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.

Send their own children away??
And I don't think Js has been convicted of anything

" Jimmy Saville is a convicted serial sex abuser and rapist "

no he is not. When was he 'convicted'?

Paying school fees for staff's kids is the norm amoung the super rich. A good friend (childless) pays for her PA's kids. She uses her own money though. That is the difference!

JS was never convicted. I've actually found it really interesting that it is now black and white "fact" (according to the news, public opinion etc.) that he was a rapist and abuser, thanks to sheer weight of reports. I do think he was too. But it's funny how the "allegedly" etc has just gone out the window in his case.

Jimmy Saville is a convicted serial sex abuser and rapist.

I thought he died before the truth came out. How did he manage to keep it quiet in his lifetime if he had convictions for sexual abuse and rape ?

You make a good point Coffee. As far as I am aware, posthumous conviction is not a thing. Not yet anyway. Say what you like about the vile old cunt, but sadly you can't say he was convicted.

x-post

The thing that I find most worrying is that she keeps hinting about information she has about people in the upper echelons of power and the abuse of children. This, she suggests, is why KC has been brought down. If CB does have information of this sort then why on earth did she not go to the police with it, instead of sitting on it as some kind of bargaining chip?? I would guess that she doesn't have any such info and this makes her seem a little desperate and paranoid.

Another thing I couldnt understand is why lots of KC people marched on Downing St on the day it was closed down. Why go there? Whose fault is it that they had tons of cash and squandered it all in mismanagement? Nothing to do with the government and everything to do with themselves.

Bosky I asked this on a thread. I think because he has died there is a lot less caution. Plus the weight of evidence against him.

From what I understand of JS, his self-justification for the sexual abuse of children was that he did more good, through his fund raising for children, than harm. He operated a very personal internal moral credit and debit system.

Reading reports about and interviews with CB, she also seems to have a very personal moral credit and debit system.

Paying school fees is grand as part of a job package but it isnt right to mismanage charitable donations to send kids to private school

I agree with Finola. I have worked in the Public Sector for 25 years in one of the areas KC operated in. Where are these children and families KC are supposed to have supported? There should be hundreds of people coming out and shouting about how they have been helped by KC.

Hi all,

Many thanks for the reports about this thread.

This story is 'out there' in the wider media and it is fine to discuss the facts on Mumsnet, however, we do draw the line at speculation and we feel that the OP was beyond the pale by suggesting that Camila Batmanghelidjh is "like Jimmy Saville..."

We will be removing this thread shortly.

The comparison is grossly unfair to CB because while her governance was clearly shit she wasn't actively hurting children for her own ends unlike JS. Also while JS was enabled by the establishment it was indirect because the abuse was not publicly known or condoned even if it arguably should have been. CB's actions has been enabled but also endorsed, condoned and rubber stamped by the staff, trustees and government. The financial reports are published for all to see and yet... nothing was done for so long and warnings were unheeded.

If you want to make a decent comparison then something like the selling of worthless mortgage backed securities by bankers due to poor regulation would be a more relevant comparison.

Peodophile comparisons are just stupid and offensive in this context.

I think some of the similarities that OP has drawn re CB and JS are quite valid.
Certainly both of their 'methods' were designed to throw up a smoke screen. I am NOT suggesting that CB is a paedophile.

Agree with PPs that it's unacceptable to compare people with Jimmy Saville. Unless you are alleging they are a child abuser, which could be libellous.

I think the charities commission has really dropped the ball here.

There is a certain type of personality who, having manoeuvered themselves into a position of influence and control can get away with all sorts of things.

All organisations can be at risk of this, but it seems to us to be much worse when it is a charity that receives donations from the public and funding from the tax payer.

I volunteered for a charity some years ago and was amazed at the sheer hard work done by the volunteers at ground level compared with the fat salaries and perks enjoyed by the people at the top, including, in the case of one individual, the purchase of a property with charity funds that was not ultimately going to be used for the purpose stated. Very, very difficult to prove because the people that do this get close to those in high places.

It is a bit like the story of emperor's new clothes.

Of course CB has been actively harming children! Not sexually (nothing suggests that) but she has been using vulnerable children as emotional pawns in her own egotistical game, paying them to surround her even as adults.

I agree with Bobo.

You can't libel the dead. So we don't need to say 'allegedly' when we talk about Jimmy Saville, because conviction or not we all know what he was. If he was still alive and not convicted we would have to keep up the 'allegedly'.

Do people not understand the point of an analogy?
She didn't host jimll fix it either. It's saying the situation has lots of similarities
I despair at people's understanding and logic.

Lago You might also want to remember Jimmy Saville has not been convicted of anything - although there is no doubt about the weight of evidence about him and his inappropriate behaviour with vulnerable young people

One of the strands of the investigation by the Charities Commission of Kids Club is that CB had reports made to her by staff and young people about volunteers sexually propositioning and pressuring young girls who accessed Kids' Club and that she did not act and report those allegations to police and child protection.

Another is that staff have complained they were seriously assaulted by some of the older clients of Kid's Club ad were pressured personally by CB to not report the assaults to the police.

She has denied those allegations but they are serious allegations, made by her own staff, about how safe children and staff are at Kids Club.

My view would be that when one individual with a huge ego is given this level of freedom to act outside of regulation with vulnerable clients, those clients become increasingly vulnerable to that ego and its self- indulgence - in Saville's case, we know how that was indulged but it will be different ways depending how the ego likes to be fed.

Spot on Stealth.

it really annoys me when people can't understand that comparing two things does not mean you are saying they are identical.

We should able allowed to compare CB to JS in the important ways that are relevant. No one is accusing her of being a paedophile, just as they are not accusing her of wearing shiny tracksuits. The comparison is about how a cult of personality can get a person into a position where the rules don't apply to them. That's really important and needs to be guarded against.

Well Mumsnet disagree and the thread is going SPB. I think saying people's understanding and logic is off because they disagree is quite rude. And very unfair when people have bothered to explain (quite reasonably) why they disagree with the comparison.