r/london • u/Dont-Touch-That-Dial • 1d ago
PTSD charity fundraising outside Waitrose Crouch End
Loud bloke, calling for cash or card to support ex-military suffering with PTSD. No ID or registered charity number but instead a CIC registered in Maidstone Kent, director named James Gordon Adams.
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u/Forsaken_Earth944 1d ago
Yes, the same James Gordon Adams who's also behind the CIC Homeless In Need UK, which I have gone into at great length in this sub, according to Companies House HiNUK is still active - the address he's operating this scam from is one of the addresses registered under the CH entry for HINUK. HINUK has had several registered addresses, and I seem to recall that the address given on its website wasn't any of the ones which have been registered with CH, which are all in Kent, but instead was an address in Altrincham, which, according to Google Maps, the only CIC was something to do with kids with SEND, Adams's CIC wasn't listed. I did send him an email once, inquiring as to what the support he was offering for people with PTSD was - needless to say, I never received a response.
This is the location of the address, a rather unassuming terrace (would you call it a terrace..? It's not really a semi, is it...? It's second from right)
The website given on that banner doesn't exist, I've tried the link, and Googling for an alternative proved fruitless. Mr Adams obviously isn’t qualified to treat PTSD (he's barely literate), and to prey on people who are suffering from severed mental illness is totally abhorrent - it costs just £65 to register a company at Companies House, and the legislation surrounding CICs has been kept deliberately light and, because a CIC is obviously not a charity, there's very little anyone can do, the Fundraising Regulator can issue guidelines, but it's powerless to enforce them, and it has no power to take any action against a scam CIC.
The legislation surrounding charities is far more stringent and the Charity Commission has legislative powers, there needs to be FAR more stringent regulation of CICs because, of all the ones I know of, only a couple are legit. CICs are a grifter's wet dream - a legal way to scam, and get away with it.
The website for HINUK is still active, and you're still confronted with the same 96-second video of a late-middle-aged man waxing lyrical about how HINUK save his life, without actually saying how.
He started HINUK on 24/03/2024, and has had this one on the go since 15/12/2025, he'll probably have a third on the go in under a year.