This article was updated at 11:30am on Wednesday 30 October to include a statement from Heartwood Care Group
Jas Athwal, the already disgraced Labour Party MP for Ilford South is the landlord of a failing children’s home.
An investigation by The Londoner has found that a building owned by Jas Athwal is being used by Heartwood Care Group, as a private children’s home.
Athwal is the formed leader of Redbridge council. He recently made headlines after his mould-ridden and pest-infested properties were exposed by the BBC.
Jas Athwal children’s home: permanently scarring kids
Heartwood subjected the children in its care to disproportionate “physical interventions” from staff, who they hadn’t trained properly and lacked knowledge.
This left them unable to keep the vulnerable children in their care safe, according to a damning Ofsted report from August.
One child went missing from the home after staff failed to monitor them properly. This put them at risk of sexual and criminal exploitation. Ofsted’s report even concluded that the safety of one child had “deteriorated since they moved in”.
According to experts that The Londoner spoke to, the kind of failures that Ofsted saw in their inspection can permanently scar children:
Landlord Labour MP owns a property which is being used to run a failing private children’s home that is putting children at risk. How is this not a bigger scandal? What is he doing still in the Labour Party? https://t.co/rMqSbL9iVO
— Lauren Starkey 🧡 (@LaurenHStarkey) October 28, 2024
Daljit Johal owns Heartwood Care group. He appears to be a personal friend of Jas Athwal along with being a long-term tenant. Despite this, The Londoner found no evidence that Athwal ever declared his relationship with the company or recused himself from meetings in the 10 years he was the leader of Redbridge council.
A lawyer representing Johal told The Londoner that Redbridge council paid his company £155,000 for children placed at the care home in Athwal’s property.
A failing system
Social services take children into care for many reasons. From neglect, to abuse or abandonment. Often, it is when a court believes a child is suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm.
They usually place them in foster homes. However, if they are more vulnerable or have higher support needs they place them in residential children’s homes – such as Heartwood. Many councils are struggling with slashed budgets. As the demand for children’s care increases, councils have shifted the job of running these to for-profit companies, like Heartwood.
The irony is of course, is that social services may have removed some of these children from their homes due to them being at risk. They then place them in a for-profit children’s home, with undertrained staff who aren’t monitoring them properly. This puts them at risk of sexual exploitation.
So, many of these children in Jas Athwal’s children’s home will be going from one traumatic experience to another:
I think if you profit off a thing then it’s your job to know about it. https://t.co/3tItPOdb8p
— I, Daniel Blake Ex-Labour #Socialist (@KateVasey) October 28, 2024
Among the worst
This year’s Ofsted inspection wasn’t the first time they identified the failings of Heartwood. Specifically, The Londoner noted how:
a 2019 inspection mentioned “bullying and intimidation” leading to a child being stabbed. Inspectors also identified issues with child criminal exploitation.
In 2023, while Jas Athwal was still council leader – Ofsted recognised that the number of children going missing from the home was a cause for concern. They also pointed out that staff weren’t following proper procedures when they were going missing.
Because of the failings in August, Ofsted issued a compliance notice to the home. These are rare. This put Heartwood among 5% of the worst performing children’s care providers in the country:
The Labour MP Jas Athwal said he knows “nothing about it” when we called to ask him about the failing children’s home in his property.
When we mentioned the home’s owner, his friend and longtime tenant Daljit Johal, he hung up. pic.twitter.com/HQTvAQuB2o
— The Londoner (@_TheLondoner) October 28, 2024
In 2020, Redbridge council released damning research on children going missing from care. It suggested that grooming gangs were exposing these children to sexual or criminal exploitation. Funnily enough, Mr Athwal himself was the leader of said council when they released the research.
Heartwood Care Group says…
After publication of this article, Heartwood Care Group issued the Canary with a statement.
A spokesperson from Heartwood commented:
The Londoner story is seriously inaccurate, defamatory of Mr Johal and his organisations, and is irresponsible journalism done in a headlong rush to meet a launch deadline. There is no improper relationship between Mr Johal and Mr Athwal, and to suggest so is just plain wrong.
The care home in question has been rated as “Good” by Ofsted on the majority of occasions since 2014, including in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022. However, recently it has experienced a challenging period because of sector-wide recruitment difficulties. All improvements required by Ofsted in August 2024 have been addressed speedily by Heartwood, with the regulator reporting that the compliance notices were met by the end of September 2024, as the Londoner is well aware. Ofsted stated on the 24th September 2024: “the provider has made good progress in addressing the requirements that were set under the compliance notices. As a result of this good progress, both notices have now been met.”
Since 2013, around 90% of the services provided to Redbridge Council were for 16+ and 18+ outreach services that do not relate to the care home referenced, but The Londoner omitted to state this. So, the financial figures quoted, and how they are represented, are seriously misleading. Given the multiple corrections the publication has had to make to its article already there are serious questions about the quality of their journalism.
Jas Athwal and his ‘friends’
According to The Londoner, Jas Athwal’s relationship with Johal runs a little deeper than simply being his landlord. They repeatedly like and comment on each others photos on Facebook – which Johal’s lawyer claims does not suggest they have a close relationship. In one 2019 comment, Athwal calls Johal “The Don”.
Johal also publicly supported Athwal’s first bid to become a Labour MP back in 2019.
Clearly, The Londoner’s expose had Athwal rattled. His lawyer’s threatening letter is a testament to that. However, The Londoner rightly stood its ground – since Athwal’s lawyer couldn’t dispute the allegations.
Is this the Labour Party now?
MP ‘slum’ landlords making huge profits from failing children’s homes and mould-infested properties? Of course, Athwal’s attempts to silence the story only makes it all the more scandalous.
The changed Labour Party has shown exactly who it stands for, and here’s more proof it isn’t children in care.
Feature image via WION/YouTube
