A speaker who had been banned from speaking at the University of East Anglia for calling homosexuality “a filthy disease” was subsequently unknowingly hired by a charity, Global Aid Trust, to speak at a fund-raising party on a Thames boat, where he was covertly filmed making anti-Semitic claims by a BBC documentary camera crew.

The documentary, Exposure – Charities Behaving Badly, showed speaker Dawah Man telling his audience that countries and bankers were “controlled by Zionists”, and that “Anytime there is an English or American invasion of Muslim lands it is all a problem coming back to the children of Israel” The film also showed Man asking the Global Aid Trust representatives on the boat for some pre-speaking guidance on what he was there to talk about, and what not to talk about, and getting none.

Global Aid Trust – slogan “Working for a better globe” – apologised to its supporters and said that the error in booking the speaker was ” a process failure” Since the incident the event organiser responsible for booking speakers, an inexperienced 19 year old who said that he was given no guidance on how to check out speakers, has parted company, along with his supervisor, with Global Aid Trust. And the charity’s CEO – who was also a trustee – and the person ultimately responsible for the mess has since “stepped down”.

Could this happen in your organisation?