King Charles has been urged to intervene after The Prince’s Trust said it would pay compensation of £2,000 each to survivors of childhood sexual abuse, according to reports.
The settlement includes hundreds of working-class British children who were removed from their families and taken to “farm schools” in Australia, Canada and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by the Fairbridge Society.
The Prince’s Trust, founded by the King in 1976, is legally liable for the claim due to its 2012 merger with Fairbridge, which by that point had ceased its activity abroad and become a UK youth charity.
A 2018 report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found that Fairbridge had failed to protect children at four farm schools from sexual abuse and recommended that the survivors receive financial redress.
The Prince’s Trust apologised to victims and survivors in 2018 and created a vehicle to manage compensation in 2020.
Last year, The UK High Court put the value of the Fairbridge survivors’ claims at about £204,0000 each.
But administrators for the redress scheme have told survivors they will receive about 1 per cent of that figure because “insufficient moneys” have been set aside for the claims by The Prince’s Trust, The Guardian reported.
According to its latest annual report, The Prince’s Trust’s income exceeded £80m in the year ending March 2022.
In a letter seen by The Guardian, David Hill, a board member of the Old Fairbridgians Association, which represents Fairbridge survivors, asked the king to correct what he reportedly called an “injustice” done to survivors by The Prince’s Trust.
Third Sector has contacted the Prince’s Trust for comment.