A recent ITV documentary Exposure – Charities Behaving Badly focussed on three organisations enjoying charity status supported by, or supporting racists, and the inability of the Charity Commission to close them down.

Using covert filming by undercover operators the programme makers first looked at The Steadfast Trust, an organisation that promotes British nationalism and that has been infiltrated by racists from the far Right, shown chanting Neo-Nazi slogans, and discussing a mixed-race couple with their child as “that geezer with the f****** n***** wife and their n***** kid” The Steadfast Trust has since lost its charity registration as the Commission “does not regard it as a charity”. Continue reading →

Four halal slaughter men have had their operating licences suspended after Animal Aid covertly filmed a catalogue of vicious cruelty at Bowood Lamb abattoir, Thirsk, North Yorkshire.

Under current British law all animals must be humanely stunned before their throats are cut, to minimise suffering. However our Government allows controversial exemptions for some religious slaughter, such as halal, an aspect that many feel is putting political correctness before compassion. Continue reading →

A charity worker who had won a string of awards for he voluntary contribution to society killed herself after abuse from her neighbours in Wythenshaw, Manchester, an inquest has heard.

St John Ambulance volunteer Kimberley Lindfield, 27, had complained to housing officials in 2012 about the loud music being played by neighbours, who then did it deliberately and shouted at her that she was a “grass”, the prison term for an informer. She was admitted to Wythenshaw Hospital in July 2012 with a suspected medication overdose and found hanging the same day. She was cut down but died six days later.

A Florida animal welfare charity, Save our Seabirds (SOS) has revealed that one of the birds it now cares for is a brown pelican that has to be hand-fed since a fisherman condemned it to starve by catching it and cutting off its upper mandible “because it was eating too many of my fish”.

The charity also cares for a number of herons, ducks, gulls and storks injured by monofilament fishing line, thoughtlessly discarded by fishermen.

Meanwhile unwanted mullet caught by seasonal fishermen and then dumped overboard are washed up to litter and cause a fishy stench on some of Florida’s best beaches. The red roes (eggs) of the female mullet are a highly prized food delicacy in many countries and worth five times the white roes (sperm) of the male. So caring fishermen slice the mullet they catch open to check the colour of the roe and then throw the males back into the sea.

A number of individuals have recently been convicted of stealing, or attempting to steal, substantial sums of money from charities.

• In December Richard Shepherd, 26, was jailed for a year after he abused his position as finance assistant at the Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, Rotherham to steal £20,000 donated to help terminally ill children through their last months.

• In January Ann Yaman, 64, was jailed for four years after she abused her position as treasurer of a trust that ran a rural charity bus service in Bentham, North Yorks, and treasurer of a youth cafe in the town. She stole a total of £310,000, forcing the bus service into liquidation with the loss of 15 jobs and delayed her sentencing by forging letters from doctors claiming she was too ill to attend court.

• Also in January solicitor Richard Caplan,62, was jailed for two years and eight months, and struck off, for attempting to defraud the National Library for the Blind out of £200,000 of the £305,000 left to them in a will for which Caplan was the trusted executor, and which he altered to perpetrate the fraud.

Bethany Mackie,18, was jailed for five years for her drink-driving causing the death of charity cyclist and father of three Christian Smith,38, last March as he neared the end of a 28-mile ride through Kent and Sussex for mental health charity Mind.

Mackie, who pleaded guilty, was driving her car at up to 76 mph on a 60mph road when she smashed into the back of Mr Smith’s bicycle, and only pulled over and stopped when she was 500 yards up the road.

Suggs, the frontman for the Madness band, was inspired to raise money to fight pancreatic cancer after losing a much-loved sister-in-law to the disease in 2012, he has said.

A London charity gala is being hosted in March by the singer, his third, to add to the £200,000 he has already raised for Pancreatic Cancer UK.

Pancreatic cancer, the least survivable form, killed 8,662 people in the UK in 2012.

The NSPCC, in conjunction with the Royal College of GPs (RCGPs) has issued guidelines to doctors to help them spot signs of cyber-bullying, as well as trafficking and female genital mutilation (FGM).

The move comes as a doubling in the number of children experiencing cyber-bullying, up to 35% from 16% last year, is suggested by a poll of 2,000 11-17 year olds and 2,000 adults by internet security company McAfee. Just as worrying is that 67% of children went online unsupervised and that only 27% of parents said they were worried about their children becoming victims. Continue reading →

World Animal Protection have launched a campaign to end bear baiting in Pakistan.

This illegal entertainment involves tethering a bear that has had its teeth and claws removed to render it helpless, and having it attacked by trained fighting dogs. Like illegal dog fighting and illegal fox and stag hunting in the UK, and legal bull fighting in Spain the point of it is for those who optimistically classify themselves as human beings to take pleasure from something being hurt and/or killed. Continue reading →