Gail Downey: UK correspondent on Justin Welby resigning as Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, confirmed he was resigning following a damning report that concluded the Church of England covered up a serial abuse case.

Welby was facing growing pressure to quit after the independent probe found he 'could and should' have reported decades of abuse by a church-linked lawyer to authorities in 2013.

UK correspondent Gail Downey says several figures in the church had called for Welby's resignation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gale Downey is our UK correspondent. Correspondent A Gail.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi there, did you?

Speaker 1 (00:05):
I mean yesterday Justin Welby was holding firm and then
whoop is gone. Did you see that coming?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
No? I didn't see it coming, except the fact that
the archbishop in Newcastle was on television and giving interviews
saying he should resign and log behold he now has resigned,
so that's finally come about.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
But he needed to, Gail, didn't he. I mean, if
you're found to absolutely have not told the police as
soon as you possibly can that there's somebody out there
who's doing bad things to kids and you're in his position,
it's completely untenable, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well. The Independent Review, which has now been published hence
how this has all come about, did say that if
the Archbishop Justin Wilby and the other church officers had
reported all of this to the police in the UK
and in South Africa, where John Smith was also working
at the time, he could have been brought to justice
at a much earlier point. Instead, he carried on abusing

(01:05):
boys while in South Africa until his death in twenty eighteen.
His abuse was first reported back in the UK in
the nineteen eighties, and the review says that those given
the report participated in an active cover up. So it's
taken a while for this to come out. There was
a television documentary investigation into him in twenty seventeen and

(01:29):
at the time the Archbishop of Canterbury did apologize, but
he didn't resign. But now there's been pressure on him,
not just from the Newcastle Bishop but from others in
the church as well, and he's now stood down.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Gone right. Why is it that Netwisk Banking Group has
blocked the WhatsApp and the Facebook messengering, the Skype and
all that stuff from the company devices.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, it's an interesting one, isn't it. Because they're not
the first to do it. Some government departments have actually
stopped people use these as private ways to contact their
colleagues and talk about business matters. The reason being, of course,
because the problem is these messages via Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApps,
Gype can be difficult to retrieve and they can actually disappear,

(02:16):
and of course if you're discussing business matters, financial matters,
that's not kind of open and transparent. If you remember
in the UK COVID inquiry that revealed that WhatsApp messages
have been deleted by government officials and ministers during the pandemic,
including the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. So NatWest really

(02:36):
is going along what a lot of other organizations are
doing and saying, you know, only use approved channels for
communicating about business matters, whether internally or externally.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Gail, it's good to talk to you mate. Thank you
so much, Gail Downie, our UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
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Speaker 1 (02:55):
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