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(part 2) to think that Camila Batmanghelidgh must be lying when she says she has done nothing wrong in her spending of Kids' Company Funding?

635 replies

LuluJakey1 · 01/09/2015 17:34

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.

OP posts:
Auntpodder · 20/11/2015 20:35

It's on BBC Parliament at the moment. An aside, apparently Bernard Jenkin (who I seem to be developing quite the crush on) is the reason why there's always a character called Bernard in Richard Curtis films. Well, according to Wikipedia.

nortonhouse · 20/11/2015 21:05

I found Will Richardson quite fanciable, myself... Wink
Both hearings this week were fascinating. CB's personality and machinations have been more fully revealed, and none of it is nice.

MrsJamin · 21/11/2015 16:56

The Telegraph have just published a new article today. Some of it seems to be the last cap trap about CB's past, can't we move on from these myths to show how she basically blackmailed the government.? I wonder whether her pr team wrote this as a press release, it certainly reads like one, for the most part.

nortonhouse · 21/11/2015 18:14

I had to quit reading the Telegraph article partway through - it's shocking. It is very obviously a PR move following on the two very damaging Parliamentary hearings about KC of the last week. As MrsJasmin points out, it's just a recycling of the old (many proven untrue) CB myths. Just remember who owns and publishes the Telegraph. One suspects this was commissioned by No 10, written by a hired flack, etc etc.

merrymouse · 21/11/2015 18:20

The article also blames everything on Alan Yentob and the board. Very obvious plant.

MrsJamin · 21/11/2015 21:20

Indeed, it tries to repaint her as the Saint again... Why should we believe the lies again?

nortonhouse · 21/11/2015 22:35

sorry - MrsJamin not MrsJasmin Blush

MrsJamin · 22/11/2015 07:48

Thanks for you apology, no need tho, people always seem to misread it as mrsjasmin!
Just read an amusing article from the guardian painting letwin as a martyred saint.
I'm still annoyed about that Telegraph article. What utter bollocks.

HouseOfMouse · 22/11/2015 08:01

There is a piece in the Mail on Sunday saying that she got her mother to sit the Sherbourne entrance exam for her. No idea what to believe at this stage.

Wolpertinger · 22/11/2015 08:12

That's the Mail rehashing her Telegraph interview - she admits it herself and seems to think it's a good point about her Confused

MrsJamin · 22/11/2015 08:30

Yeah, why on earth did she say that?

HouseOfMouse · 22/11/2015 08:37

Sorry - I hadn't read the Telegraph article (although I have now - seems I have got it wrong and she is Saint Camila after all, silly me). But I thought the exam thing reads like one of the many myths of her childhood, so who knows if it's true. Though for someone who has supposedly had a vocation to help children since she was a child herself, she has never said why that would lead her to take a drama degree rather than something that might help the vocation.

merrymouse · 22/11/2015 09:41

There is also an implication that Warwick were both very open to students with non standard a-level results when she applied and were ahead of their time in allowing alternative assessment methods for pupils with SNs in the 1980's.

WhoTheFuckIsSimon · 22/11/2015 09:47

Surely Sherborne would have noticed an adult rather than a child sitting the entrance exam?

I don't think she has much of a grasp on reality.

hackmum · 22/11/2015 10:32

I read the Mail article first, then the Telegraph one. I'm absolutely gobsmacked that the Telegraph article just mentions the Sherborne exam fraud in passing as if it's a trivial detail, when actually it tells you everything you need to know about the woman. Perhaps the Telegraph assumes its readers are so used to committing school fraud that it wouldn't bother them? Am I unusual in thinking, Actually, No, it's not acceptable for a parent to sit their child's entrance exam for them?

The Telegraph piece also uncritically recycles all that stuff about endocrinological disorders and learning disabilities and winning the art competition at 9. Didn't it even occur to the Telegraph journalist to wonder how someone so lacking in spatial sense that stairs look flat to her could show that degree of artistic ability?

As for the story about the bus driver shouting out in support of her, I call bullshit on that one.

hackmum · 22/11/2015 10:35

In fact, my guess is that 90% of that Telegraph article is untrue. Just utter nonsense. Stuff about standing her ground against people wielding knives...come off it, please. The journalist hasn't even done the bare minimum of fact-checking for a piece like this.

MissHooliesCardigan · 22/11/2015 10:37

She's still claiming to be a psychotherapist. Thank God she never had children. Can you imagine how much therapy they'd need?

Auntpodder · 22/11/2015 14:06

In those days (early 80s?) I can imagine it would be quite acceptable for a school to post the entrance exam for overseas candidates. Can quite imagine my own boarding school having a similarly laissez faire attitude. Few girls boarding schools were particularly academic those days. Less acceptable would be a mother cheating but I suspect CB has a tenuous hold on reality. I do know of at least one kid who was helped by KC - but would put that down to an excellent case worker who probably kept him at arms length from CB.

LarrytheCucumber · 22/11/2015 16:05

One of the problems in this country, and the reason the children’s sector hasn’t really improved since Victorian times, is because those who deliver services don’t challenge the civil servants Does she really believe that the children's sector hasn't improved since Victorian times? Shock

goddessofsmallthings · 25/11/2015 21:47

There's an amusing piece on p.32 of the Eye today. As I don't have a scanner hand I'm typing it out here:

Those brand-new revived classic BBC sitcoms in full
The Good Life
BBC execs opt out of the real world and decide instead to dig up their archive and recycle some old hits in the hope that they can live off them without having to do proper job.
Keeping Up Appearances
BBC execs try to keep up with the neighbours on ITV by keeping up the number of appearances on old formats.
Porridge
BBC exec wakes up in middle of night worrying about being sent down for his role in children's charity. Imagine!
Are You Being Served
Public asked whether BBC execs are providing a good service by commissioning endless old sitcoms. (That's enough of this. Ed.)

Could this be another example of Private Eye's prescience?

nauticant · 03/12/2015 11:33

Yentob's gone:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34993979

Took his time. I wonder how much pressure they had to apply to shift that vast ego from his place?

BoreOfWhabylon · 03/12/2015 11:41

Good.

Not a word of apology or any acknowledgment of his part in the whole sorry business though.

We3KingyOfOblomovAre · 03/12/2015 12:32

Is there going to be a proper investigation? Probably not. David Cameron, among others, is up to his neck in it.

MissHooliesCardigan · 03/12/2015 12:35

So is nothing going to happen to CB? I still think she should be changed with fraud. It won't happen though.

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