£600k council cash disappears... so what?

Hackney Council payed £610,000 to Hackney charity boss Dr Adu Aezick Seray-Wurie in 2000.

According to a report by the Charity Commission: "The statements for Dr Seray-Wurie’s account and those for the Charities, as well as the Charity’s annual accounts, all showed that none of the funds were passed to either Charity."

However the same report says the Charity Commission will not pursue the case. In 2006 the police said they would not be investigating the case either.

Dr Adu Aezick Seray-Wurie, chair of Hackney-based African Development Agencies and Hackney African Organisation , won a legal claim for £610,000 in unpaid grants from Hackney Council in 2000. The money was paid into Seray-Wurie's personal account.

Last year Seray-Wurie tried to prevent the publication of a Charity Commission report into the East End Citizens Advice Bureau on the grounds that it was defamatory last year.

The 2008 report of the Charity Commission's chief executive said:

The use of our regulatory powers has come under external scrutiny recently with two separate court hearings.

These were two separate legal cases brought against the Commission by Dr. Adu Seray-Wurie (the applicant) in which the Commission was successful. In the first, on 23 April the High Court struck out claims brought by the applicant for defamation, and on other grounds, relating to our published inquiry report into East End Citizens Advice Bureau.

The claim for defamation was struck out on the basis that the report was covered by qualified privilege, and that there was no evidence of malice.....

In the second case, on 25 April the High Court dismissed an appeal brought by the applicant against our decision to remove him as a trustee of African Development Agencies Ltd. The Court decided that we were right to make the removal order on the basis that there had been misconduct or mismanagement in the administration of the charity, and it was necessary or desirable to remove the applicant for the purpose of protecting property of the charity or its proper application, the removal being a proportionate step to take in all the circumstances.