Fiona Rugg, daughter of the late Christian barrister and Iwerne camps leader John Smyth QC, has spoken to Premier’s Woman Alive magazine in the lead-up to the release of Channel 4’s two-part documentary See No Evil. The film investigates decades of abuse carried out by her father.
Smyth, who was never convicted, abused boys and young men under the guise of spiritual discipline.Rugg, the youngest of three siblings, said she was “astounded” by the courage of survivors featured in the documentary.
She described her early childhood as outwardly “idyllic” but overshadowed by fear and a sense of disinterest from her father.
“Part of my dislike of him, again from an early age, and I know my sister shared this, was just this idea of the hypocrisy,” she told Woman Alive. “I didn’t know that word, obviously at the time, but this double-facedness of we’d see him with people, particularly teenage boys, and out there doing fun things with them and playing sport and enjoying pool parties and giving barbecues. I do remember thinking he looked such fun, but I didn’t experience any of that for myself.
“There was disinterest, and there was anger, and he was just scary and disinterested and definitely sort of looked down on us and didn’t really pay us any attention,” she said.
Smyth, who died in 2018, has been labelled the Church of England’s “most prolific serial abuser” for targeting boys and young men at Christian summer camps during the 1970s and 80s. He later fled to South Africa and Zimbabwe, where the Makin Review found he continued to engage in grooming and physical abuse.
Eight clergy members criticised in the review are now facing disciplinary proceedings, with a further three cases expected to follow.
Rugg described some of the most striking examples of her father’s manipulation as spiritual abuse. During her brother PJ’s cancer treatment, Smyth told him he would die young because he had “dishonoured” him. “How much dad really believed all of this, we don’t know. But he certainly had bad theology,” she said.
Despite growing up with a father who preached publicly but behaved abusively in private, Rugg’s Christian faith remained strong.
“I never confused my dad with God,” she said. “I looked at Jesus in the Gospels, his kindness, his mercy, the way he championed women, and it was nothing like the man I lived with.”
Rugg has also come to terms with forgiveness. “Forgiveness is both a moment and a lifestyle,” she said. “I’ve had big moments of breakthrough where I’ve forgiven him, and I continue to do so. There are still days when I feel really angry, and you still have to choose to forgive.”
She said when the news about the extent of her father’s abuse was made public in 2017, she found out about it with the rest of the world. Confronting the public shame of her father’s crimes has been part of her healing journey.
“I think the thing about shame is it tells you there’s something wrong with you, and that if people see that, they won’t like you or there’ll be a negative reaction,” she said.
“But actually, as I’ve talked about it, and over the years I’ve been open with close friends, I’ve never yet had anyone do that. It’s a total myth that people won’t like you.
“Actually, what you find is support and information and great acceptance and love, and people do say truthful things to you, like ‘you’re not to blame’.”
Rugg is now preparing to launch the Survivor to Survivor podcast to share stories of hope and recovery.
“It's just amazing, the strength you get from someone saying, ‘I know what you mean’, or ‘me too’, or ‘this is how I've turned the corner’,” she said.
“It's actually extraordinarily powerful, and I can't ever quite believe how much we can impact one another by just being human together and authentic and real.”
