ALLEGATIONS of misconduct, made under the Clergy Discipline Measure, against two clerics named in the Makin report will not proceed to a tribunal.
Concerning the Ven. Roger Combes, a former Archdeacon of Horsham, who retired in 2014, the President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males, decided that there was “no case for the respondent to answer”.
Sir Stephen also declined an application to bring an out-of-time complaint against a former chair of the Titus Trust, the Revd Iain Broomfield (News, 24 October 2025).
A statement from Church House, Westminster, on Wednesday said: “This determination brings the matters to a close.”
A CDM complaint was lodged by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) after Archdeacon Combes was named in the Makin report on the abuse by John Smyth (News, 28 February 2025). The Archdeacon told the Makin review that he had been handed a report on Smyth’s abuse in 1982, but did not open it, believing that “the victims would be embarrassed if he knew the details.”
The Titus Trust is the successor organisation to the Iwerne Trust, which had been chaired by Smyth. The Makin report records that, around 1998, Mr Broomfield informed a young priest that there was a “previous issue” regarding Smyth and that “something bad” had happened at Winchester College.
Mr Broomfield was not interviewed during the Makin review because he was, at the time, suspended as Vicar of Christ Church, Bromley, after complaints about his behaviour, including concerns relating to safeguarding.
These had been the subject of a CDM process, under which he received a rebuke and injunctions in 2022, for “conduct unbecoming and inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders”. The matters considered did not relate to the Iwerne camps.
