Helen Winter faces being struck off for being under influence of drug while with vulnerable young people

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A psychologist working for the now defunct Kids Company charity faces being struck off over allegations she gave MDMA to a client in a nightclub toilet.

Helen Winter admitted taking the drug, which is the active ingredient in ecstasy, and being under its influence while she was with two clients at a nightclub in south London in January 2014.

She also admitted using drugs “on several occasions” during her leisure time, testing positive for cocaine, and letting the vulnerable young people, known only as clients C and D, stay at her flat.

But she denied taking the class A drug in front of client C in the toilet cubicle at the club and then giving her some.

At a hearing at the Health and Care Professions Council in London on Thursday, Winter admitted she was guilty of misconduct and that her fitness to practise was impaired.

The case is the latest in a series of damaging allegations made against Kids Company, which closed last year following claims it misspent public money.

The charity, which is now under the control of administrators, is also being investigated by the complex case team of the Metropolitan police’s sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command.

Winter took MDMA with a colleague, teacher Nicci Shall, on the night out at Hidden club in Vauxhall on 24 January 2014. The pair had met while working at the Urban Academy, a pupil referral unit run by Kids Company in Southwark, south London.

Recalling the night, Shall said she had been drinking wine and Jägerbombs in a pub from 4pm when she and Winter decided to move on to Hidden.

She said they bought some MDMA, which they took in the toilet at the club, and later saw clients C and D, who were both in their early 20s, in the same club.

Later, Shall went to a toilet cubicle with Winter and client C, a woman whom she taught at the academy. Shall told the hearing she watched the pair take drugs.

“Helen Winter offered client C and me a dab of MDMA which I declined. Helen Winter and client C consumed the MDMA,” she told the hearing.



Shall said that after she left the club she felt awful about what she had witnessed and wanted to tell her boss, but was persuaded not to. She said Winter told her the clients “had a good time and nothing had come of it”.

In a series of texts she told Winter how bad she felt. In one she wrote: “I can’t believe what we did.”



Shall said she asked her mentor at Kids Company for advice and was told not to take the matter further.



She told the hearing: “I stupidly followed their advice and I regret that.”

She later added: “I contacted someone who had been acting as my mentor at Urban Academy. I was looking for guidance. They said you shouldn’t say anything and I shouldn’t take it any further. I really regret taking their advice.”

Shall said her mentor reiterated this to her several times over the following months. They revisited the issue in May 2014 after she heard from another colleague that Winter had let client C stay at her home.

“I turned to my mentor again and mentioned about the staying over and he said I needed to go straight to [chief executive] Camila [Batmanghelidjh] and not my local manager because she didn’t think they were competent to deal with this.”

Shall said it took months for her to pluck up the courage to alert her bosses because she did not want to betray Winter. She was interviewed for an internal investigation, but raised concerns about the accuracy of the report.

Winter broke down in tears during the hearing and had to take a break.