A whistleblower at beleaguered charity Kids Company has claimed that more than £10,000 disappeared and was never followed up.
The psychotherapist claims that the alleged theft was indicative of the “chaos” characterising the office of the children’s charity overseen by founder Camila Batmanghelidjh.
It is the latest allegation against the organisation which has seen its once polished reputation irredeemably tarnished in the course of a week, alongside the spectacular fall of its founder Ms Batmanghelidjh, a woman once celebrated by politicians and celebrities.
On Friday it emerged that major Tory donor James Lupton took meetings with Ms Batmanghelidjh in order to lobby the government for extra funds for the charity, but Mr Lupton denied he had played any role in the decision to award the charity £3 million against the advice of civil servants.
The psychotherapist, who is not being named, claimed to The Daily Telegraph that the police had been called over the disappearance of at least £10,000 from the charity’s finance department in the spring of 2012 but that no-one had been arrested.
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He alleged that many working for the Urban Academy in Southwark – one of the charity’s main centres – at the time suspected the involvement of one individual, a frequent guest of the charity, but their concerns were never taken forward.
“Someone said they saw him on the fifth floor at six o’clock, which is a floor which is rarely used.
“That night just over £10,000 in cash went missing from the finance department. I know that a good proportion of this money is from donors but a significant portion is public money.”
He alleged the incident had been caught on CCTV but despite raising his concerns with senior figures “nothing ever came of it”.
“I don’t know whether any effort was made to inform the police just how much Kids Company actually knew - but everyone knew it was him and nothing came of it,” he claimed to the Telegraph.
Ms Batmanghelidjh claimed to have known nothing about the alleged theft, but said that she would investigate with the finance department.
Kids Company did not return requests for comment when contacted. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told The Independent that they were investigating the logging of the alleged theft.
