One of South Africa’s top legal minds, Jeremy Gauntlett SC KC, has stepped down from the Anglican Church’s inquiry panel into serial child abuser John Smyth. The news emerged on the weekend after serious sexual abuse allegations against Gauntlett surfaced, dating back to the 1980s. Wits University lecturer Dr. Hylton White has accused the advocate of abusing him when he was a teenager.
The inquiry into Smyth stems from an independent report that revealed a cover-up of decades of sexual, physical and psychological abuse of as many as 130 boys and young men by Smyth in Britain and Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s, News24 reported. The report found it was “highly likely” this abuse continued when he was in South Africa.
As an aside, his son, PJ Smyth, started the popular evangelical Godfirst church in South Africa, later moving to the US. He was forced to step down as the leader of a US church movement after a report concluded he did not disclose important information about his father’s abuses.
It’s a devastating story all around, but we’re glad Gauntlett stepped down. Now for justice to take its course, in every aspect of this case.
