Kids Company 'Part of critical report was unfair'

PART of a Charity Commission report into the collapsed charity Kids Company was "extremely unfair", a High Court judge has said.

- Jess GLASS

In February 2022, the regulator published a report into the management of the charity after it went into liquidation in August 2015 following unfounded safeguarding allegations.

The charity had six Bristol centres, including its main office in Silver Street.

It also helped children at six schools in deprived areas of the city and across the country.

It previously attracted celebrity backers including former prime minister Lord David Cameron, Coldplay and artist Damien Hirst.

The commission's report said the charity had operated a "high-risk business model" and that there was mismanagement in relation to late payments.

At a hearing in March, the charity's former clinical director Michael-Karim Kerman brought a legal challenge to have the report declared unlawful, while the Charity Commission defended the claim.

In a judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Sheldon said two paragraphs from the report were "irrational" but dismissed the rest of the challenge.

One of the paragraphs related to the so-called "top 25", the beneficiaries who received the largest amounts of financial assistance from Kids Company.

Mr Justice Sheldon said there was an innuendo in the Charity Commission report that these payments may have been problematic.