Struck-off lawyer linked to global charity looting

South African lawyer Noel Frost, struck off for stealing from clients, is at the centre of a storm linked to the alleged looting of a global charity, reports News24. This after the UK Charity Commission launched an investigation into Barnabas Aid, a global network that directs hundreds of millions of rands to Christians facing danger. Managers and founders have accused each other of looting the charity, in some cases through outright fraud and theft. In mid-2022, the Western Cape High Court described Frost as a ‘grossly dishonest individual, who is a threat to the public and a disgrace to the profession’. And to protect the public in the UK where Frost had apparently taken up residence, the court agreed with the SA Legal Practice Council, that the authorities there should be warned about him. Yet just months later, Frost oversaw the flow of hundreds of millions of rands worth of donations around the world as the international director of Barnabas Aid. In SA, the High Court said Frost had forged tax documents to ‘extort’ more than R500 000 ($29 000) rom a client. In the UK, according to an interim report from a law firm the charity contracted, Frost forged an invoice from a moving company to have £24 000 – equivalent to about R550 000 – paid into his bank account. Confronted with the attempt, investigators said he claimed he had been a victim of identity theft. The UK Barnabas organisation is part of a global network and the flow of money is complex. Top managers – such as Frost – could expect to be paid the equivalent of about $87 000 per year. But Frost is now alleged to have misappropriated three times as much as that during a short stint at the head of the organisation.

Frost is also accused of enriching another expat South African. Frost succeeded Hendrik Storm, a dual national who joined Barnabas in 2015. Storm resigned in early 2023, one of the Barnabas founders says, and claimed he had been racially discriminated against as an African. Frost then allegedly personally negotiated a £100 000 payout to Storm, according to News24. Neither Frost nor Storm responded to interview requests. Some of the accusations against Frost come from Patrick Sookhdeo, a Barnabas founder and a previous holder of the international director post that Storm and then Frost also held. Sookhdeo was convicted of the sexual assault of a colleague and intimidating witnesses in 2015. He left Barnabas in 2016 when he was arrested on another charge of indecent assault, on which he was found not guilty.