A woman who helped organise the Black Lives Matter protest that toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston has admitted fraud after £30,000 donated by the public went missing.
Xahra Saleem, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud by abuse of position after an investigation into a fundraiser linked to the BLM movement.
Saleem, who describes herself as a screenwriter, was a co-founder of the All Black Lives Bristol group. She was named one of the 30 most influential under-30s in Bristol by Rife Magazine, a now-defunct youth publication.
Saleem, then aged 20 and known as Yvonne Maina, was one of five young people who got together to organise a protest on June 7, 2020, in Bristol city centre, in response to the murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US.
In the days before that march, she started an online fundraiser in the group’s name, with the aim of raising a few hundred pounds to cover the costs of the demonstration and pay for PPE to be handed out to protesters amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Organisers agreed before the event to give any money left over from this to a Bristol youth group called Changing Your Mindset, which planned to use it to fund a life-changing trip to Africa for young people in the deprived St Pauls area of the city.
Avon and Somerset police investigated the GoFundMe page called BristBLM after the donation money disappeared.
During the summer and autumn of 2020, the youth group attempted to get the money transferred from the fundraiser but eventually called the police.
Changing Your Mindset closed down as a group during the investigation after the parents running it became disillusioned and exhausted by what had happened.
Saleem, of Romford, Essex, was arrested and initially entered not guilty pleas to two charges of fraud.
The first charge alleged that Saleem committed fraud “while occupying a position, namely organiser, in which you were expected to safeguard or not act against the financial interests of ABL Bristol”. It adds: “You dishonestly abused that position intending to make a gain, namely used the funds raised for yourself.”
Saleem was “expected to safeguard or not act against the financial interests of” Changing Your Mindset, the second charge says. However, she dishonestly abused the position of director, “intending to make a gain, namely used the funds raised for yourself”, the charge adds.
The second charge related to a separate online fundraising page set up in the days after the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in June 2020, called “Bristol Protesters Legal Fees”.
A trial was listed for December but Saleem appeared at Bristol crown court on September 19 to change her plea to guilty for the first charge. The second charge was discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service.
She will return to Bristol crown court to be sentenced on October 31.
The statue of Colston, a merchant and slave trader, was toppled on June 7, 2020, and thrown into Bristol harbour, attracting attention around the world.
Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Sage Willoughby and Jake Skuse, who became known as the Colston Four, were later cleared by a jury of criminal damage connected to the incident.
Since the toppling of Colston’s statue, which was later displayed on its side in the M Shed museum in Bristol, the name of the slave trader has been purged from the city.
It was removed from dozens of schools, concert venues and pubs. One of the first to take action was Colston Primary School, which renamed itself Cotham Gardens Primary School in 2018 after the majority of parents, pupils and former pupils agreed to the change.
In April last year, the £15,000-a-year private school founded by Colston was renamed, with what had been Colston’s School becoming Collegiate School.
