Former vet charged with child poisoning at summer camp in Leicestershire

Jonathan Ruben, 76, the secretary of a charity running the holiday getaway, has been charged with three counts of wilful ill-treatment of a child. Photo / Daily Telegraph UK

A former vet and primary school teacher has been charged over the alleged poisoning of children at a Christian summer camp in Leicestershire, Britain.

Jonathan Ruben, 76, the secretary of a charity running the holiday getaway, has been charged with three counts of wilful ill-treatment of a child. The charges relate to three children.

Ruben, of Ruddington, Nottingham, has been remanded into custody and will appear at Leicester magistrates’ court on Saturday.

Police received a report of children feeling unwell at the camp at Stathern Lodge on Sunday, but officers were not deployed until Monday.

Ten ambulances and an air ambulance went to the camp, and eight boys aged between 8 and 11, were taken to hospital as a precaution. All have since been discharged.

On Monday, Ruben was arrested in a pub carpark in Plungar, just over 1.6km from the lodge, where the village hall was used as a triage centre to assess all children present at the camp.

Police received a report of children feeling unwell at the camp at Stathern Lodge on Sunday. Photo / SWNS

Before he retired, Ruben spent more than 40 years as a vet after qualifying from the Royal (Dick) Vet School in Edinburgh in 1972 before completing a PhD in virology, studying Newcastle disease virus in chickens.

He opened a small animal practice in the 1980s, which expanded to eight vets and four branches, but then changed direction and qualified as an early years primary school teacher. He then worked as a locum vet, and as the children and youth worker at his church.

Ruben is thought to have ended his work as a locum vet last year when he dissolved his company, but had previously stood to join the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Council in 2012. He received 800 votes, short of the 1200 needed to be elected.

According to a blog for his campaign, he had previously stood for the Conservatives at local elections in Edinburgh.

The children were at the summer camp at the lodge, owned by the Braithwaite Gospel Trust, a Christian charity, which bought it in 2017, when they fell ill.

Ruben is the secretary of a separate Christian charity, Stathern Children’s Holiday Fund, which has run camps at the lodge in recent years and provides free holidays to underprivileged youngsters aged 8 to 12.

Each camp is normally three days long and involves around 30 children, mostly from the Aspley and Clifton areas of Nottingham. The camps normally feature trips to leisure centres, have a theme each year and are run by volunteers who provide three meals a day.

Activities are a mix of crafts and organised games, and children get free time to play table tennis, pool and games consoles or sports including football, basketball and badminton.

‘It was pretty scary’

Jonathan Jesson, one of the trustees of the Braithwaite Gospel Trust, said the lodge was being used at the weekend by a church group from Nottingham and that it was “horrifying to understand that something like that could happen”.

He said the trust allowed independent groups to use the lodge as a self-catering hostel accommodation and it was “a place where people could come and enjoy the surroundings and have Christian input”.

“As far as I know, every group should bring their own leaders and have their own programme, and they deal with everything themselves, food and all the rest of it,” he said.

Residents described the alleged poisonings as like something out of a “horror story” and said they had rocked the “sleepy village”.

June Grant, 83, a former bookings secretary at Plungar village hall, said: “You could hear the ambulances and police cars whizzing around the village. It was pretty scary, but such good news that the children are okay.”

Another resident who lives near the hall said: “It was pretty chaotic, with emergency workers running around everywhere. I saw a few children in tears as they walked into the hall. It’s like every parent’s worst nightmare, dropping your child at summer camp and then being told they might have been poisoned.”

Assistant Chief Constable James Avery, of Leicestershire Police, speaks to the media after the incident. Photo / Alex Hannam Photography

Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) “due to the circumstances of the initial police response”.

An IOPC spokesman said: “We received a conduct referral on Tuesday from Leicestershire Police relating to their handling of concerns passed to them over the wellbeing of a group of children. Our assessment team has examined all available evidence and concluded the matter should be independently investigated by the IOPC.

“The investigation will look at whether there were any breaches of professional behaviour – namely a failure to carry out duties and responsibilities – that resulted in a delay in Leicestershire Police’s response to what was later declared a critical incident.”

Assistant Chief Constable James Avery previously said: “Following initial assessment, I can confirm that eight children were taken to hospital as a precaution and have since been discharged. Officers have been in contact with the parents and guardians of those children taken to hospital.”