Buddhist charity ‘failed to act’ over abuse of students

TRUSTEES of a British organisation founded by a disgraced Buddhist guru failed to act on “serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse”, the charities watchdog has ruled.

The Charity Commission’s investigation into Rigpa Fellowship, the Londonbased Buddhist charity, concluded that its students were put at risk of harm as a result of serious safeguarding failures.

The watchdog opened a case into the charity when serious allegations of abuse towards its students by its spiritual director, Sogyal Lakar, surfaced.

In 2017, The Daily Telegraph published a series of allegations made by eight senior and long-standing current and former students against Lakar, whose book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has sold more than three million copies around the world.

Lakar died aged 72 in 2019. An independent investigation – commissioned by Rigpa Fellowship and Rigpa Fellowship US – found that, on the balance of probabilities, some of Lakar’s “i nner circle” were “subjected to serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse by him”. The Commission’s engagement escalated to a statutory inquiry after it found that the charity was not making sufficient progress in addressing the safeguarding concerns.

During its inquiry, the watchdog disqualified one former trustee, Patrick Gaffney, and removed another trustee, Susan Burrows, after both failed to take appropriate action despite having knowledge of instances and allegations of i mproper acts and sexual and physical abuse against students.

The inquiry concluded that “misconduct and mismanagement” was evidence at the charity, and that both former trustees “failed to recognise or sought to downplay” the seriousness of the allegations, and failed to report incidents of abuse.

Helen Stephenson, chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: “The fact that students were subjected to abuse by somebody in a position of power is shameful. People were l et down because senior figures not only failed to listen and act on concerns, but also failed to properly address the problems with the charity’s safeguarding culture once these came to light.”

Rigpa Fellowship was contacted for comment.