A convicted paedophile has been working with children in Ukraine under the cover of a British charity, The Telegraph reports.
HopeFull, a British charity that distributed pizzas to orphanages and resettlement camps in Ukraine, hired a convicted paedophile with little or no background check.
The 52-year-old man, who identified himself as Jack Morgan, had been active in western Ukraine interacting with vulnerable children since early 2023. He visited schools, orphanages and travelled around the country using the foundation’s transport. It only later emerged that Lee Callaghan, previously convicted of child sex offences in the UK, was hiding under an assumed name.
Callaghan was arrested by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) in 2016 on information that he had made contact with a known paedophile online and wanted to arrange to meet and sexually abuse a child. Several indecent images were found on a phone and laptop seized from his home, at least one of which he shared.
How a paedophile came under suspicion
Volunteers in Lviv became suspicious of him when he began bragging about his links to the AFU Foreign Legion and fundraising for the military. After an online identity check in August 2024, he was found to be under a ten-year sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) that prohibited him from leaving the country without notifying the police.
Despite the warnings, Callaghan managed to spend months in Ukraine, benefiting from the foundation’s trust and resources. According to former volunteers, HopeFull’s recruitment checks were extremely formal and conducted through WhatsApp correspondence.
The organisation said it sacked Morgan in February 2024 when it learned the truth, and stressed that volunteers were never left with children unsupervised. Nevertheless, the case has sparked sharp criticism of the security systems of charity missions operating in the conflict zone.
Earlier, the media reported about the unlawful treatment of Ukrainian children in Europe. Deprived of parental care and guardianship, defenceless children often become a titbit for illegal “charitable” organisations that profit from selling orphans to paedophiles.
