Sometimes charity can't be too choosy

The outcry over Richard Desmond's role in a Jewish children's group must be tempered by realism

Published in the Evening Standard 1 June 2006

There was many a rabbi spluttering over his chicken soup last Friday night. The Jewish Chronicle, which is nothing if not a family newspaper, broke into its usual coverage of weddings and bar mitzvahs to introduce its readers to Red Hot Raw, Red Hot Climax and Television X - adult TV channels available on subscription only. The JC even ran a helpful little sidebar. Red Hot Rears, we learn, is "Rammed with peachy girls" while the Raw service promises "amateur sluts...all night, every night."

One can only imagine the crimson faces at the sabbath dinner table. Why did the JC do such a thing? Because it was illustrating its front-page story: outcry that the owner of those Red Hot channels, one Richard Desmond, has just been named the next president of Norwood, British Jewry's leading charity for families and children.

You read that right. Like Hugh Hefner stepping into the chair at Bernardo's or Paul Raymond taking over at Childline, Desmond is to be the titular head of Norwood. And make no mistake, Norwood's standing in the Jewish community is just as elevated as those other charities. What began as an orphanage in Mile End at the close of the 18th century has blossomed into a veritable social services network, even running its own village in the Berkshire countryside for adults with learning disabilities. Norwood says it's the "safety net" of Anglo-Jewry, the organisation people turn to when confronted with the toughest family issues - from abuse and addiction at one extreme to adoption at the other.

So the notion of a pornographer president for a charity that embodies family values has caused predictable anger. Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill Synagogue said he was "disturbed" by the move: "There are certain compromises that should never be made, no matter what the financial gain." Other communal bigwigs lined up to tell the JC of their disquiet, including the former Brent MP and Labour minister Reg Freeson. His intervention was especially significant - for Freeson was himself a "Norwood boy," raised by the orphanage as a child.

Desmond has taken none of this lying down, as it were. Once he got wind of the story, the owner of Express Newspapers and OK! magazine submitted the JC to some serious pressure, heavy lawyers' letters and the like. To its credit, the paper held firm and published anyway. (Full disclosure: I write a monthly column for the JC.) Today the row continues, with the latest edition including a full page of letters on the affair, including several big names backing Desmond.

For the Jewish community, this spat is not a wholly novel experience. Some of the biggest givers to the worthiest causes have been, shall we say, colourful characters. A key communal benefactor is Gerald Ronson, who went to jail over his role in the Guinness affair. I remember, nearly 20 years ago, attending an academic conference on the Holocaust - bankrolled by Robert Maxwell.

Cynics say such generosity is of the launderette variety: it's designed to wash the giver's reputation clean. (Though that doesn't apply to Ronson, who was a big giver long before he went to jail.) And that's something this city, far beyond the Jewish community, knows all about.

Just look around. Stroll through Regents Park and Regents Street and you see a monument to the Prince who became George IV, a serial womaniser and carouser who sought to distract from his night-time activities with day-time good works, including his sponsorship of fine architecture like the Nash crescents around the Park. As Prince of Wales, Edward VII played the same trick, sitting dutifully on royal commissions into housing for poor families, even as he pursued his own novel definition of family life with actress Lillie Langtry.

Or look beneath your feet. The London Underground owes much to Charles Tyson Yerkes, the American financier who built the deep tunnels that made the Piccadilly and Northern lines possible. He went to jail as a bankrupt and sought to redeem his reputation by giving away big money, even shelling out $300,000 for a giant telescope in what is now Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.

It's a pattern repeated again and again. Attend enough charity dinners and you'll eventually see Jeffrey Archer pop up as an auctioneer: he does over 50 a year. Every time he brings down that gavel, he surely hopes he's making the black mark against his name a little smaller.

What should charities' attitude be to such donors? Should they regard their money or services as tainted? I don't think so. For who would benefit from such a stance? If the University of Chicago had decided Yerkes' money was not good enough, there would be no observatory today. If Norwood sent back Desmond's many millions - and he gave #2m to the group in 2004 alone - the only people to suffer would be the children and families Norwood protects. They have to be its first priority.

The alternative is that charities tell those with all but the purist fortunes their cash is not welcome - and that they should spend it on diamonds and yachts instead. People don't like Bill Gates and his domineering Microsoft company, but it's surely better that his mega-wealth goes fighting Aids and malaria than into the pockets of his children. So long as the money was made legally - and Desmond's TV businesses commit no crime - then charities should grab it with both hands.

But taking Desmond's money is different from giving him the kudos of the Norwood presidency. That role should be filled by someone whose work, at the very least, does not contradict the ethos of the charity - and Desmond's does.

The tycoon himself probably knows it. It's thought he recently sold off his adult magazines - Asian Babes and the rest - because he understood they were barring his entry into mainstream public life. All he need do is sell off the TV channels and Norwood can embrace him with open arms. Until then, his money is right for the charity - but he isn't.

Posted on June 1, 2006 11:17 AM

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