London, Feb 2 (IANS): The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an "unreserved and unequivocal" apology on behalf of the Church of England for not reporting a child abuser to the police in the 1970s, a media report said.

Archbishop Reverend Justin Welby apologised after admitting that he had worked at the holiday camps where teenage boys were groomed for abuse, the Telegraph reported.

Welby said on Wednesday the Church had "failed terribly" by not reporting John Smyth QC to the police.

Smyth, the head of a Christian charity that ran summer camps, was accused of carrying out a string of "horrific" sado-masochistic attacks in the late Seventies.

The report also said that the Channel 4 News will on Thursday broadcast allegations of Smyth's use of the camps.

The boys from some of Britain's leading public schools attended these camps. Smyth used them to gain access to teenagers, whom he forced to strip naked before subjecting them to savage beatings.