Ex-police officer faked child-trafficking stories to raise money

Although efforts to establish a rescue centre in Uganda fell flat, PRC already claimed to have operations up and running in other African countries, including Kenya.

Since 2020, Mr Whittington has told detailed and distressing stories about the children he has allegedly supported at PRC’s Kenya rescue centre – including siblings who had watched their parents being butchered by traffickers.

Within weeks of launching a sponsorship programme, PRC announced that all 26 Kenyan children pictured on its website had been sponsored.

The rescue centre is in a remote location on the outskirts of the city of Kisumu, which made verifying its existence difficult.

So in April 2024, I travelled with a BBC team, escorted by a police officer, and found the property – supposedly run by a woman known as Mama Jane.

I discovered Mama Jane was an elderly lady called Jane Gori, who lived in the house with her husband. We didn’t find any children, rescued or otherwise.

But I did find out that her son, Kupa Gori, was PRC’s director in Kenya and he had brought Mr Whittington to visit her home.

Mr Whittington uses pictures of improvement work PRC has funded at Mrs Gori’s house to convince donors he is running a rescue centre. Mrs Gori said she had no idea that her name, her house and her photograph were being used by PRC.

Nearby, I met a farmer called Joseph, whose two sons and a granddaughter have featured on the PRC website, described as orphaned, homeless, or victims of trafficking or exploitation. But none of this is true.

Not long after the photographs were taken in 2020, Joseph’s son Eugene died. But his picture remained online until at least February this year. According to PRC’s website, people continued to sponsor him.