LONDON – Head of the Church of England, Global Anglican Communion spiritual leader under pressure to resign After an investigation revealed that she had failed to inform the police as soon as she became aware of serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps.

Some members of the General Synod, the church’s national assembly, have launched a petition calling for the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to resign, saying he has “lost the trust of the clergy”. The petition collected more than 1,800 signatures change.org Late morning London time on Monday.

A senior cleric has stepped up the pressure by calling out those who believe he should resign. The bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, told the BBC that Welby’s stance was “indefensible”.

Calls for Welby’s resignation have grown since Thursday, when the church published the results of an independent review into John Smyth, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused around 30 boys and young men in the UK and 85 boys and young men in Africa over five decades .

The 251-page report concluded Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, shortly after he became Archbishop of Canterbury.

Welby last week took responsibility for not pursuing the allegations as “energetically” as he should have after learning of the abuse, but said he had decided not to resign.

On Monday, his office released a statement reiterating Welby’s “horror at the scale of John Smyth’s appalling abuse.”

“As he has said, he had no knowledge or suspicion of the allegations before he was told about them in 2013 and therefore has no intention of resigning after consideration,” the statement said. “He hopes the Makin Review will support ongoing work to build a safer church here and around the world.”

Church officials first became aware of the abuse in 1982 when they received the results of an internal investigation into Smyth. The Makin Review found that those who received this report “engaged in an active cover-up” to prevent the findings from coming to light.

Between 1984 and 2001 Smyth moved to Zimbabwe and then South Africa. He continued to abuse boys and young men in Zimbabwe, and there is evidence in South Africa that the abuse continued until his death in August 2018.

Smyth’s abuse was not made public until an investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 in 2017, which led to Hampshire Police launching an investigation. Police were planning to question Smyth at the time of his death and were preparing to extradite him.

The Makin Review found that if Smyth had been reported to the police in 2013 it could have helped reveal the truth, prevented further misconduct and potentially led to a criminal conviction.

“In effect, three and a half years have been lost, a period within which John Smyth could have been brought to justice and identified and stopped any abuse he committed in South Africa,” the review stated.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of this institution. Church of England He is seen as the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, which has more than 85 million members in 165 countries. He is considered the first among equals compared to the other primates of the community.