FROM THE BIRMINGHAM POST JANUARY 13TH 2011 BY SARAH PROBERT
"The director of Birmingham’s troubled children’s social services department has been suspended, the Birmingham Post has learnt.
Colin Tucker, who took up the post in the summer of 2009, was suspended from his post at 1.30pm yesterday (Wednesday), a move approved by the chief executive Stephen Hughes.
The suspension came less than 24 hours after cabinet executive member for children’s social services Len Clark told a full council meeting to expect significant management changes in the department.
The council confirmed that Mr Tucker’s suspension had nothing to do with any current child abuse or court cases.
The Post understands that the council is serving a compromise agreement on Mr Tucker, which will allow him to leave and pursue his career elsewhere without a stain on his character.
Coun Clark said: “Mr Tucker has been suspended and we will continue to review the situation and the position is now under careful review.”
FROM THE DAILY MAIL 3RD MARCH 2008
"A British teacher faces jail in Ethiopia after being convicted of defamation for her role in exposing paedophiles working in a children's charity.
Jill Campbell - who could be locked up for six months - and her husband Gary compiled a dossier of evidence that helped to convict a British sex offender who admitted abusing a child in his care. And a second suspect committed suicide.
But Swiss charity Terre Des Hommes-Lausanne (TdH) succesfully brought a defamation case after the couple claimed care home staff tried to cover up the scandal.
Mrs Campbell, 45, will find out on Friday whether she will go to prison after a failed appeal.
Her lawyers have told her that she will be found in contempt of court if she refuses to apologise and could be jailed for six months.
Friends have said that she was distraught at having to tell her two adopted ten-year-old children that she might have to go to prison.
Her husband has apologised to TdH so that one parent will be able to remain at home.
In a statement published by the Ethiopian media last week, he apologised to the charity for alleging that it ?knowingly removed their country director, David Christie (also known as David Allan) from Ethiopia in order to cover up a crime?.
The couple have lived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for 14 years and are well known for their charity work.
Friends have rallied to defend the Campbells and insist that without them paedeophile activity would not have been exposed.
?Instead of TdH apologising to the victims, they are forcing Gary and Jill to apologise for blowing the whistle and stopping the chain of homosexual abusers victimising orphans in the care of this Swiss-based NGO,? said told The Times.
Clare Rees, a teacher who works with Mrs Campbell at Sandford English Community School, said: ?She's seen as a saint.
?If you walk along the streets here you meet so many people she has helped. That's why this whole thing is so unfair.?
Mrs Campbell became aware of the allegations of sexual abuse through a colleague at the school whose boyfriend worked at Jari.
In December 1996 staff members saw a boy escaping from Christie's bedroom window.
He was dismissed by the charity and left Ethiopia. He was subsequently arrested in 2001 as he travelled to Zambia.
The Campbells had drawn up a dossier of evidence against him, which they circulated widely.
Christie, originally from Bournemouth, was eventually found guilty of abusing boys under 15 and of procuring children for his friends. In 2003 he was sentenced at a court in Addis Ababa to nine years in prison with hard labour.
One of his associates and a frequent visitor to Jari, Mark Lachance, committed suicide after posting a confession on the internet in 1999.
Colin Tucker, a spokesman for TdH, declined to discuss the charity's motive in suing the whistle-blowers.
?Read the judgment. That's the best we can say,? he said. ?They defamed us and we have successfully prosecuted them.?"
WHAT THE HELL HAS BEEN GOING ON?
