Dear
Heather Graham and Lindsay Galin
I
have learned, via a third party, that you do not have any comment to make at
all in relation to my letter to you of 13th June. As your publicist
Lindsay Galin, writes, Heather:
“Emily - I'm Heather's publicist. Off the record, we are
not commenting on this.”
I have to presume that your ‘on the
record’ response would be the same, Lindsay – “no comment.”
If
neither you has actually looked at or read any of the contents of my blog, you
may not be aware that James McCabe, who heads up the Cambodian Children’s
Fund’s Child Protection Unit is a convicted criminal – a former policeman who
served 2 years of a 4 year jail sentence in Australia.
It
may well be that Mc Cabe is the best person for the job, though doubts must
surely arise for you, Heather, given that he has no expertise in this area and
has, along with Scott, declared that the CPU has a 100% success rate when it
comes to securing convictions. This is
simply not possible –unless the CPU is doubly or triply as effective as all
other such units worldwide. Is this likely?
http://cambodianchildrensfund.blogspot.com/2014/07/ccf-child-protection-units-involvement.html
It
is clear from Scott’s non-response to any questions put to him (not just by
myself but by most journalists) that he does not believe in the precepts of
transparency and accountability. If he is not answering questions from journalists,
is he answering questions from you, Heather? Are you even asking questions? Or
is it possible that you believe all that you read on the CCF website, all that
you read on Scott’s Facebook page and all that he says?
Heather,
you are, whether you like it or now, providing your imprimatur of approval to
Scott’s money-raising ventures. If all this money is being well spent and if
CCF’s programs are effective, if CCF is not, in effect, stealing the children
of poor families for publicity and marketing purposes, your support is entirely
appropriate and should be applauded. I am merely suggesting, again, that you
ask questions of the kind that I have asked and that other journalists have
asked before providing your unqualified support.
I
am copying this to one of the journalists who has, like myself, found it
impossible to get answers from Scott to the sorts of questions that journalists
re entitled to ask of NGOs in Cambodia who are raising millions of dollars
through tax-deductible donations to ‘rescue’ children. You may or may not be
aware that an ‘orphanage business’ thrives in Cambodia – despite the fact that
it is common knowledge that 75% of the ‘orphans’ in these institutions are not
orphans at all. You may or may not be aware that all studies carried out
worldwide on institutional as opposed to family care point to the fact that it
is much cheaper (by a factor of about 5:1) to support poor children in a family
and community context than it is in an institution. And all research indicates
that it is much healthier fro the children to be growing up within their
families than within institutions.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
Do Hollywood 'stars' like Heather Graham, Madonna and Susan Sarandon do more harm than good by unquestioningly endorsing charities and non-givernment organisations they know little about? Do they ever bother to discover anything other than what they read in the glossy brochures and read online? Why do they get behind 'causes' in such a public way anyway? Why not just quietly make their donations to whatever cause they believe in and leave it at that? The answer is obvious. They want to be seen to be kind and caring people because, deep down, they know that they have, with very little effort at all, been given so much in life and feel guilty about it. Acting is not rocket science. It is a craft. Some people do it well. SOme people do it not so well. Some actors have been blessed with 'beautiful' faces and others not so beautiful. There is so much dumb luck involved in being an actor and even more dumb luck in being one who becomes ridiculously rich as a result. Deep down I think these 'stars' know this. ANd they know that their audiences know it. ANd deep down, wanting to be loved, they don't want to be loved only for being pretty, handsome, talents etc but for being good human beings. So, they get involved in charities. This is all well and good but too many of them (Madonna and Susan Sarandon being two examples that spring to mind) don't do their homework and wind up supporting charities built on lies and deception. I dont know where the truth lies with the Cambodian Childeren's Fund but there sure are a hell of a lot of questions that Id be wanting answers to if I were either putting money into CCF or helping raise millions of dollars for it.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you picking on Mr Neeson Mr Ricketson? At least the Cambodian Children's Fund has a child protection policy and puts its money where its mouth is by having a Child Protection Unit. This is more than can be said for most of the other NGOs running orphanages who let anyone come and visit if they have pockets full of money. Pick on these phony NGOs if you haver to pick on anyone. No-one cares about your fucking allegations anyway and no-one reads your blog or takes it seriously. Leave Scott Neeson alone. He is a good man and he has the common sense not to answer your stupid fucking questions. Who do you think you are? Fucking Mother Teresa?
Delete'Anonymous' is a very popular name in cyberspace! In answer to your observations:
DeleteI am not picking on Scott Neeson. He wandered uninvited into a film I was making by refusing to return to their family two girls he had 'rescued' from the Phnom Penh rubbish tip. The family requested the return of the girls. Scott refused.The parents said that they had signed no contract with CCF. Scott said they had but would not produce a copy of it. So naturally, as a filmmaker, as a journalist, I was curious to know more. Scott eventually told me (after calling me, who he had never met, a 'voyeur') that he had provided the famil;y with assistance that the family had clearly not been provided with. SO, by now I knew that Scott's work was not to be trusted. Scott posts online (in his 'Australian Story' piece) that he owns nothing - no car, no home. Both are lies. He owns a car and he has $1 million worth of real estate in Cambodia - co-ownded with a Cambodian policeman.
Scott has told enough lies for me to take everything he says with a grain of salt.
As for 'allegations' what allegations have I made? I have asked lots of questions - trying to separate out the facts about Scott Neeson and the CCF from the mythology that Scott has created for himself - the Hollywood hotshot who gave up a glittering career (in marketing) to live a simple life in Cambodia, struggling to get by on his tax-free and expense-free $10,000 a month.
As for a Child Protection Unit that claims a 100% conviction rate, this is nonsense. Spin. This is Scott presuming that his donors and sponsors are so stupid that they will accept such a statistic as true.
As for who I think I am, I am a documentary filmmaker and journalist doing what my profession requires of me - asking questions, trying to separate truth from falsehood to provide viewers and readers with facts backed up by evidence and not just spin backed up primarily by clever marketing.
Hi James, Where did you pull that $10,000 a month figure from? Decided to look at the audited financials that publicly list Neeson's salary and round up by a few thousand a month did you? You know you are lying here.
ReplyDeleteOh, and teacher salaries? You're not even in the ballpark.
As for your journalistic approach - you are presenting unsubstantiated rumour as fact. A million dollars in property is just laughable. I'm sure Neeson wishes he did, but there's no way that is true. Have you ever met the man?
Unless you, Mr Anonymous, are Scott Neeson, how do you know that Scott's income is not $10,000 a month? If you know the figure, please share it. If I am lying, or if I am mistaken, Scott could easily correct me. As for how much he pays his school teachers, the figure I was given (by former teachers) was $120 a month. Someone wrote to me and said it was more like $200 a month - acknowledged here in this blog.
DeleteIf you know how much teachers at CCF are paid, please share the figure with me, with us.
As for my presenting unsubstantiated rumour as fact, it would be very easy for Scott to come out and say, quite simply and unequivocably, "I do not own $1 million worth of Cambodian real estate with a Cambodian partner." This would put this particular 'unsubstantiated rumour' to rest.
No, I have never met Scott. As you would discover if you went back through my blog, I tried on many occasions to meet him. He refused. In both my role as a filmmaker and that as a journalist he has refused to be interviewed; refused to meet.
And it is not just me. Scott refuses to talk with any journalist who asks the kinds of questions I have been asking. There are plenty of journalists who will attest to this.
In acknowledgement of your accusation that I am spreading 'unsubstantiated rumours' I have appended a PS to my latest letter to Scott - an open invitation to put an end to conjecture and rumour and simply answer questions relating to his own wage and that of CCF's teachers:
Deletehttp://cambodianchildrensfund.blogspot.com/2014/07/19-questions-for-scott-neeson.html
June 29th, you post: "I see that your income from CCF (for 2012 – maybe it’s gone up since then?) was $85,593."
ReplyDeleteNext post, and you claim its $120,000 (10k per month)?
Dear Anonymous, since June 29th I have received a lot more information from people who either have worked or are working at CCF. In the absence of answers from Scott and in light of this information I do make some educated guesses. this is one of them. Scott could, if he chose, correct me and I would stand corrected. The same applies to the $1 million worth of land he co-owns and the $1 million worth of shares given to CCF by Twiggy Forrest but never, as far as I can tell, publicly acknowledged. There are two possible reasons why Scott refuses to answer such questions. One is that he thinks I am just a nutter whom he shouldn't waste time taking any notice of. If this were so, why did he bother to respond to my first letter to Heather Graham on Cambodia 440? The other is that he does not want to make a public declaration re the $1 million of shares or the $1 million worth of land holdings and then be proven to have played fast and loose with the truth. For the record, yet again, it is not a crime for Scott to own $1million worth of real estate. The issue is his insistence that he owns nothing. It is a question of credibility, of honesty. Similarly withe the $1 million worth of shares. If they were given to Scott, it is no-one's business. If they were given to CCF, why are they never mentioned. If they were never given at all, all Scott has to say is, "The shares were never given by Twiggy Forrest to CCF." Simple.
Delete