Last year the Makin review declared Fletcher was “instrumental” in the Church coverup – over four decades – of Smyth’s abuse of more than a hundred boys and young men.
And now, we can reveal – David Fletcher was an abuser himself.
One of his alleged victims told Channel 4 News he needed to be “named and shamed”.
Jeni lives in Australia now, but she grew up in Hertfordshire, and met David Fletcher when she was just 13 years old. She’d been adopted as a child and formed a bond with the Reverend Fletcher and his wife, Sue. But it wasn’t long before his behaviour started to concern her.
He would try to kiss her on her lips when she was 15 or 16, and on about three occasions, she says he tried to put his tongue in her mouth.
David Fletcher’s father was a Labour peer who served in Harold Wilson’s government. His parents’ house was luxurious.
One evening in the autumn of 1980, Jeni was invited over. She says Fletcher pressured her to skinny dip. As she was swimming, she says he “put his arm out and he put his hands between my legs and…digitally penetrated me”. She told us she felt “ashamed” and “defiled”.
Jeni saw little point in reporting the incident to the police as he was a “man of the cloth” and she felt she wouldn’t be believed.
For nearly half a century, Jeni thought she was the only victim – until, when the Makin review was published late last year, two sisters from the UK – who remembered her from childhood – got in touch.
Ali and Caroline also grew up in Hertfordshire. Like Jeni, they had a difficult childhood. Their mum was unwell for years.
And – growing up in the 1970s – they came to see the Fletcher household as a refuge. But they too soon had concerns.
When Ali was 13, she says Fletcher pulled into “tight hugs” and would sit her on his lap and put his hand inside her shirt.
One time Caroline remembers Fletcher came downstairs without underpants on, she says, and declared that he had a “weeping member”.
She also says Fletcher once came to kiss her goodnight when she was eight or nine and “put his tongue into my lips”.
And Ali alleges the abuse even continued at evangelical Christian camps in Dorset, run by the Iwerne Trust, she attended in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Reverend David Fletcher had an almost mythical status there, a more significant figure than John Smyth himself.
Caroline describes him as “the conductor of the orchestra”, in charge of the whole show.
Jeni also attended the Iwerne camps and describes Fletcher there as “a bit like a spider in a web”.
They remember a culture of misogyny – with women designated “lady helpers” and made to clean the urinals and do all the domestic work.
Jeni describes the vibe as like the Stepford Wives or the Handmaid’s Tale.
The Reverend David Fletcher was one of the first to learn about John Smyth’s barbaric beatings of boys and young men – set out in unsparing detail in a secret report by the Reverend Mark Ruston. Fletcher was at the heart of the church decision to conceal the evidence for 35 years until Channel 4 News revealed the abuse eight years ago.
As the Makin review explained: Fletcher was the “one person most responsible” for not acting to stop Smyth.
Extraordinarily Ali has kept her diaries from 1982, recording her recollection of Fletcher’s role in the plan to get Smyth to leave Britain – allowing him to continue his abuse across Africa.
Jeni thinks Fletcher covered up Smyth’s abuse because otherwise his own alleged abuse would have come to light.
The sisters now want the police to investigate. Ali contacted Hampshire Police about both Fletcher and Smyth in April 2018, but says she heard nothing more. Both John Smyth and David Fletcher were alive at that point, so there was a chance for justice to be done.
Hampshire Police told us the information Ali provided was considered as part of the overall investigation into Smyth, which was dropped when he died.
Jeni describes Fletcher as “a wicked man”. But Caroline says that if she saw Fletcher now, nearly half a century on, she’d still be too scared to say anything to him. “He really scares me,” she says.
In a statement, David Fletcher’s widow, Sue, told us she is distraught by the allegations against her late husband and had no knowledge of any abuse or inappropriate behaviour,
Tonight the Church of England said that following the Makin review they had received information of sexual abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour towards women and girls concerning the Reverend David Fletcher and had reported it to the police.
When David Fletcher died three years ago, survivors of Church abuse said the truth about Smyth had died with him. By speaking out, the three women hope the same doesn’t apply to his own alleged crimes.