Child rights campaigner jailed for abusing boy
A CHILDREN’S rights campaigner and former Unicef consultant has been jailed for abusing a 12-year-old boy.
Peter Newell, 77, managed a charity that received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, Save the Children and Unicef.
He was jailed last month at Blackfriars Crown Court after admitting five charges relating to the rape and indecent assault of a boy under 16 over a three-year-period in the Sixties.
Newell, from north London, wrote a manual on children’s rights for Unicef and was the coordinator of the Association for the Protection of All Children charity, known as Approach, until he resigned in 2016 when the allegations arose.
Approach operates through the Children Are Unbeatable! Alliance in the UK and lobbies for the protection of children from violence, including smacking by parents.
In 2015, the charity brought a complaint to Europe’s top human rights watchdog against France and six other EU countries over its failure to explicitly ban the smacking of children.
The south London-based organisation said yesterday that until Newell resigned, it was “completely unaware of his actions” and insisted that an independent safeguarding review had found that no children were at risk through his work there.
According to accounts published on the Charity Commission website, for the five years from 2012 to 2016, Approach received hundreds of thousands of pounds in income from the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, Save the Children and Unicef, as well as other organisations abroad and a private donor.
The latest accounts for 2017 show Approach only received funding for its overseas activities.
None of Approach’s funders are believed to have been aware of Newell’s actions and the charity said that since the allegations came to light they have kept funders and the Charity Commission consistently informed.
A 229-page document he co-wrote with Rachel Hodgkin, his wife, for Unicef, included sections on sex tourism and sexual consent.