A Momentum activist who was reported to anti-fraud police over her talent agency business is facing calls for her suspension from a key post within the Labour party.

Dorinda Duncan, who currently sits on Labour’s London regional board, is being investigated by the party over claims that her firm left families tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket, HuffPost UK can reveal.

Her agency, Connect Your Talent (CYT), is accused of taking more than £90,000 from the parents of child dancers in Scotland and the North East who had been promised trips to California that never happened. No refunds have been paid.

One parent and dance teacher, Sonya Bree, said breaking the news to her young students that they wouldn’t be going to the US after months of rehearsals and fundraising was “absolutely devastating”.

“They had worked so hard,” she said. “To tell them three weeks before we were supposed to get on a plane was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Duncan said that she had offered all the families the chance to reschedule their trips and hoped to reach a “happy ending” by working with them.

Elected to the board as part of a Momentum slate of candidates last year, Duncan is also the chair of Greenwich Momentum and describes herself as “a passionate grassroots activist supporting the fight against injustice in our society”.

But she is facing heavy criticism over the talent agency she ran with her daughter Anastasia Palikeras – another Momentum activist.

Connect Your Talent organised the California excursions with an itinerary that included specialist dance training in the Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles and a dance routine performance at Disneyland. The package covered hotel accommodation and flights.

They had worked so hard… To tell them three weeks before we were supposed to get on a plane was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do

HuffPost UK has seen bank statements showing parents paid into Palikeras’s bank account in monthly instalments for over two years.

The agency’s company emails had boasted of “amazing training and performance in top locations”, catering for young dancers, actors, singers and models.

But just weeks before they were due to fly out last autumn the parents discovered that no flights or hotels had been booked.

When they complained, they were told the trip had been cancelled.

Scores of children, including some studying at dance schools in Coatbridge near Glasgow and in Darlington and Newton Aycliffe in the north-east of England, found out just days beforehand that the excursion was cancelled.

Many of them burst into tears when they were told their “trip of a lifetime” would not go ahead.

Duncan and Palikeras were reported by furious parents to the City of London’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, local trading standards and Police Scotland. Read more

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