A trust set up by the Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick has been criticised by the charities regulator for its funding of a group which advised the Islamic State murderer Mohammed Emwazi.
The Roddick Foundation gave the £120,000 to Cage between 2009 and 2012 to support its work “promoting education and human rights”. Cage also received £271,250 between 2007 and 2014 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), a Quaker charity.
Investigations by the Charity Commission yesterday concluded that it “was difficult to see” how the foundations were sure their funding was being used for appropriate purposes.
The Roddick Foundation said it gave four grants totalling £120,000 to Cage between 2009 and 2012 to support work “promoting education and human rights.” Some was used for the salary for Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee.
The regulator said it believed the foundation intended to fund Cage programmes which furthered its own purposes but found that the trustees needed to conduct “more robust due diligence” of its grants. Dame Anita died aged 64 in 2007 and the foundation’s four trustees include her widower, Gordon.
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The regulator said it had been contacted in 2013 with concerns that funding from JRCT would be used by Cage to “spread their message of support for jihadism, bigotry and hatred”.
Concerns about Cage intensified in February last year when it emerged that among the terrorist suspects and jihadists it had supported was Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who was seen in Isis videos beheading hostages including David Haines and Alan Henning.
The JRCT provided an average of 15 per cent of Cage’s income. The first year’s grant was used to employ Mr Begg, who received an estimated £1 million compensation from the British government when he was freed in 2005.
The Roddick Foundation said it welcomed the commission’s advice.
The JRCT said the commission had made clear that its trustees acted in good faith and it said there was no evidence its funds were misused by Cage.