The suicide of poppy-seller Olive Cooke in Bristol in May this year has highlighted the aggressive fundraising tactics used by some charities, and prompted new laws to be drafted to stop the abuses.

Ms Cooke, 92, was a generous donor to and worker for charities and was accordingly targeted to be bombarded with direct mail and cold telephone calls, from her name being on lists of likely donors bought from list brokers by the charities and given to direct marketing companies. Continue reading →

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that a widow broke the law by leaving her entire £489,000 estate to animal welfare charities and nothing to her daughter, to spite her.

Melita Jackson died in 2004 and, due to disagreements over her daughter Heather Ilott’s choice of husband, and the naming of one of the five children she had, left instructions that all her money should be given to the Blue Cross, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). Her daughter Heather was to get nothing, and all attempts by her to claim anything were to be robustly resisted by the charities. Continue reading →

The National Association of People Abused in Childhood claim that they are in touch with more than 30 police officers who were ordered not to investigate allegations of child abuse against VIP men. According to chief executive Peter Saunders there is “a history of cover ups”.

Meanwhile a former brothel-keeper who says that former PM Sir Edward Heath was one of her VIP customers, and that she escaped a prosecution by threatening to expose him, allegations that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is now looking into. Continue reading →

Bowood Farms Ltd, which ran a halal abattoir in Thirsk, Yorkshire where sheep were cruelly treated for fun before being slaughtered, has ceased trading. (The Business Desk)

The move comes six months after charity Animal Aid released secretly-filmed footage of the cruelty to the Food Standards Agency, who started an investigation with a view to prosecution. The company has collapsed and all fifty staff have been made redundant.

Our government currently allows halal slaughter in the UK, where animals are not stunned before their throats are cut, for fear of offending religious sensibilities.

Children’s charity Kids Company ceased trading on Wednesday August 5 after 20 years, and funding by taxpayers money of £37 million.

Its founder, the colourful Camila Batmangheldidih was recently forced to step down as its chief executive when the Cabinet Office refused to approve another £3 million of public funding unless she did, amid concerns about how the charity was being run by her, and how taxpayer’s money was being spent. Continue reading →

A government plan to effectively bring back fox-hunting in England and Wales has been put on hold. This was an amendment to the Hunting Act to allow foxes to be flushed out with a pack of dogs, rather than just the two allowed, before the fox was shot. The planned vote on the issue has now been postponed.

The shelving of the vote, which has enraged all the mostly-Tory MP’s supporting hunting, was made after the Scottish National Party broke their pledge not to vote on matters that did not affect Scotland and vowed to destroy the government’s likely tiny majority on the issue by voting against them. Continue reading →

Meanwhile other killers of animals for pleasure are facing widespread disgust, condemnation, censure and calls for their punishment after Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, paid more than £30,000 to impale a tagged national park lion in Zimbabwe with a crossbow. The animal, well-known to tourists as Cecil, was only wounded by the impalement and had to be tracked for two days before being killed with rifles, skinned and then beheaded so that Palmer could take a trophy back to America.

Since the senseless killing, other brave American hunters have been exposed, including Jan Seski, the director of gynaecologic oncology at Allegheny Hospital, Pittsburg, who has also impaled a lion and several elephants with a crossbow in Zimbabwe, and Sabrina Corgatelli, a senior accountant from Idaho University who proudly posts pictures of herself in South Africa with dead giraffes and other animals on her website, with comments about the extreme happiness she feels after making the kills. Continue reading →

A 75 year-old female volunteer has been sacked from the hospice shop where she worked free for 30 years, because she was uncomfortable about using technology in the form of the computer and the till.

Three other women who supported Jane Brooks at the Dovehouse shop at Cottingham, near Hull, and had put in a combined 40 years free service, were also sacked by the charity’s chief executive, Anna Wolkowski. Continue reading →

The launch of a beer brand into pubs could generate £1.5 million for Prostate Cancer UK.

The Two Fingers Brewing Company, which was set up two years ago and which gives all its profits to the charity, hopes to get a pub distribution deal for its flagship craft brew, Aurelio, of which more than 80,000 bottles were sold in 2014. Currently it is available in some supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons.

Prostate cancer affects one in eight men in Britain, say the charity.