The Oxfam Whistleblower: 'My life changed forever after I did that story'

Welcome to the second episode of the Parrhesia Tapes, a series dedicated to amplifying the voices of whistleblowers and shedding light on the vital work needed across various sectors and institutions.

Welcome to the second episode of the Parrhesia Tapes, an enlightening series where we shine a light on the unsung heroes and hidden truths within various sectors. In this thought-provoking episode titled we're joined by the courageous Helen Evans, who whilst working as the Global Head of Safeguarding at Oxfam uncovered systemic abuse within the aid sector both in the UK and further afield. Taking a survivor-centred approach, she unveiled systemic abuse on a global scale within the aid sector and called for urgent reform and accountability.

Adding depth to our discussion, we have Professor Dean from Sheffield Hallam University, an esteemed academic whose research inclines towards the imbalance of power within charitable organisations. Professor Dean's insights help us understand the complex dynamics that allow such systemic issues to persist and what it takes to initiate change. 

This video is not just an episode; it's a call to action—a beacon for transparency and integrity within the humanitarian aid sector.  If you're moved by the content of this video, we encourage you to engage further. Share your thoughts in the comments below, hit the 'Like' button to support our mission, and don't forget to subscribe to stay updated with the series. Together, we can bring about the change that is so desperately needed. 

Let's spread awareness and make a difference—one view, one share, one discussion at a time. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Natasha: Thank you for tuning in to the second episode of Parrhesia Tapes, a series which elevates the voices of whistleblowers, discusses the challenges they faced, and addresses the changes that need to be made within institutions on both a national and international scale. My name is Natasha Lovel, I'm the project officer at Parrhesia and co-host of this series.

Through my advocacy work and academic career in applied human rights, I have had the chance to work with extraordinary individuals who speak up for the rights of others, even at great personal risk, which is the exact definition of Parrhesia. This episode will be joined by Helen Evans, the former Global Head of Safeguarding at Oxfam, who through taking a survivor centred approach, uncovered systemic abuse within the aid sector, in which vulnerable people on both an international and national scale had been exploited.

Since blowing the whistle, she'd made pioneering changes to the sector, and calls for further regulation of larger charities. Helen will be joined by Professor Jon Dean from the Department of Psychology, Sociology, and Politics at Sheffield Hallam University, whose most recent book, The Good Glow, Charity and the Symbolic Power of Doing Good, addresses the symbolic power of charity and how the halo effect of philanthropy can detract from the problems within the sector.

I'll now pass over to my co host Martin Bright. In his long career as a journalist, he has had significant experience supporting whistleblowers in breaking their stories.

[00:01:37] Martin: As Natasha said, I've worked with lots of whistleblowers and I'm always intrigued by the point at which someone moves from being an employee, an ordinary person, an anonymous person, often, to blowing the whistle. How did that happen for you? 

[00:01:56] Helen: For me, there's a very particular point in time when that sort of psychological contract was broken with my employer.

I was due to present to the chief executive and his management team on a report where we had surveyed 120 people working for Oxfam, asked them to what extent they'd witnessed or experienced sexual exploitation and abuse, and over 10 percent were answering yes. And in one of the country programmes, 7 percent said that in respect of rape and alleged rape and attempted rape.

And I was due to speak and about half an hour before the meeting was told, I was no longer needed. And I remember that point and this had been, oh gosh, it was nearly two, three years of, raising concerns, bringing it to attention. I always thought they just need more evidence here it was there.

I was on the agenda and to be told I was no longer needed. And then when I followed up and said, You know why? I was told that the report I produced was sufficient, it had given them all the information they needed and clearly I had it in hand. And that for me was the moment when I thought I can't take this any further within this organisation.

[00:03:13] Martin: Can I ask you at that point, why you didn't accept what they were saying, because that's another, I think, important indicator of the whistleblowing experience is that at that point you could have said, okay, fair enough. you're right. I'm part of this corporate, I'm part of this corporate body and in my role, I accept what you say.

Why did you not accept? 

[00:03:39] Helen: There was a voice of a young man I was talking to in my head at that particular time. There were many people who had trusted me with their disclosures and had been brave enough to raise their concerns. Some people coming from countries where to do so put their lives at risk. In this case, at that particular time, I was talking to a young man and I didn't want to let him down.

And I think when you are speaking to survivors and when they've been brave enough to trust you, you've then got to be brave enough to speak up for them. And I couldn't let it go for that very very, simple reason. So my first step was to take it to the Board of Trustees, and, that was a frustrating and disappointing experience, just being candid, and there was a commitment to having some form of strategic review, very vague, and I was left with absolutely no confidence, and actually, when the Charity Commission investigated Oxfam, that never happened, as I strongly suspected. 

And I waited and I waited, at this point I'd left the organisation and I was hearing that nothing was happening. So I, it was a few months later I took it to the Charity Commission as the regulator of charities. And I remember that moment when I produced the email. Clicked send.

I thought this is it. And, I was thinking, gosh, what's going to happen next. Will it be the next hour waiting for that phone call? Nothing. And the next day I thought, Oh, probably because it's such a big thing to phrase. They're probably escalating it, raising it with senior managers, next day, nothing.

and then eventually I got a sort of, a couple of lines back. What did they say? Thank you for raising this concern, we'll look into it pretty much. They did not invite me in for interview, and then when I started to push back and say, what are you doing? It just became incredibly evident that they were not going to take this seriously.

I'd add things that the Charity Commission have improved dramatically since then. This was in 2015, but at that point, they, as I understand it, had some cursory exchanges with Oxfam and things carried on. 

[00:06:01] Martin: And these are really serious concerns, right? You're not, talking about, minor complaints. You're talking about some serious potential crimes here.

[00:06:15] Helen: Absolutely. We're talking about systemic sexual exploitation and abuse perpetrated by aid workers on a global scale. And I was also raising concerns about the risk to children in charity shops because shop managers at that time were not being DBS checked.

And yes, it is extraordinary to think that that wasn't identified as a very serious and significant concern that warranted further attention. I think at that point in time, the Charity Commission took the view of criminal matters were there for the police to investigate and as long as an organisation had a policy and was following some sort of process, that was sufficient.

But this was pre-MeToo. And I think at that point, understanding wasn't there in the way it should be. And I think things then shifted. But at that point, I think they saw it through that lens. 

[00:07:11] Martin: And at this point, are we talking about simply the wash through from this initial survey. Had there, was there any indication that any of this was going to be investigated beyond that

[00:07:25] Helen: 

That was the survey I took to highlight the scale. That year there'd been 39 allegations which had been investigated and the vast majority of those upheld, there was clear evidence. of cases where we had concluded that the abuse had taken place, and then clear evidence of the scale of under-reporting.

And you have to ask, what at that point stopped the organisation from taking this seriously? Oxfam's response to this day, and I would hasten to add Oxfam has made significant improvements, and where they were and where they are now are two very different places. They would say they were slow to respond, because at that point in the sector, I was one of a few of Global Heads of Safeguarding, they'd put some resource, but just to put this into context, I was funded for three days, then four days a week.

and you're looking at 90 country programs, 4000 staff, 20,000 volunteers and the counter fraud team had five full time staff. So if you look at that balance of focus, five full time staff to look after the money and the risk of fraud, and not even one full time person focused on safeguarding.

[00:08:42] Natasha: And those disclosures stay with you. I think that's really key as well. and obviously we'll discuss later about the response from the press, and how it catches public attention and the specific way it did. But that's gone, and that stays with you for such a long time, and I think the longevity of the case and the fact that you were drawing upon this for such a long period of time, I think it's really key to draw out as well.

And I'm sure that we'll discuss that later with the press response but yeah, I don't know if you want to speak to that. 

[00:09:07] Helen: Absolutely. I think those survivor stories keep you going. And, so I took it to the Charity Commission at that point, they didn't take it forward, I took it to my MP, still didn't get traction, and it wasn't until a journalist, Sean O'Neill at the Times, broke the story in the Press.

That I then spoke publicly and went back to the charity commission. But it's so sad, isn't it? That it needed to get to the Press for action to be taken when I had gone through all the bodies that were there that were meant to be the safeguards to ensure these types of things didn't happen. But those survivor stories

stay with you and keep you motivated because you never forget them and when times are tough you just think but how much harder is it for the people who've had to experience abuse and it pales insignificant the sacrifices you have to make as a whistleblower. 

[00:10:03] Natasha: It's a luxury of distance, isn't it?

You're the person that's having to be there on, on basically a personal level as the head of operations and safeguarding, and speaking to each individual. That stays with you. But when you're reporting it to different people, they can feel distanced and detached from the stories that you're telling.

and yeah, the fact that it didn't actually go to the press, until later, I think if you'd like to discuss that a little bit further.

[00:10:26] Helen: Yeah, so after taking it to my MP, that was the only final recourse to action. So by this point, I'd been trying to push the Charity Commission into 2016, still no action on it.

And I thought very, very long and hard. And my analysis at the time was, I thought it could be a salacious story for a day and then pass. I just wasn't convinced that at that point we would see the traction needed. And I think I probably was right in that because you then have MeToo happens. And then when the story does hit the press, people recognize it.

And they are familiar with the fact that this is an issue across many sectors. And it's not so much of a surprise to them that it's also in the Aid Sector so I think that probably was the right moment for it to come out in the press through, it was another, individual who took it to them because it stayed in the press for many days in a way that, it's very rare for a story to.

And that then, led to, changes, which I think wouldn't have happened otherwise. 

[00:11:31] Natasha: And that abuse within the sector had been brought to the attention by that specific journalist beforehand, but it didn't catch the attention. Why was that?

[00:11:38] Helen: That's right. Sean O'Neill had been, he's an incredibly well regarded investigative journalist, and he had been looking into this story for some time.

And he first put a story in the paper. It was around October 2017 and this was an allegation from a member of Oxfam staff in respect of her manager and no one picked it up. And my thoughts on that was the person who made those allegations was a black woman. Against a black man. And I think, Society didn't engage with it for that reason because of the systemic racism that we know exists in our society.

I think it was a story that wasn't of interest, when it should have been, and Sean then being the type of journalist that he is and a man not to let things go. Had another go at it. and good on him, he convinced his editor to run with another story in the February and that was the one that then did capture the public imagination because he had to put a twist on it.

he talked about Caligula style orgies in Haiti, and that was what then got people reading the paper, hit the headlines. It's very sad that it, it had to, in many ways, it's very sad that it had to reach that point before people would take note. 

[00:13:02] Natasha: The framing of it's really interesting and how it caught the public eye.

I don't know, given your expertise, if there's anything you'd like to add to that. 

[00:13:07] john: So Helen mentioned this briefly, but the idea that the Aid Sector, the Charity Sector is meant to be a nice space full of nice people doing nice things for people who need help has long acted as a protective barrier or halo around it

A lot of no questions get asked because we want to assume the best of the people who are spending the money we've donated or making the best use of their volunteer time. And so it took that larger social movement associated with MeToo, which spread into AidToo, to really galvanise and say, actually, these sectors are not perfect.

they're as beholden to other power dynamics, whether it be systemic racism or sexism or child abuse that exist in any of us. The Charity Sector isn't existing in some sort of heaven above society. It's part of society and therefore bound by its same rules. And actually when we look more into the Charity Sector, both in the UK and across the world, we see large elements of abuse being ignored because it's for good, which is highly problematic.

[00:14:10] Natasha: And on a domestic scale, you were bringing, issues forward of young people working within charity shops, and that kind of the attention that gained that was minimal, why do you think that was that the kind of it was pushed to an international discussion instead of a UK based one?

[00:14:27] Helen: I think probably at the time there was just so much in the Press, there was such a lot to unpick that if that had been the story that Sean had led with.

That would probably have had more focus, but I think, because he's led with the story of Haiti, that's why the attention shifted there, but it should have been on that. Basically, there's a retail exemption, which means that if you work in retail, you're as a manager, you don't need to have a DBS check.

But the point I was making there was about the relationship between a shop manager and a child volunteer when they're working in an Oxfam shop. And when that child volunteer probably there because of a Duke of Edinburgh scheme, those power dynamics then are so different. And there is a trust there just like you would have with a teacher that warranted those DBS checks.

And. That point was taken up by my MP, in 2015, to the Children's Commissioner to the Home Office, but the Home Office came back to say, nope, we stand by that retail exemption. But the Children's Commissioner agreed practice has now changed and charity retail shops do DBS check their shop managers but at a point in time they didn't, which, it's hard to fathom now, isn't it? 

Absolutely. 

[00:15:44] Jon: Maybe less generously than Helen, I'd say there is a tendency when that story came out to say, oh, this is a problem happening over there. This isn't maybe a problem happening over here and it's easier to compartmentalise something and shove it halfway around the world to a zone that suffered a disaster rather than having to think it's happening on your high street. 

[00:16:03] Natasha: Again, it's a luxury of distance, isn't it? Just pushing it away. 

[00:16:06] Helen: And people want to believe the good guys are good.

Yeah. We all want to believe in organisations that are in a hard, tough, difficult world. You want to see them as the people making positive change. And I will, I still believe in the Aid Sector. I work for a charity now. There are a lot of people doing a lot of amazing things and it can be a force for good.

But at that point in time for too long, charities had been not had the scrutiny they needed because there will always be those individuals who want to join an organisation where they're going to come into contact with children, vulnerable adults to abuse that position of trust and because there wasn't enough scrutiny, because it's hard to lean into the thought that people that you believe in could be doing something wrong - it allowed it to happen for far too long.

[00:16:58] Martin: Can I bring you back to the whistleblowing moment, Helen? Because in your case, there's more than one whistleblowing moment. So there's the moment you've already told us about, which is the moment you decided to raise this with the charity commission, but there's also the moment you decided to go public and I'd be interested for you to talk through what that involved and the personal cost and the personal decision making process.

[00:17:26] Helen: Absolutely so I had. heads up, the day before the story ran in the Times in the February, this was the Haiti story. And I, to be honest, I thought, the story ran in October, no interest. I thought the same would happen again, and clearly that wasn't the case. It was front page.

Every single newspaper in the UK and internationally. so then came that question of, am I going to speak about this publicly? And the, some people are very critical of me. why didn't I go to the Press before? And why would I even be questioning that? Why not just simply speak to the Press?

And, the concern I had was a concern within the aid sector at that time, that there was a desire to cut the aid budget. And anything that brought the charity sector into disrepute could then be weaponized and used as a reason to cut the aid budget, and that was my concern, ultimately. And I knew that Oxfam would lose funding, and I knew the impact that would mean to some very important programmes. So that's what held me back.

But I did then take a decision to speak the next day, and even as I was getting on the train to, to go do that interview, I had people calling me, ‘Don't do it’, huge emotional pressure. In the aid sector, you spend weeks away with people, you live with them, Oxford is the headquarters of Oxfam, all my people around me in the local streets, they were all Oxfam workers, So it, this, my personal life, my work life was so incredibly blended, but I did do that interview and I decided to give the interview to Kathy Newman, of Channel 4 for the reason that I had confidence she would be survivor focused.

I knew her work and I knew that she would handle the story sensitively, not sensationally, and keep it focused on justice for survivors, but my life changed forever. After I did that story that the moment I was a public face, I had journalists at my door. But that was manageable. The thing that was very hard was the reaction from people in my local area who were personally connected to Oxfam.

And I think we have to contextualise this. At that point, the government was only just starting its statutory inquiry. The International Development Committee were only just getting a call for evidence. Those people weren't to know whether what I was saying was the truth or not. But there was a rumour spread that I'd done the interview just for personal gain, that I was looking to get publicity, that the drop in funding for the charity was on me, people were losing their jobs because of me.

And if you think, if you don't know the truth And if you don't know all the facts, understandably you are going to be very angry with that person. And people were, and they were stopping me in the streets. and the moment where that tipping point came for me was, when they did that with my son there, and he was very little at that time.

And the pressure on the family was just enormous. my mental health was significantly impacted and I realized I could no longer stay in Oxford. So I needed to relocate. That meant the loss of my job. and that had a huge impact, on me and my family

[00:20:56] Martin: This brings us to one of the key questions, which is.

Do we expect too much from whistleblowers was too much, placed on your shoulders? This is maybe a question for both of you. I think, societally, is this just too much for a single person to bear? 

[00:21:18] Helen: I should not have needed to blow the whistle in the way I ultimately had to, I shouldn't have needed to go to the Press at that point.

When I went to the Charity Commission in 2015, that should have been the point when action was taken and that was tolerable, at that point, speaking to them was manageable having to, speak in front of the Press and to go into the public domain that then led to the repercussions that had then had a significant impact on my life.

And that was unnecessary. If, what I would say is the Charity Commission, under the leadership of the outgoing Chief Exec Helen Stevenson has shifted, but they're still chronically underfunded in my view. And I struggle to understand why more money is not given to the the regulator of charities, because there's so much opportunity for good to come out of that.

But yet it's suffered, and they're doing the best job they can, but there's so much more they could do with the right investment.  

[00:22:19] Jon: On that question, we should be holding the charity sector, or my sector, the higher education sector, to a higher standard. And Helen was a shining example of someone trying to hold it to a higher standard than the rest of society.

But actually, within the sector, you still find occasionally people who think, no, we should be held to a lower standard because we're trying to achieve something more, it's reasonable to give us room to do things that probably wouldn't be accepted in other places. Agree totally about the Charity Commission.

It moved from a friend of charities to a more of a regulatory position. Part of that is ideological with the government, becoming firmer and more critical of the charity sector in some positive ways, but also some negative ways. But yeah, the chronic underfunding still in both their everyday regulation, but also their safeguarding team continues to mean that things are going to get missed and things are going to take a long time to get investigated.

[00:23:12] Natasha: It sounds like there was too much expected of you even before this process began. When you were working in Oxfam, obviously, when we've spoken before, the actual Oxfam were spearheading the way a little bit in terms of the safeguarding support that they actually offered, but you were three days a week.

You had someone working part time for you and we're operating on such a vast scale. And I think that's endemic across the aid sectors that burnout for people working within that within the charity sector or interviewing survivors and trying to take a survivor centred approach that the psychological toll that already takes that alone, the journey that you've had was huge.

And I think that's important to know as well. Too much was expected of you right from the start.

[00:23:53] Helen: I think so often with organizations, it's, there's a problem, create a role and they're the solution and responsibility is on, their shoulders, which should never be the case. It's a shared safeguarding must always be a shared responsibility.

I think something I would add. though, is there were other whistleblowers and something that was really positive about speaking publicly was I began to connect with them. There's an amazing woman I connected with called Asmita Naik, and she had blown the whistle back in 2002 on, basically abuse of young people, children in, who were being coerced to have sex in exchange for food in West Africa.

I'd never spoken with her before and, it was wonderful to connect in terms of that solidarity or equally horrifying in terms of the scale of the challenge we're both facing. And there were other whistleblowers as well. Some I can name some I can't. but that moment of solidarity and, sharing that journey together.

so we started to split press work between us. we had a group where we could share messages of support. That was a wonderful positive of what had been a very difficult experience. 

[00:25:10] Natasha: Do you think your experience of whistleblowing, obviously it's quite unique in the, every whistleblower's journey is very unique in the way that it all plays out, but do you think that was illustrative of wider problems within the sector? 

[00:25:21] Helen: Absolutely. I think because Oxfam actually had a safeguarding role, it meant it was invested in the resource that led to more allegations being identified than most other organisations. At the point I left, it was 39 since then, considerably more.

And if you don't have anybody looking into this, who's going to report the concerns. Oxfam was the the organisation that everyone has in their minds, but this was and remains an issue across the sector. It just happened to be that Oxfam was the one that had the focus of this on. And

my view is wherever you have people in positions of power, there's always going to be a risk of abuse and in the aid sector, there will always be perpetrators attracted to it for that reason. This isn't ever going to be a we fix move on. It's going to be an ongoing problem for the sector that they're going to have to keep working on, keep investing in.

And never forget. And that's the challenge is: how do we ensure this stays in people's memories? And I regularly have people say to me, so Helen, aren't you bored about talking about whistleblowing? Aren't people bored of listening to you? and they're like, why are you still talking about it? Move on with your life.

And I'm like, I can't, because I can't let people forget. And there were many people still in the sector. I couldn't stay in the sector. I couldn't after that. It was too much for me. But there are people who are bravely still trying to make changes. And I try and do my bit to ensure people never forget what happened

[00:26:58] Jon: We've seen recently the Yours in Scouting movement be launched, which is a website where people who have stories of abuse within scouts quite historic are able to come forward. And so therefore organisations that have been working for children for a long time. And therefore there will be a large scale range of abuse that's taken place are now starting to grapple with these problems.

But this is a subject that just seems to flow in and out of public consciousness and charity consciousness. You talk about 2002, then we get to the Savile revelations of around 2014 / 15, then onto this, then onto the Jay Review in 2002 / 22. And so you just get this, are we actually remembering these lessons or, is it just the large charities that are able to set up large safeguarding teams and in instil new policies and new ways of thinking and taking survivor led approaches to what extent are small charities who work with children actually embedding this in the day to day work? The Jay inquiry found that. There were large blind spots within organisations. They found that many organisations and their safeguarding policies were purely about protecting members of staff against false allegations, rather than actually focused on the safeguarding of young people and children.

So that was a report that came out last year. So despite the excellent work of whistleblowers and the bravery of victims, it's sort of a lesson that doesn't seem to have embedded itself thoroughly, consistently throughout the sector. 

[00:28:28] Martin: Do you think we're still in denial, societally? This, I think is one of the fundamental questions that your work has brought up.

Is it the case that really we are still not staring this problem in the face. Is that why we keep pushing it away? Why this oscillates back and forward in the public consciousness? We might've hoped that the Jay Review would, the Jay Inquiry would, really nail this as a public issue of concern, but it doesn't seem to have done.

[00:29:05] John: No, the independent inquiry into child sex abuse set up after Savile took six years to report and then came out in 2022. On the first page of that, there are some statistics that are incredible. One in six girls under the age of 16 will experience some form of child abuse. One in 20 boys under the age of 16 will experience some form of child abuse.

One in three point one million adults in the UK have experienced some form of sexual abuse when they were under 16. Those are statistics that should be widely known. That is an extraordinarily damaging, horrifying message that we need to know about ourselves. That's a public lesson we should be learning and taking on board.

And yet that report came out I think the week that the Liz Truss Government reached its nadir slash clown car craziness and it got swept under the rug, it was the most, one of the most important public documents and pieces of research that had taken place in modern British history and it got forgotten about Because some city people were doing silly things with our money 

[00:30:20] Martin: The consequences of this potentially are devastating Because what you're talking about is serious risk to young people across society.

I was always struck when I was working as Home Affairs Editor at The Observer, that it took us a while to realise what was going on, in particular in the Noughties, around internet child abuse. I can remember, looking at the the story around the Wonderland case, which was the case of servers that were seized in America, which had hundreds of thousands of images of child abuse

on them. And the initial view across the media was that the police were overstating the case, that they were simply, I don't know, in the search for greater funding that they were saying that they will be overwhelmed by trying to come to terms with this. The reality was that this was evidence that child abuse was prevalent right across our society.

Personally, I don't think we have really come to terms even with what that meant, let alone what we found out from Helen's revelations from your research. Where do we go from here? 

[00:31:54] Helen: I think the shift we've got is because of the extent to which information can be shared and the internet, both a force for good and evil, but it has allowed people to connect and share anonymously.

The information is there. The knowledge is there, the, question is that, that shift in terms of society's response to it, and I think things, I think we have to hold on to positives in terms of there has been a shift, there is greater awareness, there is more work being done to safeguard children and adults from abuse, but the question you raise is such an important one that, how are we going to go further?

And I think we've got to just keep talking about it. And it's a hard thing to talk about. And as you say, that society denial and we have to face up to this very dark, unpleasant side of human nature because otherwise we won't tackle it and we won't stop it. 

[00:32:54] Jon: Jon, I wanted toask 

[00:32:54] Martin: you about the good glow.

You've talked already about how we give certain sectors of society the benefit of the doubt. Do you think we should almost take the opposite approach? That there are certain sectors that are so important that we need to have special tougher, regimes to control who works in those sectors. 

[00:33:21] Jon: Certainly there are sectors that we should hold to a higher standard.

We hope that our government and political system holds itself to a higher standard, although we don't find that that often.We assume that any service that works with vulnerable young people, they're doing work in schools, doing work in the NHS is very difficult. For instance, as university researchers, there's a high level of entry that you have to pass.

And the charity sector is working with vulnerable people all the time. And therefore holding it to a higher standard is not, it should not, be a problem. It shouldn't be something that the sector worries about. There are two policy changes that I suppose could take place that would deeply affect the charity sector and would make maybe life harder.

But I think there are challenges that the charity sector should take on. The first is that whistleblowing legislation doesn't cover volunteers I believe. And so that seems just such a simple change. Why shouldn't volunteers should get the same protection that employees do if they decide to blow the whistle?

I think in your case that the amount of volunteers working in Oxfam shops should be protected. And secondly, the what the Jay Review. suggested was a statutory requirement for disclosure if you think there is a risk of child sexual abuse. And that is something that the charity sector I know has difficulty recruiting volunteers.

We're at a low ebb of volunteering. People are really struggling to get more involved in civil society. And so therefore the worry that they might be challenged legally if they don't report something might be an extra burden to put on them. But that seems small fry compared to protecting children. 

[00:35:07] Natasha: We talked before about people sadly being attracted to the Aid Sector for their access to vulnerable people and especially children.

I know that you've written about the case of Jimmy Savile. I don't know if you want to expand on that at all

[00:35:20] Jon: So thinking about the Savile case, you see so many parallels with what happened in Rochdale, what happened across other towns, Rotherham, for example, and then what happens in the Oxfam case.

Certain victims are not listened to. If the victims come from a certain background, often more vulnerable, working class, children in care, for instance, children in conflict zones, we don't care about them as much. Savile is one of Britain's greatest ever fundraisers. He raised the equivalent of 120 million pounds for good causes.

He established madcap charity stunts. He ran the marathons endlessly. He was, everywhere. He was Mr. Charitainment, if you will. And yet he was using that as a way to mask his industrial scale abuse, he was Britain's biggest celebrity, and he was at the time using that celebrity as a way to access vulnerable girls on a daily basis, who were then encouraged not to complain, for example, the nurses at some of the hospitals at which he either ran in terms of Broadmoor or volunteered at in terms of leads or the Spinal Injuries Centre.

The nurses at those hospitals were telling the young girls not to complain because otherwise the charity funding would dry up. This sort of horrific idea that the charity comes first ahead of, someone being abused. The BBC knew. Large numbers of BBC management were aware, not of the precision of every single allegation, but they knew what was going on in the dressing rooms.

They knew how he was acting afterwards in terms of offering favours to young girls, but they decided to keep it quiet because they put their institutional reputation ahead of treating children decently.

[00:37:20] Helen: And yet we see powerful people still abusing their position of trust, and we still see survivors not being believed. We see these cycles and it's absolutely critical that we break that cycle and as you say, the Jay Review had some very powerful findings. It's just to me, extraordinary that there is no statutory requirement to report child abuse.

Absolutely extraordinary. And I just hope to God we can move forward and that for my son and the next generation of people coming through that they have a different experience to the one that's sadly so many of the current generation have had to experience, 

[00:38:02] Martin: should we be suspicious of people who announce themselves as good?

Do you think that kind of Savile style? I'm a good guy me, should be a red flag in some way

[00:38:15] Helen: I think good people who are genuinely a force for good will always be happy to be held to account. And I think you have to seriously question, when people are not open to that scrutiny. And for me, for the charity sector, firmly believe further scrutiny is needed.

We have a regulator. We don't have an Ombudsman for the charity sector. That's an important difference in terms of the powers that they have. We, the more scrutiny is good for everybody. It's good for the charities because it gives the public more assurance. And there was a huge drop in trust in charities that they've started to regain, still in the process of doing, I think it's good all round.

It's good for the charity. It's good for us, but yet people don't want to do it. And why? Sometimes we're quite often that comes down to money. It's not cheap to have processes in place to, to hold people to account, hold them accountable. And, also it's uncomfortable. Organisations often don't want to invest themselves in this because that scrutiny can be, but it's necessary.

[00:39:31] Jon: Can I just come back to your question about goodness? We don't want to live in a society with less charity, and less kindness, and less generosity, and less volunteering. But generosity is immensely powerful, and it creates all sorts of powerfully entwined, dependency relationships, donor beneficiary relationships, that can be very strange.

And in the wrong hands, generosity can be incredibly malicious. And quite a dangerous thing. There's a quote from the Jay Inquiry that I think summarises this quite neatly in terms of how charities and religious organisations in this context struggle with this: ‘Organisations which have high levels of confidence in the moral calibre of their members or leaders may find it difficult to contemplate that they may pose a risk to children’

And just having a society that just is able to see that, ordinary people, ordinary looking people, ordinary sounding people who appear nice on the surface might not, is really important. That doesn't mean that you go around seeing demons around every corner.

[00:40:42] Helen: And I think just building on what you're saying, people may listen to this and feel quite disheartened.

But I, I think, for everybody listening to this, I'd say you have a role to play, in terms of holding charities to account and the best way to keep organisations on the straight and narrow is if you are someone who goes to an Oxfam shop or you donate money or other charities, and there are many, if you, 

want to, say to them, where is your safeguarding policy? You know what are you doing on this? I'm a donor, I want to know by people keep asking those questions that will keep the sector safer because as long as there is public interest, then there will be that duty on charities in addition to any regulation in place.

And yeah, the general public have a huge role to play in that a really powerful role. And I hope people come away from this, not just feeling a bit disillusioned, but empowered to think, ‘right I'm going to do my part’ and I will now ask those questions and help to keep that focus and scrutiny on the charities because they are a force for good.

[00:41:49] Martin: One of the things that this brings to mind and that always brought to mind when I first saw your revelations and Sean O'Neill's amazing stories in the times was. was Conrad's, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. And the fact that what we're looking at here is neocolonialism. We're looking at, whereas in, in Conrad's case, we saw him exposing what was happening in what was then the Belgian Congo

and people didn't initially believe that it could be so appalling. But it was and eventually those abuses were stopped. Is this what we're looking at here now? Is there, was there something so terrible going on that initially people just could not face it? You've stared into that heart of darkness, at huge personal cost.

[00:42:45] Helen: So in terms of ‘Was it worth it?’ Absolutely. I'm one of the fortunate whistleblowers in terms of my story has a positive outcome. Because there was a Charity Commission statutory inquiry, the international development committee of MPs did follow this. And, on both cases, the concerns that I'd raised were understood to be true and action taken.

And there is now, in my view, the Aid Sector now is safer. There's still a way to go, but those positive changes have happened. So for that reason, I would always say I have to say yes, but the challenges I had personally were unnecessary. And that's the bit that makes me angry. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that the experiences I had needed to happen

And so I'd love to see change going forward that means that others, when they come forward, don't have that same experience. And that's my hope. And I will always remain an optimist and I'll always remain hopeful that other whistleblowers won't have to go through that. 

Martin : Well I think that’s probably a good moment to end on, a moment of positivity and hope. So thank you very much for your time and sharing your experience and thank you Jon as well for your expertise

Natasha: Thank you it’s been fantastic