Note by Tom Watkins. The following article published in the Sunday Telegraph is mischievous, it refers to the Portia Trust. The Portia Campaign which was born out of the winding up of the Portia Trust is not and never has been a registered charity. I might add that I have known Ken Norman for the last two years. In a conversation with a lady at the Charity Commission I referred to him as being just short of Jesus Christ. He has not got any hate or spite in his body, just love for other people. Ken at the age of 80 has one fear and that is that what he has tried to achieve in the last 29 years will not be continued. I am one of the so-called volunteers and I am proud to know the man. If there was more like him there would be no holocausts, Bosnias, Kosovos, Rwandas, East Timors - need I go on? The Portia Campaign is a group of people who at present run in parallel, fighting hate, spite and vengeance and sharing our thoughts and deeds. In time we will probably converge and who knows - charity status again applied for and the Portia Trust may well be back up and running.
Here is the contents of an email sent to me by Ken.
Dear Tom, Would you consider including
this on our website?
Campaigning groups such as Portia are almost invariably misreported
in Britain's national Press. Here is an example of it, from the Sunday Telegraph,
August 6, 2000.
Crime charity boss quits in cash crisis.
The head of a controversial criminal justice
charity is to quit his post in an attempt to salvage the troubled finances. Ken Norman,
a former crime writer, is to step down as head of the Portia Campaign, which has
been removed from the Charity Commission register because of its financial problems.
The octogenarian journalist, who has sparked controversy with his views that some
murderers should serve shorter sentences, believes the campaign will not survive
unless he is replaced. The campaign, set up as the Portia Trust in 1971, has lobbied
for the rights of some of Britain's most notorious killers. In 1998 Mr Norman called
on the Home Secretary to free Myra Hindley, branding her a political prisoner. More
recently the charity has focused on those it believes have been wrongly accused of
murdering children.
Over the past two years it has cut back its work because of a
severe cash shortage. The Telegraph has learned that the organisation was unable
to pay phone bills or maintain its helpline for the families of convicted murderers.
It has also had to replace its five paid counsellors with volunteers. Mr Norman confirmed
that there had been serious financial problems but said cost cutting had now put
the organisation in the black. The charity has experienced financial problems before.
In 1991 Mr Norman said that unless the charity received £5,000 within days it would
not survive. In 1996 he was criticised for trying to sell stories about women convicted
of snatching babies, in an attempt to raise £30,000. The charity has been criticised
by the Police Federation for website material the police claimed was defamatory of
an officer. Mr Norman has appealed for applicants for his unpaid job in The Journalist.
A Charity Commission spokesman confirmed that the organisation was no longer on its
register.
Here is the letter that the Sunday Telegraph was asked to publish in reply (with
very little hope that it would be accepted):
"Crime charity boss quits in cash crisis" (August 6) was unfair - but after 28 years'
work in this field, I expect that.
I am not "quitting my post in an attempt to salvage
[the charity's] troubled finances."
Trouble arose after a one-year grant from the
National Lottery in 1996. The money had to be spent during that year, and then, early
in 1997, we were told that Camelot had no procedure for renewing grants, although
we had been encouraged to make application and it appeared to have been approved.
Our
work had expanded hugely with the £70,000 grant; we had five paid part-time counsellors
and a free-call counselling line.
The unexpected end to income meant that expenditure
could not be met. We were suddenly cut off from hundreds of callers needing counselling,
and the staff had to be dispersed.
Very fortunately, our creditors were exceptionally
helpful in reducing or writing off the sums, and from my own pocket I paid the balance.
There
are NO "troubled finances" now; that problem ended in 1996. When we lacked the money
to bring trustees together for an a.g.m., as required for a registered charity. We
had to de-register, and the Charity Commission, sympathetic to our plight, allowed
the few assets to be retained. We became the Portia Campaign, an unregistered charity,
and our funds although very small are in the black and give no cause for concern.
My
one and only reasons for seeking to bow out slowly are age (nearly 80), disability,
and the belief that someone younger can do a far better job.
The item on our website
which led the Police Federation to threaten the site-provider with a libel action
was not one of our own cases, but was provided by the Merseyside-based Eddie Gilfoyle
Campaign. Our site has now reopened as www.Portia.org based in the US, and an item
about the Eddie Gilfoyle case is still there.
Portia is now thriving and becoming
international; we have unpaid supporters and advisers throughout Britain, and also
in New Zealand, Australia, the US and Canada.
Here are some other errors in the published report:
There has been no claim that murderers
should serve shorter sentences. We do believe that life sentences and murder convictions
should not be imposed on parents and carers whose children have suffered natural
cot death, and that infanticide or manslaughter charges could be more appropriate
even if there is guilt. It is usually not deliberate murder.
I certainly do not believe
that Portia will not survive unless I am replaced.
We have never lobbied for the rights
of Britain's most notorious killers, except that Myra Hindley long ago completed
the tariff sentence imposed on her by the Courts of Law, and since then has remained
in prison solely at the whim of Home Secretaries fearful of tabloid reaction if she
is freed on licence. (When her life would still be tightly controlled. TW).
The Sunday
Telegraph did not learn that Portia was unable to pay phone bills or maintain its
helpline "for the families of convicted murderers." I had explained the now-overcome
financial problems in The Journalist article, inviting someone to replace me. And
that helpline was for non-rational and compulsive shoplifters, and for potential
baby-snatchers.
I cannot remember saying in 1991 that unless £5,000 was received within
days Portia would not survive. As for "trying to sell stories about women convicted
of snatching babies in an attempt to raise £30,000," this is a travesty of the truth
(repeated many times in other newspapers). Portia was attempting to raise £30,000
a year to open a retreat for women knowing themselves to be at risk of snatching
a baby. (We had 29 years' experience in this work; practically every abductor goes
through months of torment longing for a baby to hold and to love before eventually
deluding herself that she has some claim on another woman's child. (Perhaps simply
the baby has given a smile which is interpreted as desire to be picked up and cuddled
. . . and having taken this step she cannot bring herself to put the child down again).
We believe that almost every baby-snatch could be prevented if the woman received
careful counselling during those months of longing. [Note that there are now far
fewer child-snatches after our one-year lottery grant permitted intensive counselling.]
I wrote to the management of the Observer asking that they should finance the setting
up of a retreat, and in return, if any resident wanted to tell her story to a newspaper,
for cash, we would suggest that she should first contact the Observer. I received
a phone call saying that this letter had been passed to the editor; he was extremely
interested and would like to send a representative to discuss details. And so it
became "trying to sell their stories for £30,000."
It would seem that Britain's "quality"
newspapers have a great deal in common with the gutter press.
Ken Norman, chairman
also see our article Lies, half-truths and opinions
and the email of support from the editor of The Journalist magazine
Posted: August 2000
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org