Madeleine's Fund - Review & Investigation of Accounts

Yes Cherry it should have been free, but free costs and 0845 numbers make money.

The information in the Accounts is very unsatisfactory , expenses lumped together , as is income. I believe this to be deliberate . So much for the claim by John McCann claiming initially that the Fund would be managed under the "good governance guide for charities" even though it could not be a Charity for one person.

Not Born Yesterday wrote:A review of the latest set of accounts.

http://mccannfiles.com/id429.html

And again!

http://mccannfiles.com/id475.html

I had bought a copy of the Accounts then Annabel sent me this, much more detailed .......the Fund will soon be closed , there is no source of income. When you think how little of the millions there were in the Fund the waste has been colossal and the McCanns have used it as their own piggy bank.......yet no one questions them.

Shocking.

Well done Enid O'Dowd.

The first thing that raises a flag to me apart from the swiftness of how this Fund was set up is the sheer amount of money being bandied about.

£1.8M is not an amount raised from the widow's mite, whatever else you can say, they have had large donations.

The number of lawyers involved is also an eye opener.


If Kate believed that her daughter had been murdered at the time of meeting the legal pair, why would she agree to setting up a Fund to find Madeleine?

I think this is explainable - whatever you THINK may have happened you'd still want to have a Fund to find thechild or what happened to her, best case is or was at the time that MM was still "alive and findable."

The lack of transparency is obvious, but the need to be SEEN as transparent was immediate.

Why is that?

This would have been better as a charity of course but then you'd not have the ability for the family to use these funds as they saw fit.

We've heard from John McCann, previously on this Board of the No Stone Fund, that K&G are "proactive" and we also know from their own "investigation" that they act quickly to get information out there that may or may not be accurate nor helpful to a proper investigation - Tannerman, for instance.

Their hasty acts can be understandable in thinking they are doing something that helps someone- presumably Madeleine, or at least themselves - of course they know best how to do everything from child care to setting up an investigation or a Fund.

Charities must give an annual report and accounts to the Charity Commission and make these documents available to the public on request. There are also rules relating to fundraising. The trustees (directors) cannot normally receive salary, fees or contracts from the charity and nor can their spouses or other close family members. These requirements are not onerous or unreasonable. Having hired charity experts BWB on the advice of the paralegal, it is surprising that Kate did not let them have a day or two more to explore charity status. And it is surprising that the McCanns have not apparently revisited this issue

Not surprising if McCanns are wanting to use the Fund whatever the advantages would be to a charity, for their own ends including salary although supposedly no Fund Director has received salary or remuneration; clearly the clause about helping family covers that.

5.2.1 permits payments to directors as beneficiaries and 5.2.4 permits payment of rent where appropriate to directors for premises. Therefore, if the McCanns or family members used a room in their home to work for the Fund, the payment of rent from the Fund would be permitted if they should want it and the Board agreed

McCanns could benefit from this and did do so as far as I understand by having a "home office" so I presume the Fund went to pay at least part of the mortgage at Rothley.

The quorum for Board meetings is one third of the current Board membership. This makes the current quorum two, as there are now six directors. Three directors are family members. The Chairman has a casting vote. John McCann was Chairman until he resigned in July 2010. It is unclear who the current Chairman is. If Brian Kennedy (Kate McCann's uncle) - who was one of the original directors - took over as Chairman, then the McCann family has a majority at board meetings by virtue of the Chairman's casting vote.

The conflict of interest policy (Articles nos 37 and 38) is interesting.

It says (37.1) that directors with a personal interest in an upcoming vote must declare that interest, and (37.2) withdraw from the relevant part of the meeting, and (37.3) not be counted in the quorum for that part of the meeting relating to their personal interest and (37.4) have no vote on the issue affecting them. That is proper governance.

However no 38 states that 'no director shall be regarded as having a conflict of interest solely because he or she is also eligible to receive the support of the Foundation.'

Clearly the family members of the Fund constitute a quorum and the conflict of interest seems pretty obvious - they can vote in their own interest and not have that be an issue --just because they are agreeing to give themselves money!

Hence the Fund set up as it was, with plenty of input from lawyers who will of course be the accountable parties as to why this was done in this way; McCanns only did what was advised by lawyers to do-- and lawyers would know how to set up a Fund that worked for whatever purpose it was set up for. that's very smart, very forward thinking for people who were setting up a Fund to Search for the daughter - that it just happened to tick all the boxes to allow them to do what they needed to do to protect themselves.

They are either very smart or very pre planning, understanding ahead of time that they'd need all sorts of lawyers and all sorts of money coming to them voted on by their family members whose interest wouldn't actually BE a conflict just because they meant to use it to get money for themselves.

What?

This Fund had P 2, Million by Christmas 2007, if you look at the Board of Directors widowan, the McCanns were appointed a couple of years ago when John McCann, Brother of Gerry , resigned as did Skeehan a work colleague of Gerry's who was an experienced fundraiser. You have to ask the question, why was Brian Kenney a wealthy man , but with suspect dealings, 2 of his Companies were struck off, given the job of recruiting the Detectives????? None of whom was experienced in searching for missing children. Why was Kennedy's Corporate Lawyer made a Director of NSU?

This is an American Computer and there is no pound sign which is why I put P .  

I don't know Panda but as long as I've been here you've dug on like a tick   to the Fund and you weren't wrong!