In January Guido reported on Jolyon Maugham’s bizarre campaign backing a Judicial Review against the Charity Commission, which had refused to retract the conclusions of its report into the (now defunct) disgraced charity Kids Company. The judgment is out and it’s bad news for Jolyon as the High Court “dismisses” his challenge on all but two minor points…
Those two points relate to:
The Charity Commission has put out a punchy statement this afternoon which confirms it is “clear that the overall findings of our report were not ‘irrational.’” It said the “High Court judgment has upheld our finding of mismanagement of the charity’s finances and has confirmed that it was based on “ample evidence.'” It adds “firmly rejected allegations we predetermined the outcome of the inquiry, stating the threshold for this was ‘not met in this case by a wide margin.’“ That won’t stop the fox-beater…
Despite the action being dismissed on all but these two points, Jolyon is still claiming his Good Law Project has “won” its case against the Charity Commission. Things work differently on Planet Jolyon…
Jolyon’s latest bizarre campaign is to support action against the Charity Commission (his new favourite enemy), which has refused to retract the conclusions of its report into the old disgraced charity Kids Company. The Good Law Project says it is supporting a Judicial Review into the collapse of the scandal-hit charity “to fully restore its reputation.” This is despite its CEO, Camila Batmanghelidjh, having died a year ago…
Over 19 years Kids Company – once a favourite of King Charles – attracted £115 million in donations from Richard Branson, Coldplay, JK Rowling, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and others. It also hoovered up £40 million of taxpayers’ cash before collapsing in the summer of 2015…
Sceptical questions about the charity were first asked in investigative journalist Miles Goslett’s groundbreaking investigation for the Spectator. He also told of how BBC boss and Kids Company trustee Alan Yentob secretly lobbied Treasury officials over an unpaid £689,000 employment tax bill which the charity had clocked up. In the end, £589,000 of the debt was secretly written off – at the taxpayer’s expense…
Goslett also revealed Batmanghelidjh had a chauffeur and a personal private swimming pool in a £5,000-a-month mansion – paid for from charity funds. BuzzFeed/BBC reporters Alan White and Chris Cook looked into the charity too, reporting the alleged sexual abuse of its clients. In a 2022 judgment that baffled many the High Court found that allegations of Kids Company’s financial mismanagement were unfounded. The Good Law Project is supporting a hare-brained effort to force the Charity Commission to “abandon its criticisms of Kids Company’s trustees” in a report which found it repeatedly failed to pay tax and its workers. It may go the way of some of his other noble efforts…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”