Exclusive: How a food bank siphoned £195,000 into private hands

It was a typical quiet morning when Knowsley Foodbank received the email. Despite its bland and bureaucratic subject line — “Unannounced visit 24 June 2025” — panic descended on the charity’s Kirkby warehouse.

The email informed the food bank’s bosses, Antonia Bell and Carolyn Vaughan, that a council-appointed auditor would be visiting that day to review all of their financial documents. The auditor wanted to learn how the food bank had spent £1.1 million of taxpayers’ money.

Bell and Vaughan had less than three hours to craft their strategy. By 1pm, the auditor had arrived at their door, accompanied by a council officer. The plan? Give them nothing. According to two staffers at the food bank, Bell claimed all the requested documents were held by an employee who was unfortunately “unavailable” for the audit. “[She] most definitely lied,” one of the staffers told The Post.

For over a year, Knowsley Foodbank had been receiving monthly payments of between £40,000 and £50,000 from the council. However, late last year, the council became concerned that cash wasn’t all being spent to feed the hungry. They had suspicions about the food bank’s links to a scandal-hit network of companies that Post readers have become familiar with: the Big Help empire of former Liverpool Labour councillor, Peter Mitchell. 

The suggestion that public money might be going missing from a food bank is an incendiary claim. But after three months of reporting, we can now reveal that’s exactly what happened. 

Documents obtained by The Post show that last year and early this year, Knowsley Foodbank siphoned large sums of money into organisations that Mitchell directly or indirectly controlled – effectively becoming a cash machine for his Big Help network. Bank statements for two separate months during that time period show £165,000 in such payments, plus additional transfers of more than £49,000 into a company that one of Mitchell’s aides described as “Peter’s private company”.     

Leaked emails show that Mitchell and his partner, sitting Liverpool Labour councillor Colette Goulding, remained closely involved with Knowsley Foodbank during this period — contradicting  assurances food bank bosses gave the council.

The Post can also reveal that as a result of these transfers, Knowsley Foodbank is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. The Charity Commission said in September it has launched an inquiry into Knowsley Foodbank over “regulatory concerns”  regarding “payments to a non-charitable company”.

We contacted Knowsley Foodbank for this story, as well as Peter Mitchell, Colette Goulding, Antonia Bell and Carolyn Vaughan. Only Mitchell responded to our request for comment, telling The Post he takes the allegations raised in today’s story “very seriously”, but he is unable to answer our specific questions because he needs to “review the physical and electronic records”. The SFO said they could neither confirm nor deny that an investigation is underway.

Last year, we reported that £5.5 million had been moved out of charities in the Big Help network into private companies controlled by Mitchell and his associates. Since then, Mitchell has been declared bankrupt — and three of his charities are under investigation for financial malpractice. Goulding remains a Labour councillor in Liverpool.

Who was in charge?

The recent history of Knowsley Foodbank is one of eye-popping growth. Set up by Big Help Project in 2011, it became an independent charity in 2021.

The organisation's income surged more than 8x, from £103,000 in the year ending April 2022, to £863,000 in the year ending April 2024. Its ten employees became responsible for distributing food and household essentials from five food banks and 20 food clubs, and in June 2024, Knowsley Chamber reported that Knowsley Foodbank fed 240,000 people over the last year – more than double the previous year’s figure. 

Knowsley council started funding Knowsley Foodbank in December 2023. Over the next four months the local authority contributed £300,000 — nearly half of the cash donations received by the charity that financial year. The council’s donations more than doubled in the financial year ending April 2025 — to £800,000. In all, between December 2023 and May 2025, the charity received £1.1 million of taxpayer funds.

While Bell and Vaughan — the latter is Peter Mitchell’s niece — ran Knowsley Foodbank’s day to day operations, responsibility for the charity’s finances lay with its trustees. Since November 2024 just one person has been in that role: former Liverpool councillor Kay Davies.

Davies was the only individual willing to give The Post an on-the-record interview for today’s story. The Post also spoke to four other people associated with the food bank and parts of the Mitchell empire, all of whom insisted on anonymity out of fear of retribution. Davies told us that Peter Mitchell asked her to become a trustee of Knowsley Foodbank in late 2024, when her step-daughter Lydia Aindow was also a trustee. She says that shortly after her appointment, Aindow resigned — leaving her as the sole trustee. 

Davies says she was not aware of the responsibilities of being a charity trustee when she accepted the role, and was under the impression her position was ceremonial. She added that she never went to any trustee meetings or had any discussions with Bell and Vaughan about the food bank’s finances.

Lydia Aindow began working at Big Help Project in 2019, and in just six years she progressed from being Mitchell’s personal assistant to one of his most senior aides. By 2023, he had made her Big Help group’s director of strategic operations, and between 2021 and 2025 she also served as a director or trustee of at least nine companies or charities linked to Mitchell. 

In her interview with The Post, Davies claims she did not have conversations about Mitchell or Big Help with her step-daughter Lydia. “I just didn’t have much interest in it,” Davies says. 

In October 2024, Knowsley council leader Graeme Morgan sent a letter to councillors outlining concerns about the food bank’s ties to Big Help Project. Shortly afterwards, Joe Goulding — the then-chair of Knowsley Foodbank and Colette Goulding’s son — wrote to Morgan saying that the charity was “entirely separate from any Big Help associated entity”. He continued: “In light of these circumstances…both myself and Lydia [Aindow]... have formally tendered our resignations as trustees…we feel it necessary to ensure our continued association does not cause any material difficulty to the Foodbank”. 

However, an email chain starting on 28 April this year — six months after Goulding and Aindow resigned as trustees — begins when a council officer sends questions to food bank boss Vaughan about its finances. Within half an hour, that email had been forwarded to Aindow — who then emails Mitchell. “I’m in the office this morning,” Mitchell replies at 7.53am the next day, “let’s go through this together”.

That email thread is not the only proof that Mitchell was still involved in the food bank. In May 2025, a charity named esharelife Foundation posted an image to its website after making a £2,000 donation to Knowsley Foodbank. In that photo, esharelife’s chairman Maurizio Bragagni smiles as he stands next to food bank boss Antonia Bell — as well as Mitchell and Goulding. 

None of those in the photo responded to our questions about it. We also approached Joe Goulding about the emails he exchanged with Knowsley council. Goulding told us that he is “not aware of any wrongdoing at Knowsley Foodbank”, and that his email to Graeme Morgan was, he believed at the time, “factually accurate”. 

The unexplained transfers

Leaked bank statements for September 2024 and March 2025 — shown to us by a disillusioned former employee of the Big Help empire — reveal even closer ties between the food bank and Big Help. They show roughly £300,000 coming into the charity’s accounts in those two months, half from Knowsley council and most of the remainder from charitable sources. Much of this money is then transferred into parts of the Big Help empire.

The two largest recipients were private companies. Big Help Group Ltd received nearly £82,000 in two separate payments of £78,000 and £3,933. This is a for-profit company, not to be confused with the charity Big Help Project. Companies House records show that in September 2024, Mitchell owned at least 75% of Big Help Group’s shares.

In early 2025, Mitchell was in trouble. He would be made personally bankrupt in May; his main charity, Big Help Project, had been under investigation by the Charity Commission for more than a year; bailiffs had become regular visitors to Big Help Project’s headquarters; and another associated company, Big Help Homes CIC, was about to go into administration. Yet Knowsley Foodbank was still receiving donations.

In March 2025, Knowsley Foodbank transferred a total of £54,000 to a for-profit company called Social Value Housing that was controlled by Mitchell. Another £49,333 was transferred out to a mysterious account called “LCS”. (We’ll say more about this company below.) And £10,000 went to a bank account under the name Yoga Nation. We have seen a Yoga Nation bank statement from December 2024 that says that account belongs to Mitchell and is registered at the home address he shares with Goulding. 

In addition to these transfers of more than £195,000 to private companies, the statements also show payments of £12,000 to Big Help Academy, a non-profit organisation, and £7,500 to a charity called Croxteth & Gillmoss Community Federation. Both are controlled by Mitchell or his associates.

These bank statements prompt obvious questions. Why was a food bank transferring so much of its cash to private organisations? Who authorised these payments? 

The Post has seen two email chains in which people inside the Big Help empire ask similar questions. On 3 July, food bank boss Antonia Bell emailed Big Help’s head of legal services, Joe Birley, who had replaced Mitchell as a director of Social Value Housing in May. Citing the £54,000 that went from Knowsley Foodbank to Social Value Housing, Bell wrote: “I see no reason for these payments to have been made and request them to be repaid to the food bank immediately.”

Birley responds half an hour later that he’s unaware of the payments but will “investigate and revert”. The next morning he asks: “Who authorised the payments on [Knowsley Foodbank’s] side?”

Bell replies that four people “have access to the [Knowsley Foodbank] account”: herself, the head of finance Ewelina Gawel, Lydia Aindow and Colette Goulding. Bell explains that she used the Knowsley Foodbank account for food order payments and did not make the transfers to Social Value Housing; Gawel used it only to pay wages; and “Lydia [Aindow] used the account for most other bill payments….I am not sure what Colette [Goulding] used the bank for.”

“I have alerted the previous director in charge during this period,” Birley responds, “who has stated that this is repayment towards payments and investments made by Social Value Housing. I have also been told that this is not the case. Can I suggest an urgent chat please?” 

Social Value Housing had two directors when the £54,000 was paid to it: Peter Mitchell and Paul Banks, Mitchell’s long-time financial advisor. We asked Birley about these emails, and whether he was referring to Mitchell or Banks. Birley told us he could not comment on the transfers as they are “under active investigation”.

Additionally, we approached Goulding, Bell and Gawel about the transfers to Big Help-affiliated companies. Goulding — who represents the West Derby Muirhead ward at Liverpool city council — and Bell ignored our questions; emails and calls to Gawel bounced.

‘Supply of essential items’

In October 2024, Gawel — the head of finance at Big Help group — queried a £2,000 payment that Social Value Housing made to an account named “LCS”. She emailed both Mitchell and Aindow, asking what the payment was for and requesting an invoice to back it up. 

Ten days later, Aindow replied: “[LCS] is Peter’s private company,” she explained, “he asked me to make this payment as part of his wages. I will get an invoice sent over.” 

In addition to her role as head of strategic operations at Big Help group, Aindow had a close personal relationship with Mitchell. “He treated Lydia like a daughter, he always said he would have loved to have given her away [at her wedding],” one former Big Help staffer tells me. Another describes her as his “confidante”, adding “she knew everything he knew.” When Aindow married her long-time partner in June, Mitchell gave a speech at the reception.

Three LCS invoices obtained by The Post reveal what the initials stand for: Liverpool Contract Services. However, Companies House doesn’t have any record of a company associated with Peter Mitchell called Liverpool Contract Services, LCS, or anything similar.

Next comes the question of what these LCS invoices are for. Between February and April 2025, LCS issued an invoice on the first of each month to Knowsley Foodbank. The invoices all mention “supply of essential items”, billing £8,333.33 in February and March, and £6,666.66 in April. 

We asked Mitchell about LCS and what “items” it was allegedly providing to the food bank. He said he “cannot comment on individual transactions”, because “many of the transactions and operational decisions you refer to date back several years and involved multiple individuals, departments and external partners”. “I therefore need to ensure that any information I provide is accurate and complete,” he said, adding that he is “reviewing the matters [The Post] have raised”.

In response to allegations in this story, Lydia Aindow told us she “did not know everything Peter knew and was not his confidante”. She also denied ever issuing “private invoices for Peter”, adding that any payments she made were “always made with the appropriate authorisation.” “I have not financially benefited from Big Help, I have not done anything wrong, I did my job”.

A fraud investigation

On 29 August 2025, an official at the government’s Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) wrote a letter to Davies, Knowsley Foodbank’s sole trustee. Elected in 2016 as a Labour councillor for County Ward, Davies was hired as an employability officer at Big Help Project that same year, remaining in that role for six months. In 2018 she defected to the Lib Dems, and since 2020 has been a non-executive director of an FCA-regulated credit union. 

The Defra official tells Davies they have terminated a grant agreement signed on 15 May 2025 that would have awarded Knowsley Foodbank £173,011. But there is an even bigger revelation in the letter: the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating Knowsley Foodbank, on top of an inquiry underway at the Charity Commission. 

We asked the SFO about their investigation –  they told us that “in line with long established practice to avoid prejudice to law enforcement activity, we can neither confirm nor deny any investigation into this matter."

In our interview with Davies we asked her why — given her role at a credit union — she had not thought it necessary to review Knowsley Foodbank’s financial documents. She told The Post she had asked Antonia Bell for access to the charity’s bank accounts on multiple occasions, but “I was told I had no right to see them”.  She added she has now resigned from the credit union. 

Was Davies ever aware that Peter Mitchell was involved in the operation of the food bank? She said she only learned of Mitchell’s involvement in May this year, when Bell said to her that “Peter has told us it will all be alright”. 

Additionally, we asked Davies how it was possible for her to know so little about the food bank when her step-daughter was a former trustee responsible for transferring thousands of pounds out of the charity. “I swear to God, I never saw a thing,” Davies insists. “I’ve trusted people I know at their word that everything was going to be fine and I’ve been naïve. But what I can say is I’ve not made any money or gained from this.”

In response to our story, Knowsley council told us they “always acted diligently and in good faith” with Knowsley Foodbank, “with the clear and sole aim to ensure that residents of Knowsley get the support they need to feed their families”. They added that they “fully support the statutory inquiry being carried out by the Charity Commission”.

‘Two fingers up’

The impact Knowsley Foodbank’s demise has had on vulnerable people is vast. Well over half of households in Knowsley are classed as “deprived” in the 2021 Census — the highest proportion of any local authority in England and Wales.

When I visit a community food bank and pantry in Stockbridge village — one of the many previously supported by Knowsley Foodbank —  those working there paint a bleak picture.  “People are dirt poor here,” Tina — one of the volunteers — tells me. As we speak, a steady stream of people come into the small community centre, each leaving with bags of the bare essentials: potatoes, cereal, tinned vegetables. 

Tina says that when Knowsley Foodbank closed in July, following the council inspection, the Stockbridge branch was forced to shut for two weeks, unable to source enough food to stay open. “We had people ringing [our volunteers] at home and emailing them, asking for help,” she says.

Now, the council has allocated £6,000 to support their operations for the next four months. Despite this, Tina says there are still weekly shortages of food and supplies. Around 100 people per week are depending on their services, and feeding a family of six can cost upwards of £80. 

Much like the demise of other Big Help entities, the food bank’s closure has also left its staff in a difficult position. Documents leaked to The Post reveal that as of December 2023, Knowsley Foodbank owed HMRC over £90,000, and staff are still waiting for redundancy pay.

One former staff member tells me of his fears for the looming winter months. “We can’t afford to put our heating on, and I know this year I will be going to bed cold,” he says, sitting in his living room, warming his hands with his cup of tea. He’s owed six months of wages from his work within the Big Help empire, and the financial burden has taken a toll. “I was taken in hook, line and sinker by the whole thing of helping people, and look where it’s left me?”

Back in May 2025, when Big Help’s Boaler Street offices were repossessed by bailiffs, a photograph was taken inside Peter Mitchell’s barren office. He had fled the premises and left little behind; papers strewn on a dusty floor and a wooden desk stripped of its computer or monitor. 

Sat on that desk was a mug — written on it the words “World’s Best Boss”.

“I thought it was left as a two fingers up,” the employee who took the photograph tells me. “[Peter Mitchell] professes to stop poverty and whatever, but now he’s left people in it.”

If you have any further information about this story, please email abi@livpost.co.uk.