Kids Company founder says charity wrongly tarnished as part of ‘smear campaign’ against David Cameron

Camila Batmanghelidjh claims Dominic Cummings ‘briefed against’ her organisation

(GETTY IMAGES)

The founder of disbanded children’s charity Kids Company has claimed the organisation was the victim of a “smear campaign” aimed at former prime minister David Cameron.

Camila Batmanghelidjh alleged former Vote Leave campaign director Dominic Cummings was among those briefing against Kids Company as the charity came under “ferocious attack” over its finances in 2015.

“I personally think it was a smear campaign and I think there were two targets,” she told she told BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour.

“One is I believe David Cameron because he was seen to have chosen us as big society and I think the Brexit team wanted to discredit him, because I don’t understand why Dominic Cummings, whom we had never met, was briefing against us in 2015.”

“And I think another bit was campaigning for child protection issues … I believe there is a propensity to slightly silence charities when they campaign forcefully on an issue that the government doesn’t have the capacity to address.”

Ms Batmanghelidjh was speaking in her first interview since a High Court judge ruled earlier this month that she and former trustees of the charity should not be barred from holding directorships.

Mrs Justice Falk rejected a claim by the Official Receiver (OR) that Ms Batmanghelidjh and seven board members were “unfit” to hold office as a result of their handling of the organisation’s finances.

The High Court judge added that Kids Company, which supported young people in London and Bristol, might not have been wound up in 2015 were it not for “unfounded allegations” of child abuse at the charity.

Before its closure, Kids Company had received government grants and was publicly backed by figures such as Mr Cameron as part of his “big society” agenda to boost charitable groups.

Camila Batmanghelidjh attends ‘big society’ meeting at No 10 in 2010 (PA)

Ms Batmanghelidjh singled out Michael Gove for criticism over the charity’s treatment – accusing him of abandoning the charity after initial praise.

“I think Michael Gove was really disingenuous, because I have a letter from him to someone saying that Kids Company’s an inspiration and the country should be proud of it and this is 2014,” she recalled.

“By 2015 he was saying he never wanted Kids Co funded … and I find it very difficult when people change colours.

“Not a single professional politician, not a single governing body stood up and said what is happening to these children is completely out of order and we have to stop it.”

Asked if Mr Gove owed her an apology, Ms Batmanghelidjh said Mr Gove, then-Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin and others in government should say sorry to children who lost out as a result of the charity’s closure.

“I can live without Michael Gove’s apology,” she told the BBC. “But the staff and the children are owed an apology from Michael Gove, Oliver Letwin … all these people who promised that they were going to help us resolve the fact that children were pouring in through our doors.”