’ after an incident last night John Smyth QC’s ‘disgusting’ abuse of more than 100 children and young people was hidden in the Church for years, an independent review has found.

The CofE knew ‘at the highest level’ of the solicitor and lay reader’s abuses in the late 1970s and early 1980s from July 2013 and Mr Welby was singled out. for not reporting Smyth’s abuse to the police.

The petition, organized by members of the General Synod, the church’s parliament, collected more than 1,500 signatures and called for the cleric to step down over his ‘failure’ to warn authorities.

Mr Welby was today accused of ‘losing the trust of the clergy’ by a high-profile priest while a bishop called on him to resign to prevent the Church from ‘completely losing credibility’ on safeguarding.

The Archbishop of Canterbury last night admitted he had ‘personally failed’ after an independent review found John Smyth QC’s ‘disgusting’ abuse of more than 100 children and young people was covered up in the Church for years.

Smyth died aged 75 in Cape Town in 2018 while under investigation by Hampshire Police and was therefore “never brought to justice for the abuse”

Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley told the BBC: ‘I think it is very difficult for the church, as the national and established church, to continue to have a moral voice in our nation in any way, shape or form. We cannot get our own house in order regarding something critically important, something that would be required of any institution – let alone the church, which means that the gospel of Jesus Christ cares for the most vulnerable among us.

‘We are in danger of losing all credibility on this front.’

He said of Mr Welby: ‘Unfortunately I think his position is untenable so I think he should resign.’

He said his resignation “will not solve the problem” but it would be “a very clear indication that a line has been drawn and we need to move towards independence on conservation”.

Speaking to Channel 4 when the report was published, Mr Welby said he had ‘thought hard for a long time’ about resigning.

But he added: ‘I’ve given this matter (resigning) a lot of thought and just this morning I took advice from senior colleagues and no, I will not resign.’

Following the publication of the petition, Mr Welby said he ‘reiterated his horror at the scale of John Smyth’s appalling abuse as reflected in his public apology’, reiterated that he had no intention of resigning and said he ‘hoped that the Makin Review would support the work that continues’. building a safer church here and around the world.

The Makin review into the abuse of Smyth last week concluded he could have been brought to justice if the Archbishop of Canterbury had formally reported the incident to police a decade ago.

The review said Smyth died in Cape Town in 2018, aged 75, while under investigation by Hampshire Police and was therefore “never brought to justice for the abuse”.

Involving up to 130 boys and young men in three different countries, the UK and Africa, over five decades, Smyth is said to have permanently marked the lives of his victims by subjecting them to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual assaults.

The archbishop said he had “no idea or suspicion of this abuse” before 2013, but acknowledged that the review found he “personally could not be confident” that it had been “energetically investigated” after it was more widely exposed that year.

Mr Welby knew Smyth from attending Iwerne Christian camps in the 1970s, but the review said there was no evidence he ‘maintained significant contact’ with the barrister in later years.

Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley says the Church is in danger of ‘completely losing credibility’ when it comes to maintaining security

The court concluded that it was ‘not possible to establish’ whether Mr Welby knew the seriousness of the situation, stating that although Mr Welby knew him and ‘had some reason to be concerned about him’, this was not the same as suspecting him of serious misconduct. Abuses in England before 2013.

The report stated that Smyth ‘could and should have been formally reported to the police in the UK and the authorities (church authorities and potentially the police) in South Africa by the diocesan bishop and church officials, including Justin Welby, in 2013’ .

The statement said “on the balance of probabilities if this had been done” Smyth could have been brought to justice “much earlier” than the Hampshire Police investigation in early 2017.

He added: ‘Opportunities to establish whether he continues to pose an abusive threat in South Africa have been missed by this inaction by senior church officials.’

The petition states: ‘We believe that his continuation as Archbishop of Canterbury is no longer tenable, given his role in allowing the abuse to continue.

‘We must see change for the good of the survivors, for the protection of the vulnerable and for the good of the Church, and we share this determination with all our traditions.

‘If the process of change and healing is to begin now, we regret to see that there is no alternative other than his immediate resignation.’

Giles Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, west London, described it as a ‘horrible situation’.

Giles Fraser, vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, west London, said Mr Welby had ‘lost the trust of the clergy’

He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: There’s a petition going around at the moment, a lot of people are signing it and it’s coming from all over the church.

‘I’m afraid he has really lost the confidence of his clergy, he has lost the confidence of most of his bishops, and his position is completely untenable.’

Speaking at the weekend, the chief patron bishop of the Church of England, Dr. Joanne Grenfell refused to say whether Mr Welby should resign.

He said he welcomed the apology, saying he ‘personally apologized for what he described as their failure to ensure that this was followed up energetically enough after 2013’.

Asked whether he should resign again, he told Radio 4: ‘As I said, I really appreciate the fact that the Archbishop wholeheartedly apologized for the things he could and should have done differently in 2013. His tenure as archbishop really tried to change the guard.

‘I think there’s still a lot to do but I think that’s based on some of the changes we’ve seen in the last 10 years.’