to think Camila Batmanghelidjh must be lying when she says she has done nothing wrong in her spending of Kid's Company Charity Funding?

[LuluJakey1]

She is like Jimmy Saville in that what she has been doing has been under all of all our noses and we have refused to speak up about it or believe it.

It is not just the luvvies who have been up close and personal with her- involved with the charity and CB at a very close level, some even Trustees. It is also the employees and the parents of children, the children themselves, the volunteers. We are not talking about a hidden mis-use of funding. We are talking aout a whole culture of open waste and self-indulgence.

I know it is from The Daily Mail but it is actually an interview with het.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3199527/My-heart-clear-says-Kids-Company-boss-Batmanghelidjh-admits-charity-paid-school-fees-employees-children-denies-wrongdoing.html

£5000 a month rent on an Art Deco House with private swimming pool - which houses a member of staff, and the swimming pool is used by CB but hot by any children- they are 'not allowed' (her words)

£40,000 chauffeur- now a specialist worker (according to CB). also has private school and therapist funding for his 2 children.

Staff( how many?) have their children sent to private schools because the job is stressful and it is part of a 'staff well-being package'

The Chauffeur's sister is also employed - now as a 'brilliant accountant', last summer as 'the woman who does my sewing' (mind you that would be a full-time job in itself, but it does imply the charity pays for those vile outfits much as I suspected)

25 young people given £769,000 a year funding - £31,000 a year each, to do nothing. They are CB's specially selected young people- many of whom have received funding for many years. She describes them as 'like a family, hanging round the house'. She deals with their funding herself.

Yet STILL CB complains staff should not have spoken up about any of this and implies those who have will suffer for it.

In my view this woman and her behaviours are corrupt, dishonest and immoral.

Are my views unreasonable? I feel this could be jus the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is yet to emerge and prosecutions will be very likely.

I think there should be a down- to the -bone, in-depth investigation of every aspect of the work of this charity and of CB. Not simply any concerns that have now been raised but a complete trawl of the spending, the practices and the behaviours of CB herself.

None of this means any shit anyone thinks of is legitimate because of her actions though, compos. I'm thinking more of her nationality and refugee status here than the dress stuff, because the standard of her clothing isn't a matter of fact the way that her immigration status, eligibility or otherwise for Belgian citizenship etc are. As far as I can tell, the controversy over the clothing stuff is that people either think it's legitimate to criticise how she looks, or you don't. That one genuinely is a matter of opinion. No research needed. The same isn't true of some of the other things people are questioning.

HomeHelpMeGawd

I agree with your post

She's just said endocrine and that covers a few things including PCOS which can cause weight gain.

I've read 2 interviews where her condition was described as life threatening. In one she said all the other patients in her specialist unit had died. So I think she must be refering to a condition up on very serious end of the scale rather than something PCOS. I can't find the orginal interview where everybody else died, but this one from 2012 refers to her condition as being life threatening.

www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/kids-used-to-run-away-when-the-police-arrived-now-they-stand-there-and-shoot-7313363.html

The 3 million was supposed to be used for 'restructuring', not for day to day costs. However even if they were free to spend it as they wished, I don't think it would have been enough to pay creditors.

I think kids company suddenly closed their doors because they had reached the point where continuing operating would definitely lead to a claim of wrongful trading.

It has been clearly established that CM is a larger than life character who likes to tell a story. What is not clear is why the trustees - seemingly responsible people with experience in large corporations - allowed the organisation to be managed this way and why the government ignored the advice of civil servants to support them.

I am less interested in the actions of the loud lady in the colourful outfit and more interested in what the men in grey suits were thinking.

It's been painfully obvious for a long time that CB wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and bit her in the area she talks out of.

Tbh i think the trustees( i said this pages ago) just let her get on with it the trustees are high profile people and probably attended meetings nodded signed off minutes and c8ngratulated themselves at a job well done to be involved in Kc was probably seen as a worthy thing to do imo

There is a list of who the trustees are

Heard a few other people mention the wrongful trading thing too, it's not an area I know much about though.

Homehelp, I have to encounter these bizarre people who take all the shortcuts and think they know it all better on a daily basis in my RL job. I have their supposed brilliance effectively stuffed down my throat whilst being told that qualified professional expertise I have built up over decades counts for nothing in the fact of their 'inspiring social entrepreneurship', because 'experts want to keep other people out' and 'you can't trust experts'. Yeah, right.

From time to time when I challenge their more outlandish comments as a kind of ethical public conscience manifestation, they become unacceptably and personally abusive in public, attempt to get me removed from my job, harass me at home, and so on. They can turn very nasty, their modus operandi is to name drop all the establishment figures and well known types they are in contact with, implying I will be blocked at every turn personally and professionally because I dared to speak up (which incidentally never happens as we know all the same people). I have pretty broad shoulders but it does get tiresome.

I suspect this is why so many people are pleased she has been rumbled and are gloating a bit, even though that is a bit childish. In this country we are far too quick to build up these people at the expense of the invisible army that underpins day to day life in Britain, pretty uncomplainingly and tirelessly, often for little money or recognition. We need to value this invisible army a lot more. Meanwhile let CB and her like fall, I say (although I'm very sad at the consequences for the children and schools in those regions).

It would be wrongful trading to continue to trade when you can't pay your creditors on time (and have no realistic hope of being able to do so) - in effect you are spending money that is owed to your creditors.

"In this country we are far too quick to build up these people at the expense of the invisible army that underpins day to day life in Britain, pretty uncomplainingly and tirelessly, often for little money or recognition. We need to value this invisible army a lot more."

I sometimes wish we had a Recommend button on Mumsnet. I so heartily agree with this! I've often worked with people who are very good at self-promotion but not actually doing very much. And there are so many others who work their socks off but get no recognition. There's someone close to me who is a teacher. He works twice as hard as anyone else I know, often dealing with very challenging behaviours, but what reward does he get? Very little financially and in terms of public recognition - well, we all know what the press think about teachers.

BoffinMum

Boffinmum keep fighting the good fight we need folk like you to keep things on an even keel

Boffin, I can see how that motivation would, in principle, work for you -- although you haven't been notably gleeful so far as I can see.

But honestly, I really doubt that, of the contributors here who sound to me to be gleeful, the majority are dedicated professionals who have encountered brickbats from non-experts riding roughshod over them. Schadenfreude seems a much more likely explanation.

Freudian -- thanks!

AuntieStella, you conflated two parts of what I wrote and thereby created a strawman. I didn't suggest anyone felt glee at children being unsupported. I suggested commenters appeared to feel glee at her downfall rather than concerned for children left unsupported.

How it is that children have been left unsupported is a separate, and more complicated issue. I personally believe that the culpability for this extends well beyond KC. If senior figures in the civil service thought KC was a disaster waiting to happen, as they appear to have done for many years, then it was incumbent on them to do some serious contingency planning for a sudden implosion. What did they think was going to happen when the plug was pulled?

Although, yes, it’s worrying that some children might have been left without support I think it’s far more worrying that for large chunks of the last 20 years a lot of children will have been left completely unsupported because their welfare will have been palmed off to a charity which doesn’t appear to have been able to competently deal with their needs and operated on the basis of one woman’s whims rather than assessed need. And that millions of pounds may have been misdirected from the people who most needed it and other services underfunded to pay for things that certainly should never have paid for out of public funds. Do I feel gleeful about that? Not gleeful, but I certainly think it’s a good thing that it’s come to an end and can be rectified. I think it could have been handed over far more effectively with less of a breakdown of services but I think the blame for that lies squarely at CBs door.

There was a very interesting comment on one of the Guardian articles which I wholeheartedly agree with. It pointed out how much this situation was based on the tribalism of left wing politics. That it doesn’t really matter what darlings of the left wing do, as long as they’re on the correct side. Like Rotherham and Mid-Staffs. What’s a little bit of rape or manslaughter or corruption? As long as you’ve got the proper right on credentials, who cares?
You can whinge all you want, but if a couple of Mum’s with internet access and a bit of time on their hands can cast such doubt on her background in a matter of hours then why have the various governments and celebrities etc, etc never cottoned on to the fact this woman’s story stinks to high heaven?

HomeHelp no glee here. I feel really angry about the kids who have been left high and dry and by the fact I really admired CB - enough to donate to KC last Christmas. If she truly had the interests of the kids she helped at heart, she surely wouldn't have let the situation deteriorate to the point she had to close, despite the masses and masses of money being injected into the charity.

When following a story like this some people become revelation junkies. Rather than focus on the big stuff, the really significant stuff staring them in the face, they just want a stream of new revelations, even if they are peripheral, irrelevant, or untrue.

This is why some people are going all Hercule Poirot on CB's ass. They're bored with the revelations of the past week or two and they want new ones.

The 24 hour news cycle has a lot to answer for.

What did they think was going to happen when the plug was pulled?

Apparently when the plug was about to be pulled ministers decided to give her an extra 3 mill.

I suspect the advice of many 'little' people employed by the government has been ignored in the name of creating a bit of positive spin.

It pointed out how much this situation was based on the tribalism of left wing politics. That it doesn’t really matter what darlings of the left wing do, as long as they’re on the correct side. Like Rotherham and Mid-Staffs. What’s a little bit of rape or manslaughter or corruption? As long as you’ve got the proper right on credentials, who cares?

If you think this problem doesn't exist on the right wing you're deluding yourself.

There has clearly been support for KC from all parties.

Michael Gove seems to have been the only notable dissenter.

I think the little people should start a revolution the might get listened to clearly most know what they are talking about

I dont think this is a right on issue if anything its a sitting in ivory towers issue and they believed KC would clear up the streets and sort it

LazyLohan you are being ridiculous.

I doubt anybody with a sense is taking your ramblings or Chilli's on this very seriously, even if you did Google first

All you have posted so far is pure conjecture and that's more than a little ironic in the circumstances.