Justin Welby has resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury after facing scrutiny for his failure to report a prolific child abuser to the authorities.

An analysis of the Church’s handling of John Smyth QC’s case, published last week, found that Mr Welby did not formally alert authorities after learning of the abuse in 2013.

After calls from within the church and a petition created by members of the General Synod – the Church’s parliament – Mr Welby resigned on Tuesday.

In a statement, he said: “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.”

Here are the events that led to Mr Welby’s resignation.

John Smyth QC, is believed to have subjected up to 130 victims to traumatic physical, sexual and psychological abuse, including beatings and kicks, according to independent review.

Led by Keith Makin, the review concluded that Smyth’s abuse spanned decades.

Smyth was a British barrister and former chairman of the Iwerne Trust, a Christian charity.

He was accused of assaulting up to 30 boys at his Winchester home in the 1970s and 1980s. He then moved to Africa, where he abused an estimated 85 to 100 male children between the ages of 13 and 17, the review added.

He died in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018.

Smyth’s abuse was first reported to the Iwerne Trust in the early 1980s after a 21-year-old Cambridge University student allegedly tried to take his own life.

He was investigated by the trust and a report detailing his “horrific” beatings of teenage boys was presented to Church leaders in 1982.

The findings were not given to the police.

Smyth was encouraged to leave the UK and moved first to Zimbabwe and later to South Africa.

During that time, Church officers “knew about the abuse and failed to prevent further abuse,” the review found.

The review Makin said his abuse in Britain resurfaced in 2012 when a victim in Cambridgeshire received a letter “out of the blue” from a fellow survivor.

The victim who received the letter was an ordained officer of the church and said he asked if he could help.

“He wanted counseling and thought that by virtue of my position I might be well placed to find it,” the officer told the review.

The pair exchanged emails for months, after which the church officer, on the advice of the diocesan safeguarding officer, told the other victim that it would be “inappropriate” for him to continue doing so given his own abuse.

It was this event that finally led Mr Welby to learn about the abuse.

The review showed that five police forces were informed of the abuse between 2013 and 2016. However, church leaders did not file an official report.

Only in 2017, after a Channel 4 documentary Smyth explained to the public, that police launched a full investigation.

In the same year, he and his wife Anne were excommunicated by the local church in Cape Town.

Smyth died the following year.

Mr Welby worked at summer camps in Dorset, where Smyth is said to have met his victims, but said he was unaware of the allegations until 2013.

The Makin review found that from July that year the Church of England “knew, at the highest level” of Smyth’s abuse, while Mr Welby found out in about August.

It concluded that Smyth should have been formally reported to UK police and South African authorities by Church officers, including Mr Welby, in 2013.

“Had this been done, on the balance of probabilities, John Smyth could (have) been brought to justice at a much earlier time,” it said.

In 2017, Mr Welby apologized “unreservedly” to Smyth’s victims.

He apologized again after Makin’s magazine was published on November 7, saying he had “personally failed” to ensure the “horrific tragedy was vigorously investigated”.

He also told Channel 4 News that he he considered resigning because of the scandalbut ultimately decided against it.

Senior members of the Church, including the Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley, have called on Mr Welby to resign.

“I think people are rightly asking the question, ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ And I think the answer at the moment is no,” she told the BBC.

She said Mr Welby’s resignation would not “solve the safeguarding issue” but would be “a very clear indication that a line has been drawn and we need to move towards independence of the safeguarding”.

Anglican priest Giles Fraser said Mr Welby had “lost the confidence of his clergy”, while a petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation had gained more than 4,800 signatures by Monday.