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Alex Goodman KC represented the Claimant Mr Kerman in his judicial review of the Charity Commission report. He was substituted for the original claimant Camila Batmanghelidjh. Natasha Jackson acted for Mr Kerman with Alex at earlier stages of the case.
Mr. Justice Sheldon held that conclusions in the Charity Commission’s inquiry report into the collapse of Kids Company were "extremely unfair”, “unbalanced and one-sided”, “irrational" and consequently unlawful. It is the first time a claim for judicial review of a Charity Commission Report has been allowed on irrationality grounds.
The judgment is the third of three investigations which have now vindicated Kids Company, its trustees, and its late Director Camila Batmanghelidjh.
The Charity closed in 2015 after allegations of abuse were made which as the Police confirmed after a six-month investigation, were all unfounded. Kids Company was next investigated by the Official Receiver which lost a 33-day trial against the trustees before Mrs Justice Falk in 2021 (in which Natasha Jackson represented Ms Batmanghelidjh), its conduct being criticised in a 900-paragraph judgment. The Charity Commission published its report in 2022. That report was the subject of this judicial review. The judge, in allowing the claim for judicial review criticised “unbalanced and one-sided” innuendos by the Charity Commission about how Kids Company prioritised its spending and declared the Charity Commission was “irrational” in its criticism of the trustees' approach to reserves, with both of these unlawful statements also directly contradicting the judgment of Mrs. Justice Falk[1].
Kids Company was founded by Ms Batmanghelidjh in 1996. Kids Company worked with the “most vulnerable children and youth in the UK” with its clients experiencing “severe developmental adversity, being exposed to food insecurity, poverty, poor housing, violence and social exclusion, abuse and substance misuse, low educational and employment aspirations, domestic maltreatment and unstable home environments”.
A copy of the judgment may be accessed here.
This case has been reported in the press here.
[1] See paragraphs 115, 117, 121-122, 125 of the judgment of Sheldon J.
