LL CAMPS: FOUNDER TRIED
BEN LEWIS, the co-founder of a summer camp popular with Jewish parents, has pleaded guilty to possessing and making indecent images of children.
As the trial opened this week of Mr Lewis’s business partner, Tal Landsman, prosecutor Ann Evans told St Albans Crown Court that Mr Lewis had admitted three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of taking indecent images.
Mr Lewis, 26, and Mr Landsman cofounded LL Camps in Bushey, Hertfordshire, which was closed down last year after allegations were made against Mr Lewis.
Mr Landsman, 26, of Admiral Drive, Stevenage, is standing trial after pleading not guilty to a single charge of cruelty to a person under 16 between July 31 and August 7 2015.
The prosecution claims Mr Lands man was told about the images but failed to act and allowed Mr Lewis to continue to work at the camp.
Giving evidence on Wednesday, Sandra Vicente, a former worker at LL Camps, told the court that Mr Lewis had given her his phone and PIN number so she could play music at a children’s party on August 1 last year.
She said: “First I saw children on a beach. They were not wearing anything. They were aged three to four. Then I saw pictures that had been taken in a changing room. I would say they were aged three to four. I felt my brain was polluted. I felt sick.” Ms Vicente said she gone to Mr Landsman that night and told him what she had seen.
The next day Mr Lewis spoke to her at work. “He said: ‘There is something disgusting on my phone. I don’t know how it got there’” she told the court.
Three days later she reported Mr Lewis after he came to her with a three-year-old girl from her group who he said he had found in the toilets and had wet herself.
“At that point, I put my foot down. I thought I had to do something. I went home from work and called the police,” she said.
Mrs Evans told the jury that Mr Landsman had told Ms Vicente that he would deal with the matter and that she should not tell anyone.
He asked her if she had told anyone already.
Mrs Evans said that later that night Mr Landsman sent Ms Vicente a WhatsApp message saying: “You need to promise me that this will not be spoken about at camp or to anyone”.
Mrs Evans told the jury: “You may conclude that Tal was extremely reluctant to do anything about the information she had provided.”
She added: “In an effort to protect his friend, he did nothing about what he had heard and allowed the parties and activities to keep running the camp until eventually Ofsted moved in and closed the place down on August 6 last year.”
Mrs Evans told the jury: “This trial is not concerned with the guilt or innocence of Mr Lewis. The focus of your deliberations is Mr Landsman.
“What is not in dispute is that what was found on Mr Lewis’s phone were indecent images of very young children.
“As far as Mr Landsman is concerned, friend or no friend, it was his obligation for the safety of the children in his care to report Mr Lewis, to remove him from the premises, or shut the operations.
“By not doing so, he exposed these children to the unnecessary risk that they would suffer harm at the hands of his co-director.”