The charity Kids Company is under so much pressure that some people are starting to worry about its outgoing chief executive, Camila Batmanghelidjh.
Recent reports of financial mismanagement published in The Spectator and elsewhere have contributed to Batmanghelidjh being forced to quit her £90,000 post, which she has promised to vacate by October 31, but uncomfortable questions remain: last week, a sex abuse investigation into the charity was launched by police.
In the small hours of yesterday morning I was sent, anonymously, a series of emails sent from Kids Company employee accounts over the last month. Some are written by Batmanghelidjh and provide an insight into how she is dealing with the revelations which have rocked the organisation she founded in 1996.
People who have worked at the charity in the past have advised me to publish these emails as widely as possible and as quickly as possible, even though they were never intended to be read by anybody outside of Kids Company.
They say my personal safety would be at less risk if I did so and, after careful thought, I have decided they are right.
The public interest is also overwhelming.
The emails show that of all the journalists who have written or broadcast about Kids Company this year, Camila Batmanghelidjh has singled out for criticism me and some of my recent reports about Kids’ Company published in The Spectator, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday.
According to Batmanghelidjh, whom I have never met, the stories I have written over the last 6 months show that my ‘capacity for fantasy is very well-developed’; my ‘psychological abilities need a little bit more development’; my ‘capacity for fiction is very amateurish’ and I am acting ‘irresponsibly’.
It’s been pointed out to me that even though as far as I am concerned Batmanghelidjh’s opinions on this topic...
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