An unholy row has erupted after an oversight body slammed the Charity Commission for failing whistleblowers who exposed sexual exploitation and child sex abuse in Christian charities.
An investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman uncovered “significant injustice” and “maladministration” in how the Charity Commission handled complaints about two very different charities purporting to do God’s work.
Internal documents seen by The Upsetter show the Charity Commission:
failed to investigate allegations of domestic and overseas abuse
treated complaints with “a lack of openness and transparency”
is not keeping a record of its decision making
destroyed documents of allegations it did not investigate
downgrades “high risk” cases because of “resource considerations”
The Ombudsman wants the Charity Commission to carry out an independent review of safeguarding, risk assessment and how it communicates with complainants after two whistleblowers raised concerns.
A spokesperson for the Ombudsman said: “The Charity Commission failed to properly handle concerns regarding serious safeguarding issues of sexual exploitation and child sex abuse at two separate charities”.
Normally, recommendations by the Ombudsman are accepted, but the Charity Commission tried to stop publication of the reports.
When that didn’t work, last month it launched a legal claim against the Ombudsman for acting outside its power.
The Ombudsman responded by invoking what a source there said was a “very rare” power to request Parliament to compel the Charity Commission to comply with the reports’ recommendations, including apologising and paying compensation to whistleblowers Lara Hall and Damian Murray.
Lara Hall’s struggle to expose Essex-based charity boss Wilson Chowdhry, who sexually exploited her, was first revealed in The Upsetter almost two years ago here.
Chowdhry, 49, is a married father of three who during Easter likes to dress up as Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head, fake blood and a cross on his back which he drags through the streets.
The security company boss bombarded Hall, 35, with misogynist texts, sexual images of himself and demands for oral sex that ended with a rape allegation but no prosecution.
Hall feels misled by the Charity Commission, who claimed Chowdhry’s charity would be closed down.
Instead, after he resigned, the charity was renamed and allowed to continue soliciting public donations under the management of his wife and ex-business associates, while he lurked nearby.
Damian Murray, the second whistleblower, had complained to the Charity Commission about the concealment of sexual abuse at a Catholic school he attended in the 1970s.
The school was run by a charity of Marist priests some of whom groomed and sexually abused pupils, including Murray.
The department of education has accepted the Ombudsman’s criticism and apologised to Murray for its failures, but the Charity Commission refuses.
The permanent secretary at the department of culture and a committee of MPs have been briefed about the bellicose stance taken by the Charity Commission’s outgoing boss, Helen Stephenson CBE and chairman Orlando Fraser.
Pauline Latham OBE, Tory MP for mid-Derbyshire, called the refusal to comply “astonishing.”
Latham is doing her best to ensure the Charity Commission is hauled before the Public Administration Committee if it continues to resist. The MP said:
Lara [Hall] first reached out to me following the Oxfam scandal in 2018, during which senior staff at the charity covered up widespread sexual exploitation in Haiti. I was involved in questioning charity bosses as part of my role on the International Development Committee.
As well as surviving abuse at the hands of a UK charity boss, Lara suffered further injustice from an inept Charity Commission investigation. I urge the Commission to rethink its response.”
Ombudsman Rebecca Hilsenrath said it is “important that the Commission apologises for its mistakes and reassures [both whistleblowers] that it will put things right. We invite the Commission to work with us to ensure that nobody else has to endure a similar experience in the future.”
The pressure appears to have paid off, at least in part, as the Charity Commission has begun an embarrassing climb down following a tense meeting with the permanent secretary and Hilsenrath.
On 14 May, the threat of a judicial review at the High Court was withdrawn and the Charity Commission agreed to accept criticisms of how it handled Hall’s complaint, apologise and pay her compensation.
However, it is refusing to do the same over Murray’s case, which impacts on the Roman Catholic Church.
Murray, a retired district auditor, has identified a troubling conflict of interest between the Charity Commission and its oversight of Catholic charities.
One of its board members is a consultant lawyer and former partner of the very law firm that represents the Marist fathers and the wider Roman Catholic Church.
Murray, now 65, told The Upsetter:
“This tortuously extended process has uncovered the worryingly close personal and organisational relationships actively fostered and maintained between the UK Roman Catholic Church and the Charity Commission. It has revealed the Commission to be unaccountable, intransigent, incompetent and completely unfit for purpose.”
Hall, a qualified lawyer from Australia, said:
“What does one have to do to be regarded as unfit to run a charity? I used to think charity meant something and being on the register is meant to be some sort of surety of benevolence, but it isn't.
“I think the whole charity system is broken and open to exploitation, with a watchdog as abysmal as this and as willing to turn a blind eye to impropriety. It’s grotesque. I call on Parliament to hold the Commission to account. Vulnerable people should feel safe reporting their concerns.”