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.

On the subject of allegations I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said more eloquently by pps.

The sexual assault allegations make my blood run cold.

My worry is that nothing will come of this, the allegations will be made and there will be an enquiry but no-one will be prosecuted because too many people in power have an interest in seeing this swept under the carpet.

I am not sure it would be possible to sweep sexual assault under the carpet at the moment. It is (sadly) the press' favourite topic, given recent circumstances, and something that the public are taking even bigger interest in than normal.

I do feel that there may not be many lessons learnt from this case though, because I imagine it will drag on and drag on and by the time courts make a decision, we will all have forgotten the exact details that led up to this.

I am not sure it would be possible to sweep sexual assault under the carpet at the moment.

All sexual assault is being swept under the carpet. What do you think the Goddard report (currently planned to take five years before the protracted Chilcott-esque process of Maxwellisation starts) is intended to do? That's the new normal: if it's hard, get a judge no-one has heard of in to run a long-winded "inquiry" that will never actually publish its results, or at least not until almost all the protagonists are safely dead or retired.

Doesn't proof of the sexual assault allegations rely on the people who have been assaulted being prepared to speak out about it?

I wonder how KC have persuaded those who had been assaulted to keep quiet about it. In part, that's what makes my blood run cold. Not just that abuse allegedly took place at a charity, but the way it may have been dealt with perpetuated silence, this from a charity that speaks about helping 'damaged' children. Persuading people who have been abused into silence (however it was done) is incredibly damaging in itself.

That none of the victims of the (alleged) abuses have spoken out makes me wonder whether they will ever feel that they can.

Pneumometer I appreciate that the investigations on historic abuse is taking way too long, but the accusations haven't ever been this public before.

I do take the point about people not feeling able to speak out though, so nothing is pursued. That is another form of sweeping under the carpet that I hadn't considered.

Kendodds The info is coming from ex KC staff who seem to have been feeding documents to newspapers. It must have taken them time to collect it all together. It sounds to me like this is the group of staff who blew the whistle and who have been giving journalists the insider stuff.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3215738/Kids-Company-funded-23-year-old-Nigeria-crack-den-landlord-Devastating-secret-files-intensify-row-charity-s-financial-crisis.html

One of these criminal clients was given £70,000 by KC last year according to these documents

I think this is called hanging her out to dry rather than sweeping things under the carpet. The Government has pulled the rug and now her grand friends are starting to distance themselves. Nobody is apparently defending her. She is being routinely painted as an incompetent and a fantasist and even hiring a PR company at thousands of pounds a month hasn't given her any media traction.

However just like our memory challenged friend Ms Brooks, she will of course claim complete ignorance of all these nefarious dealings once she is in court. Natch.

I am expecting things to be slipped to the press that are intened to raise sympathy for CB. Depression, health info, debt etc, followed by photos of her 'helping' children.

She has not once said sorry.

Given the client group that KC deal with, I would be more surprised if there hadn't been any allegations of sexual assault. The fact that CB has been so glib in dismissing them is what really worries me.

Does anyone know what the possible outcomes of the Charity Commission's inquiry are? I know trustees can be personally liable for debts and barred from holding certain positions, but are there any further sanctions (criminal or otherwise)?

I've just taken a look at that Grazia article. This sentence:

"I couldn't read until I was 12."

is followed three sentences later by:

"When I was nine, I asked my mum why we didn't have any books in the library on other people's emotions."

How did she know?

Sorry, that should have been Glamour, not Grazia. Another oddity in that article about when she was working in a nursery:

"There were children who used to bite their fingers, then draw on the wall with blood, others would cut up Persian carpets or jump through Francis Bacon paintings."

What kind of nursery has Francis Bacon paintings on the wall?

The Glamour article was fascinating. With the benefit of hindsight it is a brilliant piece of journalism in the Louis "give them enough rope to hand themselves " Theroux school. I'm so glad no-one edited it.

Hackmum - She struggled with dyslexia so I assume she means couldn't read confidently / fluently until she was 12.

Also I think she used to attend a private all girls 'alternative' school in Sweden (Europe?) for struggling / "odd" children. The nursery description rings a bell from hearing her talk about that setting. This was from a radio 4 desert island disks interview, but it was ages ago I listened so I could be getting muddled.

And the nonsense about never having formalised her refugee status because she couldn't complete the forms. So not one of the many PAs could help? Or her solicitor - she must have had a solicitor.

The stuff about the Abbey calling up her loan and the judge dismissing the article because "Camila"(btw judges do not address defendants by their first name) is nonsense too.

You can listen to the Desert Island Discs here www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0093tzn

There is definitely a link up thread where CB said her mother died recently (2013/14).

Another source said she went to a Swiss boarding school from age 9.

SilverHoney: "She struggled with dyslexia so I assume she means couldn't read confidently / fluently until she was 12."

But if that's what she meant, that's what she should have said.

Either way, we are also to believe that at nine she had spotted the limitations of the library and had asked for a subscription to a scholarly journal. Surely shome mishtake?

Coffeemarkone summed her up perfectly.

Gosh that Glamour article is badly edited! It's riddled with typos!

Anyway...I love the having to travel in cars in order to be contactable by children at all times...OK then...

This is a good thread and it isn't enhanced by unpleasant insinuations and highly offensive comments about someone's appearance.

Nauticant, I think we had established she looks deliberately ridiculous in order to garner attention.

You can feel you've established what you want. I'm free to read the post above and wrinkle my nose at something a bit grubby.

I don't think we've 'established' that

Some people think that, others (including me) think there's enough to be getting on with without making remarks like that one above