‘Truth dies’ with rector who covered up camp abuse

A CLERGYMAN who covered up attacks on boys has died, prompting victims to claim “the truth has died with him”.

The Rev The Honourable David Fletcher, 89, ran the Iwerne camps, where a number of boys have claimed they were groomed and violently beaten by John Smyth QC.

The barrister carried out sadomasochistic beatings on dozens of boys in his shed at his home in Winchester. He died of a heart attack in 2018 aged 77 at his home in Cape Town, South Africa.

News of attacks carried out by Smyth, who was chairman of the Iwerne Trust, began to emerge when, in 1982, the Rev Mark Ruston, vicar of the Round Church in Cambridge, alerted Iwerne trustees with the so-called Ruston Report, which was not made public until 2016.

Fletcher – a former rector of St Ebbe’s Church in Oxford who served as Iwerne Trust chair until its closure in 2016 and became a member of successor body the Titus Trust – was one of the few people who received the document. However, he never reported Smyth to the police. He also facilitated Smyth’s relocation to

Africa in 1984, from where he received notice of beatings in Zimbabwe in 1989 and contact from the Zimbabwean lawyer David Coltart in 1993. Neither he nor Smyth ever faced any criminal action.

Fletcher’s brother, Jonathan Fletcher, a former vicar at Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, was stripped of his licence to minister after he was unmasked by The Telegraph in 2019 for abusing young men, subjecting at least 27 victims to ice baths, naked beatings and sex acts.

Following David Fletcher’s death on Monday from cancer, Smyth’s victims released a statement saying: “Part of our truth, our story dies. There are now things we will never know.”

Last month, an inquiry into Winchester College, whose pupils attended the camps, revealed a memo written by Fletcher in 1982 following receipt of the Ruston Report, in which he stated: “We did not tell the school authorities directly because we felt that such information would soon be passed around and would damage Camp.”

A spokesman for St Ebbe’s said: “We rejoice that, after a four-year battle with cancer, David is now at home with his Lord.” The Titus Trust was also contacted for comment.