£1,700, Including Grant Money, Stolen from the Kebele Bike Workshop by Former Volunteer

The well-known Kebele Bike Work­shop, serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty for more than 11 years, was ripped off by a for­mer vol­un­teer ear­li­er this month.

The well-known Kebele Bike Work­shop, serv­ing the com­mu­ni­ty for more than 11 years, was ripped off by a for­mer vol­un­teer ear­li­er this month.

Har­vey Tad­man, who over the past year had been heav­i­ly involved in the dai­ly oper­a­tion and orga­ni­za­tion of the bike work­shop, and also well-known through Crit­i­cal Mass and the St. Werburghs’s Bike Project, emp­tied the workshop’s account on 14 March. He had no author­i­ty to do so, hav­ing been asked to leave both the Kebele Co-op and the Bike Work­shop at the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary.

The mon­ey stolen includ­ed a £900 grant that was giv­en to the Kebele Bike Work­shop specif­i­cal­ly to run bike main­te­nance class­es, on the basis of an appli­ca­tion made by Tad­man, by the Eas­t­on Neigh­bour­hood Renew­al scheme.

He was able to with­draw the mon­ey from the Bike Work­shop account, pro­tect­ed by need­ing two sig­na­tures for trans­ac­tions, by illic­it­ly adding some­one unre­lat­ed to Kebele to the account two days before mak­ing the with­draw­al.

In a text mes­sage to Kebele mem­bers, Tad­man wrote, ‘The resources stay to maintain/support bikes in Eas­t­on’. When con­front­ed by Kebele mem­bers on 21 March, Tad­man claimed that he had con­tact­ed the fun­ders, and that they had giv­en him per­mis­sion to use the grant mon­ey ‘else­where’. Nei­ther Eas­t­on Neigh­bour­hood Renew­al not grant man­agers Quar­tet Com­mu­ni­ty Fund­ing could con­firm any con­tact from Tad­man, and he has refused to pro­vide any proof.

Kebele con­tact­ed Tad­man and demand­ed that the mon­ey be returned in full, both the mon­ey belong­ing to the Bike Work­shop and Kebele as a whole, and the grant mon­ey, des­ig­nat­ed for use by Kebele Bike Work­shop. He has not respond­ed.

Kebele has decid­ed to release this infor­ma­tion pub­licly as we feel we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to warn oth­er groups with whom this indi­vid­ual might be involved.

Oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, work­shops, and com­mu­ni­ty groups should take note that if Har­vey Tad­man offers any resources, in the form of mon­ey, bike tools, parts, or oth­er, they are stolen prop­er­ty. He is not to be trust­ed.