Former Labour councillor Peter Mitchell runs a charity that claims to bring in £15m a year. But there’s plenty that doesn’t make sense about Big Help Project
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had to take a walk half way through reading this as I thought was going to explode.
For all of us out there, running social enterprises properly, safeguarding people, putting our accounts in, paying our taxes, using funding appropriately this does nothing but make our jobs and day to day operations harder as we are the front line organisations that pick up the pieces in the community in relation to the clients who are now, like Maya, TRAUMATISED, not just depressed but PTSD level traumatised.
I used to work in the field of supported housing and have seen first hand organisations warehouse people in these conditions under this loop hole, I left after blowing the whistle on an organisation over the water to Wirral Council.
What happens is that the weakest in society, who no one will listen too, who don't know their right's under housing legislation and law, are warehoused by these unscrupulous "supported" housing firms.
THERE IS NEVER ANY INTENTION to actively support, care for or supply services ie: counselling or benefit support, if they do, it's lip service or very light touch. What they are looking for are people who will put up and shut up, while they take the enhanced payments from Local Authority for support that isn't delivered.
This is pure greed and just like the story a few weeks ago about the flat's that caught fire due to dodgy planning regulations, it's been allowed to carry on unchecked and unregulated for years, so people like this guy's operation can mushroom, and while share holders are receive fat dividends, some poor kid is left hanging in his bedroom with a starving dog circling him for days.
Keep exposing this corruption The Post, and do it in memory of Callum and all the others forced to live in these traumatising Dickensian conditions, instead of the safe harbour for recovery and rehabilitation they deserve(d) and thought they would be.
What a fantastic piece of journalism Abi. A tour de force - and only Part One !!
This is why I am happy to pay my subscription - lifting the lid and moving the stones - asking the questions and following the money. Looking forward to Part Two.
Home Reiet are in deep financial trouble after overpaying for substandard housing and not being paid rent by the housing charities.
Sounds like it’s the property companies and charities that have profited from this benefit loophole at the expense of the vulnerable tenants in their care.
Once again, I read the Post and its like being back in the 70s or 80s when local journalism really did an excellent job. A small paper in Kirkby once exposed the corruption in Kirkby Council which ended with police arresting the No 1 politician here and his mates. The Post carries on that tradition of investigative local journalism.
Journalists searching for facts should be digging to Australia if needs be.
To: Mr Liam Thorp Liverpool Echo's so called Political Editor.
Liam,
First it was parking tickets and now this. Exhilarating stuff Liam! Pity there's bigger fish to fry but you just won't give it a battering.
For so many years Mr Liam Thorp you and your close PR agent covered up the going on with the LCC
due to the fact we are told your very close relationship with [One Dan Hughes] of Hughes PR.
You also it may seem to be getting blackmailed by a PR company and you would be no where with out the input of this PR company and the ex mayor Joe Anderson and his daughter, do you understand this Mr Thorp?
Why did a good reporter [ Tom Duffy ] jump ship from the sinking Echo last year?
Yes due to the mess with you and this PR agent in a court case that you wanted shut down at the echo!
Why did the Manchester Sun newspaper not wish to take you on as a Jr reporter in the end you came to Liverpool to work for the Echo.
Many in your office [ The Echo] do not wish to work with you some say you may be a double agent?
Who is it that this new online Post quality newspaper can write these 1st class reports on this subject and yet the Echo kills it off?
Echo sales are way down, and many good reporters have jumped ship like [ Tom Duffy ] to go on to better things and yet you over 4 years have killed off and help cove up the dirt within the LCC.
Do you still "wine and dine" with £789.00 bills all paid for by a number of cowboy PR outfits?
Liverpool Council is still corrupt, but still nowhere as corrupt as its little brother Knowsley Council.
Mr Thorp may have been told to look the other way by the LCC and others?
You never asked this when your mate chippy the disgraced ex mayor was in office ..in fact you turned a blind eye.
Mt Liam Thorp soon the chickens are coming home and many will expose the past dealing at your office and your bulling.
Why did your own Echo editor kill the report on your close mate from Hughes PR?
Dan had said he put you where you are to-day due to Joe Anderson and his company?
Tom |Duffy was going to expose this in a UK newspaper, others at the Echo say you need to be looked into and sacked?
Mr Hughes was called into the Echo to your office and it may involve a past court case with regards to Mr Hughes and others regarding:[ bullying allegations, witness intimidation and bribery]
The court papers may come out to expose this mess as a number of real good reporters are going over page by page.
You on the other hand can not as your in the middle of this nightmare along with others, oh no need to ask for help from Joe Anderson and or his daughter , [Hughes] is on his own over this court case.
Reach PLC in time will be sent a full copy of this court report and like you once said "Dan Hughes" and I [Thorp] work together I need him!!!!!!!!!!
Thorp's track record for client journalism goes back years. From treating Joe Anderson as a credible football pundit and publishing fawning articles about his "sassy" Twitter comebacks, to inexplicable coverage of Cllr Nick Small's hospitalisation a year ago, complete with selfies from his bed (another councillor who tragically died while in office did not receive similar personal attention, nor did Joanne Anderson's cancer diagnosis). Both men have featured in the national media in stories (Beautiful Ideas Company, the Riverside CLP bullying allegations, witness intimidation and bribery) which arguably bring the Labour Party and council into disrepute, yet there was always far too little curiosity or willingness at the Echo to scrutinise these issues objectively, or at all.
Obviously it's fine for a newspaper to be politically partisan and no one would expect otherwise from a Liverpool based Reach title, but it's quite clear Thorp's relationships with the very individuals he should be holding to account are worryingly compromised.
Good work Abi. It beggars belief that the "enhanced benefits" can be paid seemingly without any checks that it is being used to provide the services for which it was intended.
Liverpool council has been seeding articles for months now about how much “temporary housing” is costing them, how much of it they need, and how signing long deals with the private sector to the tune of tens of millions is the answer.
As usual, zero transparency about what they mean, and who they plan to spend that money with and what for. Given how they went after student housing based on getting more money from government to cover the housing (only for gov to pull the plug on the extra money), they need to be watched.
This “enhanced benefit” answers why parasite landlords are interested in HMOs. And why instead of allowing them to proliferate or masquerade as student housing developments, any decent council would be working to make them unprofitable. And certainly not underwriting them with millions of Pounds of public money.
The facts will come out Mr Thorp on your meeting at your office in Old Hall St.
Dan Hughes will blame you and the Liverpool Echo with regards to the cover -up.
Without him [Hughes PR] you would be nothing!
You and others in the [Echo] knew all about the games [Cllr Peter Mitchall] was playing 4 years ago all you lot pushed it under the rug. Thank God for the online Post.
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism- from this new online newspaper!
Pass on my regards to Cllr Nick Small your other mate that you have been coving for all these years!
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism well done to the online post!
Why has Mr Liam Thorp not done this before he had all the facts before him.
Why? Thorp is just a 3rd rate little reporter. who may have to tow the line on the orders of others and his mater a PR cowboy due to a court case that Tom Duffy was about to run with and expose last year....
It’s took a few days to read and I’m flabbergasted by what you’ve reported. Well done Abi a fantastic piece of reporting in part one can’t wait for part 2. It’s a tragedy that people as vulnerable as Callum, are the ones that suffer the most at the hands of greedy people only out for themselves and not really being charitable. I’m aware that this charity tried to approach a large supermarket in Bootle to get food to start a new pantry, something that’s already set up locally and is run through the Trussle Trust. He didn’t know who they were, which raised a big red flag to the community worker from the store. Luckily the request was declined. He actually worked out of the local Costa using their free WiFi and didn’t even have an office!! Some organisation they are.
Very well done to you Abi, hair raising stuff this, reminds me of the kind of reports that we used to read in the Daily Mirror from the late Paul Foot.This is the kind of expose which the Echo shuld be all over like a rash, but instead all it seems to be arsed over is the latest bargain from Amazon, and what the contestants on Bargain Hunt, made from buying a cheap item and getting a goood price for it at auction, that and endless puff pieces for Emmerdale, the chase and the house sale programme on Channel 4. Seems odd that a major media outfit like the Echo (backed by Retch) is intertested in all that drivel while a shoestring "upstart" publication like The Post is able to find all this out and bring it to our attention. As others have said both on here, and in the past "this is why we pay our subscriptions"
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had to take a walk half way through reading this as I thought was going to explode.
For all of us out there, running social enterprises properly, safeguarding people, putting our accounts in, paying our taxes, using funding appropriately this does nothing but make our jobs and day to day operations harder as we are the front line organisations that pick up the pieces in the community in relation to the clients who are now, like Maya, TRAUMATISED, not just depressed but PTSD level traumatised.
I used to work in the field of supported housing and have seen first hand organisations warehouse people in these conditions under this loop hole, I left after blowing the whistle on an organisation over the water to Wirral Council.
What happens is that the weakest in society, who no one will listen too, who don't know their right's under housing legislation and law, are warehoused by these unscrupulous "supported" housing firms.
THERE IS NEVER ANY INTENTION to actively support, care for or supply services ie: counselling or benefit support, if they do, it's lip service or very light touch. What they are looking for are people who will put up and shut up, while they take the enhanced payments from Local Authority for support that isn't delivered.
This is pure greed and just like the story a few weeks ago about the flat's that caught fire due to dodgy planning regulations, it's been allowed to carry on unchecked and unregulated for years, so people like this guy's operation can mushroom, and while share holders are receive fat dividends, some poor kid is left hanging in his bedroom with a starving dog circling him for days.
Keep exposing this corruption The Post, and do it in memory of Callum and all the others forced to live in these traumatising Dickensian conditions, instead of the safe harbour for recovery and rehabilitation they deserve(d) and thought they would be.
What a fantastic piece of journalism Abi. A tour de force - and only Part One !!
This is why I am happy to pay my subscription - lifting the lid and moving the stones - asking the questions and following the money. Looking forward to Part Two.
Home Reiet are in deep financial trouble after overpaying for substandard housing and not being paid rent by the housing charities.
Sounds like it’s the property companies and charities that have profited from this benefit loophole at the expense of the vulnerable tenants in their care.
Once again, I read the Post and its like being back in the 70s or 80s when local journalism really did an excellent job. A small paper in Kirkby once exposed the corruption in Kirkby Council which ended with police arresting the No 1 politician here and his mates. The Post carries on that tradition of investigative local journalism.
Journalists searching for facts should be digging to Australia if needs be.
Great article.
To: Mr Liam Thorp Liverpool Echo's so called Political Editor.
Liam,
First it was parking tickets and now this. Exhilarating stuff Liam! Pity there's bigger fish to fry but you just won't give it a battering.
For so many years Mr Liam Thorp you and your close PR agent covered up the going on with the LCC
due to the fact we are told your very close relationship with [One Dan Hughes] of Hughes PR.
You also it may seem to be getting blackmailed by a PR company and you would be no where with out the input of this PR company and the ex mayor Joe Anderson and his daughter, do you understand this Mr Thorp?
Why did a good reporter [ Tom Duffy ] jump ship from the sinking Echo last year?
Yes due to the mess with you and this PR agent in a court case that you wanted shut down at the echo!
Why did the Manchester Sun newspaper not wish to take you on as a Jr reporter in the end you came to Liverpool to work for the Echo.
Many in your office [ The Echo] do not wish to work with you some say you may be a double agent?
Who is it that this new online Post quality newspaper can write these 1st class reports on this subject and yet the Echo kills it off?
Echo sales are way down, and many good reporters have jumped ship like [ Tom Duffy ] to go on to better things and yet you over 4 years have killed off and help cove up the dirt within the LCC.
Do you still "wine and dine" with £789.00 bills all paid for by a number of cowboy PR outfits?
Liverpool Council is still corrupt, but still nowhere as corrupt as its little brother Knowsley Council.
Mr Thorp may have been told to look the other way by the LCC and others?
You never asked this when your mate chippy the disgraced ex mayor was in office ..in fact you turned a blind eye.
Mt Liam Thorp soon the chickens are coming home and many will expose the past dealing at your office and your bulling.
Mr Thorp,
Why did your own Echo editor kill the report on your close mate from Hughes PR?
Dan had said he put you where you are to-day due to Joe Anderson and his company?
Tom |Duffy was going to expose this in a UK newspaper, others at the Echo say you need to be looked into and sacked?
Mr Hughes was called into the Echo to your office and it may involve a past court case with regards to Mr Hughes and others regarding:[ bullying allegations, witness intimidation and bribery]
The court papers may come out to expose this mess as a number of real good reporters are going over page by page.
You on the other hand can not as your in the middle of this nightmare along with others, oh no need to ask for help from Joe Anderson and or his daughter , [Hughes] is on his own over this court case.
Reach PLC in time will be sent a full copy of this court report and like you once said "Dan Hughes" and I [Thorp] work together I need him!!!!!!!!!!
Thorp's track record for client journalism goes back years. From treating Joe Anderson as a credible football pundit and publishing fawning articles about his "sassy" Twitter comebacks, to inexplicable coverage of Cllr Nick Small's hospitalisation a year ago, complete with selfies from his bed (another councillor who tragically died while in office did not receive similar personal attention, nor did Joanne Anderson's cancer diagnosis). Both men have featured in the national media in stories (Beautiful Ideas Company, the Riverside CLP bullying allegations, witness intimidation and bribery) which arguably bring the Labour Party and council into disrepute, yet there was always far too little curiosity or willingness at the Echo to scrutinise these issues objectively, or at all.
Obviously it's fine for a newspaper to be politically partisan and no one would expect otherwise from a Liverpool based Reach title, but it's quite clear Thorp's relationships with the very individuals he should be holding to account are worryingly compromised.
Good work Abi. It beggars belief that the "enhanced benefits" can be paid seemingly without any checks that it is being used to provide the services for which it was intended.
This 'Charity' carries a strong smell of soap powder.
Liverpool council has been seeding articles for months now about how much “temporary housing” is costing them, how much of it they need, and how signing long deals with the private sector to the tune of tens of millions is the answer.
As usual, zero transparency about what they mean, and who they plan to spend that money with and what for. Given how they went after student housing based on getting more money from government to cover the housing (only for gov to pull the plug on the extra money), they need to be watched.
This “enhanced benefit” answers why parasite landlords are interested in HMOs. And why instead of allowing them to proliferate or masquerade as student housing developments, any decent council would be working to make them unprofitable. And certainly not underwriting them with millions of Pounds of public money.
Mr Thorp and Reach PLC Newspaper
The facts will come out Mr Thorp on your meeting at your office in Old Hall St.
Dan Hughes will blame you and the Liverpool Echo with regards to the cover -up.
Without him [Hughes PR] you would be nothing!
You and others in the [Echo] knew all about the games [Cllr Peter Mitchall] was playing 4 years ago all you lot pushed it under the rug. Thank God for the online Post.
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism- from this new online newspaper!
Pass on my regards to Cllr Nick Small your other mate that you have been coving for all these years!
Outstanding piece of real investigative journalism well done to the online post!
Why has Mr Liam Thorp not done this before he had all the facts before him.
Why? Thorp is just a 3rd rate little reporter. who may have to tow the line on the orders of others and his mater a PR cowboy due to a court case that Tom Duffy was about to run with and expose last year....
It’s took a few days to read and I’m flabbergasted by what you’ve reported. Well done Abi a fantastic piece of reporting in part one can’t wait for part 2. It’s a tragedy that people as vulnerable as Callum, are the ones that suffer the most at the hands of greedy people only out for themselves and not really being charitable. I’m aware that this charity tried to approach a large supermarket in Bootle to get food to start a new pantry, something that’s already set up locally and is run through the Trussle Trust. He didn’t know who they were, which raised a big red flag to the community worker from the store. Luckily the request was declined. He actually worked out of the local Costa using their free WiFi and didn’t even have an office!! Some organisation they are.
Great work and great bit of journalism. Any one who has any dealings with Peter will not be surprised or shocked at how he acts.
There is something about Abi and The Post which reminds me of the late great John Pilger!
Thank You Abi👍⚖😉
For Callum and other Big Help tenants who were exploited as a commodity by the profiteering of those who were supposed to help not harm...💔
Outstanding 👏👏
Very well done to you Abi, hair raising stuff this, reminds me of the kind of reports that we used to read in the Daily Mirror from the late Paul Foot.This is the kind of expose which the Echo shuld be all over like a rash, but instead all it seems to be arsed over is the latest bargain from Amazon, and what the contestants on Bargain Hunt, made from buying a cheap item and getting a goood price for it at auction, that and endless puff pieces for Emmerdale, the chase and the house sale programme on Channel 4. Seems odd that a major media outfit like the Echo (backed by Retch) is intertested in all that drivel while a shoestring "upstart" publication like The Post is able to find all this out and bring it to our attention. As others have said both on here, and in the past "this is why we pay our subscriptions"