Yentob’s astonishing claim: Kids Co closure led to a teen’s murder

ALAN Yentob made the sensational claim yesterday that a teenage boy was murdered because of Kids Company’s collapse.

The BBC creative director, who was chairman of the charity, said the killing, and a spate of other stabbings and suicide attempts following its closure were ‘a consequence of an absence of a place for these kids to go’.

He produced no evidence to substantiate his claim, and Scotland Yard could offer no corroboration but Mr Yentob insisted that the events were inextricably linked.

‘Five days after Kids Company closed, a boy was murdered. He was going to the crime and prevention centres which were closed,’ he said.

‘That work [of Kids Company] will be sorely, sorely missed. There were stabbings. There were four suicide attempts.’

Mr Yentob did not name the murdered boy. However, Jerrell Elie, a 17-year- old who had received help from Kids Company, was killed in a fight in Camberwell three days after the charity’s closure. Former charity staff claim that the youth attended one of its after-school projects.

Mr Yentob made the extraordinary claims as he battled to defend a notorious letter to the Government warning that parts of Britain could ‘descend into savagery’ if Kids Company closed.

The letter, signed by Mr Yentob, was sent at the time Kids Company was trying to persuade the Government to release its last £3million of funding.

He told MPs on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that the fact that there had been violent attacks in London after Kids Company closed was evidence to support his claim. ‘It wasn’t a wild exaggeration. I do accept that it is a worst-case scenario,’ he said.

However, MPs said that Kids Company’s closure only sparked violence because the youngsters relied on its cash hand- outs to pay their drug dealers. Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the select committee, insisted this claim came from a ‘very reputable source’.

During a difficult three-hour grilling Mr Yentob also faced accusations that he had abused his position at the BBC by intervening in coverage of Kids Company.

He telephoned BBC2’s Newsnight and Radio 4’s World At One as they were preparing to go to air with damming reports about the charity. He also accompanied founder Camila Batmanghelidjh to an interview on Radio 4’s Today, and launched a verbal attack on a reporter in the reception of the BBC’s HQ.

The £330,000-a-year creative director insisted that he ‘in no way’ attempted to influence the BBC.

Police are investigating claims that Miss Batmanghelidjh tried to stop staff reporting assaults by teenagers. A former Kids Company worker had to go to hospital after being hit on the head with a snooker ball by a teenager who was later convicted of murder. He said when he told Miss Batmanghelidjh, she told him: ‘We don’t press charges against our students.’ He later quit.