Head of religious prisons charity
convicted of stealing funds
The director of a religious organisation, which was allowed by the Prison Service to take over entire jail wings, faces being sent to prison himself after being convicted of stealing from the charity.
The director of a religious organisation, which was allowed by the Prison Service to take over entire jail wings, faces being sent to prison himself after being convicted of stealing from the charity.
Kenner Jones was convicted yesterday at Dorchester Crown Court of the theft of £2,536 from the Kairos-Apac charitable trust, an organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of inmates.
The charity, based on religious teachings developed in Brazil, had expanded into five jails. But the man in chargehad served three jail terms in Britain and been locked up in Canada and the United States. His history of fraud and deception began in 1973 and inclu-ded more than 70 convictions.
Last night, Lord Avebury said he had written to Home Office ministers demanding a full inquiry into how Jones and the trust - which was paid more than £110,000 in public funds - had been allowed to operate. "I think that the Prison Service has a lot to answer for and the comptroller and auditor general should take a particular interest in the expenditure that was incurred without any contractual relationship," he said.
Yesterday, the case was adjourned for pre-sentence reports and Jones was given bail.
Jones'svictims have included the barrister and former Liberal Democrat MP Alex Carlile, a Canadian television presenter who Jones married before plundering her bank account and elderly women in a church congregation in Surrey.
Concerns about Kenner Jones were first raised by Ursula Smartt, an academic at Thames Valley University who was commissioned by Alan Walker, a member of the Prison Service board, to do research on the Kairos-Apac project in 1998. Her report warned of a lack of financial controls for a charitable trust fund worth £300,000.
But when The Independent revealed details of the report in January last year, Lord Williams of Mostyn, then the prisons minister, mounted a damage-limitation exercise, claiming that Jones had no access to finances. Weeks later, after further inquiries by Kairos-Apac trustees, Jones was dismissed from the organisation amid widespread allegations of mismanagement and Dorset Police launched an investigation.
Concern about Kairos-Apac continued. In last year's annual report, the board of visitors at Brixton jail, south London, said the trust had submitted invoices for £51,000, yet "not one single prisoner had been processed" in nine months. It said £27,360 had been paid although government accounting procedures had not been followed.
It warned the Prisons minister, Paul Boateng, of concern "that [Kairos-APAC] still operates in a few other prisons including Highpoint, the Verne and Swaleside".
The Charity Commissioners began an inquiry last spring. The trustees closed the charity last July, but a new trust, named Kainos, was set up with new trustees, including Mr Walker - who is now retired from the Prison Service and works as a private consultant. Kainos currently operates in four prisons.
The Prison Service said an independent inquiry was under way into the effectiveness of the existing Kainos units. "We firmly believe that Kainos has learnt the lessons from its predecessor," a spokesman said.
