News / Sex offender’s ambulance charity struck off
A SHETLAND charity set up two years ago to provide an independent ambulance service is being struck off the charity register.
The Scottish charities regulator OSCR said that the Shetland Independent Ambulance Service could not be contacted, had no funds and had not provided any accounts. However they were taking no legal action against the trustees.
A complaint was received about the charity just five months after it was set up in June 2009 by a group of Mossbank residents who were keen to provide extra ambulance cover for the isles at a time when the NHS had removed its second ambulance from Shetland.
The group included Chris Readings, who was jailed in February after being found guilty at the High Court in Aberdeen of sexually assaulting a young boy and girl between 2008 and 2010.
The organisation had initially spoken of raising £175,000 to buy three second hand ambulances and to provide training, and thereafter raising £40,000 a year to maintain the volunteer service. They were to approach businesses, including BP, and the lottery fund.
However OSCR received a complaint in November 2009, which they said was outside their remit, but is understood to relate to the non-payment of training fees.
The complainer had tried to contact the charity but had not been able to do so, and told OSCR its website contained inaccurate information.
OSCR said they had repeatedly tried to contact the charity themselves as part of their investigation and been unable to do so. They received no response to a final recorded delivery letter sent in November last year.
OSCR obtained bank statements and found that the charity had two bank accounts, one of which was empty and the other contained £30.85. Records showed that approximately £1,200 had gone through one account between July and September 2009, but there had been no other activity.
“As a result of this inquiry it appears to OSCR that Shetland Independent Ambulance Service is inactive and is not providing public benefit in furtherance of its charitable purposes,” the regulator said.
“OSCR considers that the charity trustees have breached their general duties under section 66 of the 2005 Act by failing to provide annual accounts and failing to respond to our requests for information on the charity’s activities and how these activities deliver public benefit.
“However, we do not consider that it would be proportionate to take further action in this respect, since the organisation will no longer have charitable status.”
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