Camila Batmanghelidjh: Life, Kids Company and Court Record

Camila Batmanghelidjh (1963–2024) was the psychotherapist, author and campaigning charity leader who founded Kids Company in south London in 1996 and led it until the organisation closed in 2015. Her legacy cannot be reduced either to the charity’s vivid public success or to one court headline: four separate legal and regulatory stages between 2021 and 2025 reached materially different conclusions.

This record recovers the purpose of the biography that once sat at /about-us/the-team/camila-batmanghelidjh. It also brings that profile up to the final 2025 judgment, corrects an uncertain claim about Place2Be’s founding and separates what the former charity said about its chief executive from what courts, regulators and current institutional records establish.

Camila Batmanghelidjh at a glance

Batmanghelidjh was instantly recognisable for brightly layered clothes and turbans, but the style was not the substance of her public importance. For nearly two decades she argued that children affected by trauma, violence, poverty and family breakdown needed sustained, relational support rather than a short referral followed by a closed case. That message won access to ministers, philanthropists, artists and broadcasters—and made both her and the organisation unusually dependent on personal influence.

Life, psychotherapy and the growth of Kids Company

From Tehran to therapeutic work in London

Batmanghelidjh was born in Tehran to an Iranian father and Belgian mother and came to the UK as a child. Accounts of her education and clinical training vary in their detail. In 2015 parliamentary evidence, she described four years of psychotherapy training, a year of art psychotherapy at Goldsmiths and long personal psychoanalysis; she also confirmed that she was not then a member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy. It is therefore accurate to describe her as a psychotherapist by training and practice, but inaccurate to infer current professional registration from the title alone.

She worked with young people before Kids Company, including therapeutic work in south London. Contemporaneous profiles describe her as setting up counselling services and lecturing in psychology and psychotherapy. The former Kids Company biography said she had been a psychotherapist for more than 20 years by 2015.

The Place To Be claim needs qualification

The recovered Kids Company page said that Batmanghelidjh founded a charity called “The Place To Be” in her twenties. Older profiles and her 2015 parliamentary evidence also associated her with its foundation. Place2Be’s own current history, however, says Dame Benita Refson founded the organisation on 4 September 1994 after being inspired by a Southwark Family Service Unit project of that name; its current leadership page identifies Refson as founder and former chief executive.

Those records do not support presenting Batmanghelidjh as Place2Be’s sole founder today. The fair conclusion is narrower: she was linked to an early predecessor or early work around The Place To Be in contemporary accounts, while the organisation’s authoritative current history credits Refson with founding Place2Be. This distinction matters because the old Kids Company profile is a historical self-description, not an independent personnel record.

Kids Company, 1996–2015

Batmanghelidjh founded Kids Company in 1996. The organisation was incorporated as Keeping Kids Company in September 1997 and entered on the register of charities in February 1998. Its stated objects centred on preserving the health of children needing counselling, support and therapeutic use of the arts because of social or family circumstances.

The recovered biography described the first base as six converted railway arches and emphasised time spent building trust with young people labelled “hard to reach”. Kids Company later combined open-access centres, practical assistance, meals, education, social work, psychotherapy and school-based services. Its reach expanded beyond London to Bristol and Liverpool.

Scale claims require care. The charity reported supporting 36,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults, but the Charity Commission later said that figure included indirect beneficiaries—for example, other children in a family or class when one child received direct help—and should have been explained more clearly. The safest description is not a single headline number: Kids Company became a large, high-profile organisation with 495 employees and contractors in its 2013 accounts, a substantial volunteer network and work across centres and schools.

Ideas, books and public influence

Batmanghelidjh’s public case was that behaviour often labelled disruptive or criminal could be an adaptation to trauma and chronic insecurity. The organisation tried to respond with long-term relationships and practical help alongside therapy. Some of those ideas—particularly trauma-aware practice, attention to a child’s wider environment and the importance of trusted adults—became much more familiar in children’s services during and after Kids Company’s lifetime.

Her 2006 book Shattered Lives: Children Who Live with Courage and Dignity set out this view through her therapeutic work. Mind the Child, published in 2013, accompanied a campaign about child wellbeing. Kids, co-written with journalist Tim Rayment and published in 2017, presented her account of the organisation and its collapse. These books are sources for her perspective, not neutral audits of Kids Company.

She received an honorary CBE in 2013 for services to children and young people and several honorary university awards. The Design Museum included her in its Women Fashion Power exhibition, illustrating how her deliberately vivid public image had become part of her advocacy.

What the original Kids Company profile said

The last recovered version of the former page presents Batmanghelidjh as the organisation wanted supporters to understand her in 2015. It describes a chief executive who had:

• worked as a psychotherapist for more than two decades;
• founded Kids Company in converted railway arches;
• kept the organisation going through uncertain, largely charitable funding;
• remortgaged her flat twice during funding shortages;
• developed a needs-led model for children considered difficult to reach;
• spoken and written widely as an advocate for vulnerable children; and
• published Shattered Lives.

The page is valuable evidence of the charity’s own narrative, especially its emphasis on persistence, personal sacrifice and refusing to shape services around funding fashions. It is not sufficient evidence on its own for every biographical claim. The Place2Be attribution, beneficiary figures and descriptions of organisational success need the independent context now supplied by later institutional records.

The court and regulatory record, properly separated

Three proceedings are often compressed into “Kids Company was cleared” or “Kids Company was found mismanaged”. Neither shorthand is adequate. The decision-maker, legal question and result changed each time.

2021: the Official Receiver’s disqualification case failed

After a 37-day trial, Mrs Justice Falk refused the Official Receiver’s applications to disqualify the former trustees. The allegation was that they had caused or allowed Kids Company to operate an unsustainable business model. The court held that the allegation was not made out. It also ruled that Batmanghelidjh was not a de facto director; the judge added that even if she had been, a disqualification order would not have been made against her.

The judgment praised the dedication of those involved and rejected the unfitness case brought under the Company Directors Disqualification Act. It remains wrong to turn that into a finding on every later charity-regulation question: the 2022 and 2025 judgments expressly recognised that the proceedings overlapped factually but answered different legal questions.

2022: the Charity Commission published its inquiry report

The Commission opened its statutory inquiry in August 2015 and paused aspects while the disqualification litigation continued. Its report, published in February 2022, addressed records, reported beneficiary numbers, reserves, financial management and trustee-board skills.

Batmanghelidjh obtained permission in December 2022 to bring judicial review. The permission judgment did not decide that her challenge was correct; it decided that parts were arguable and deserved a full hearing. Proceedings were later stayed because of her ill health.

2024–2025: substitution, final judgment and amendments

Batmanghelidjh died on 1 January 2024. In October 2024, the High Court allowed former Kids Company clinical director Michael-Karim Kerman to continue the claim. Mr Justice Sheldon delivered the substantive judgment on 20 May 2025.

The claimant succeeded on two areas. The court found the report’s treatment of spending on the “top 25” beneficiaries unbalanced and one-sided, and its criticism of the trustees’ approach to reserves irrational in the form then published. A related conclusion and an error were also corrected. The Commission amended paragraphs 43, 45 and 51 and removed paragraph 73.

The broader challenge failed. The court upheld the Commission’s finding of financial mismanagement arising from repeated late payments, describing the evidential basis as ample, and rejected the allegation of predetermination by a wide margin. The order notes that the claimant had not achieved the requested removal of the entire report and that neither party received costs.

What can now be said with confidence

• Batmanghelidjh founded Kids Company and was its chief executive.
• The former trustees were not disqualified, and she was not found to be a de facto director.
• Police announced in January 2016 that they found no evidence of criminality in the abuse allegations investigated and identified no safeguarding failure by the charity in that investigation.
• The current amended Charity Commission report finds financial mismanagement in repeated late payments.
• The same report states there was no dishonesty, bad faith or inappropriate personal gain.
• The 2025 court found two material parts of the report unlawful and left most of it standing.

How to assess her legacy

Batmanghelidjh’s strongest legacy is the insistence that difficult behaviour has a history and that practical survival, emotional safety and education cannot always be separated. Former service users and colleagues have described unusually persistent relationships, material help and a sense of belonging. Her ability to make the experiences of neglected young people visible changed public conversation and attracted resources that conventional services had not.

The organisational lesson is equally important. Kids Company grew quickly while relying on volatile income and low reserves. Its scale claims were not always described transparently, and its financial model left very little room when confidence and donations fell. Charisma opened doors, but an institution strongly identified with one leader also carried concentration risk. The current official record holds those truths together: meaningful and demanding work, no finding of dishonesty or personal gain, failed disqualification proceedings, important errors in the regulator’s first report, and a financial-mismanagement finding that survived judicial review.

She continued advising and supporting people after the charity closed and died in London on 1 January 2024 after a period of ill health. Obituaries remembered formidable warmth, colour and personal generosity as well as the controversy that followed the closure. The final 2025 judgment arrived after her death; any biography that ends with the 2021 case is now incomplete.

Common questions

Who was Camila Batmanghelidjh?

She was an Iranian-born psychotherapist, author and charity leader who founded Kids Company in London in 1996 and led it until the charity closed in 2015. She became a prominent advocate for children affected by trauma, poverty and violence.

When did Camila Batmanghelidjh die?

She died in London on 1 January 2024, aged 61, after a period of ill health.

Did Camila Batmanghelidjh found Place2Be?

The former Kids Company page and some older profiles associated her with founding The Place To Be. Place2Be’s current official history credits Dame Benita Refson with founding the organisation on 4 September 1994, so this record does not describe Batmanghelidjh as its sole founder.

Was Camila Batmanghelidjh a qualified psychotherapist?

She trained and practised as a psychotherapist and described four years of psychotherapy training plus art-therapy study in parliamentary evidence. In the same 2015 evidence she said she was not then a member of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, so training and practice should not be confused with current professional registration.

Was Camila Batmanghelidjh cleared by the High Court?

In 2021 the High Court dismissed the director-disqualification case, found the pleaded allegation unproven and ruled that she was not a de facto director. That case did not decide every charity-regulation issue later considered by the Charity Commission and the 2025 High Court.

What did the 2025 Kids Company judgment decide?

It upheld two aspects of the judicial-review challenge and caused four passages in the Commission report to be amended or removed. It dismissed the rest, upheld the financial-mismanagement finding and rejected alleged predetermination.

Did courts find that Kids Company staff stole charity money?

No. The current Charity Commission report expressly says there was no dishonesty, bad faith or inappropriate personal gain in the operation of the charity. Its surviving mismanagement finding concerns repeated late payments to HMRC, workers and other creditors.

Is this the former Kids Company charity’s website?

No. The present KidsCo is an independent parenting publication. This page is a historical record created because the domain still receives citations to the former charity’s biography.

Return to the Kids Company archive or read about the present KidsCo parenting publication.