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Xahra Saleem, then known as Yvonne Maina, established a GoFundMe account in 2020, raising £32,344, or $39,362, to cover expenditures and Covid protection equipment for protesters after the murder of George Floyd.
An England-based Black Lives Matter activist is in jail after spending thousands of dollars collected for a youth charity on personal expenditures. Xahra Saleem, whom Rife Magazine named one of the 30 most influential people under 30 in Bristol, will serve 30 months in prison and face a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing.
According to The Times, Xahra Saleem, 23, a co-founder of the All Black Lives Bristol group, was one of five young people who toppled a statue of merchant and slave trader Edward Colston on June 7, 2020, during a protest organized in Bristol City Centre in response to the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
In the days leading up to the demonstration, Saleem, then known as Yvonne Maina, established a GoFundMe account in the name of the organization, raising £32,344, or $39,362, to cover expenditures and pay for COVID-19 personal protection equipment for protesters.
Organizers offered to give the remaining funds to Changing Your Mindset to assist the group in organizing a trip to Africa for young people from the disadvantaged St Paul neighborhood.
The prosecution’s Alistair Haggerty told Bristol Crown Court that Changing Your Mindset couldn’t register a corporate bank account during the pandemic, so the group opted to keep the money in Saleem’s account. “It was a sign of how much she was trusted,” Haggerty contended.
The directors of Changing Your Mindset requested that Saleem move the funds into a new business account they established in April 2021.
However, Saleem, who had no steady income, spent the money between July 2020 and June 2021 on a new iPhone and iMac computer, hair and beauty products, Amazon shopping, clothes, Uber and taxi rides, and general lifestyle costs.
She offered many excuses about why she couldn’t transfer the money, including that Black Lives Matter encouraged her not to because “some of the people the charity had worked with had made homophobic comments.”
Two directors, Rebecca Scott and Jade Royal, gave Saleem until June 7, 2021, to transfer the funds and offered to assist her in creating a repayment plan. Saleem emailed them two weeks after the deadline, apologizing for her actions. She stated “the money has gone,” and claimed she had psychosis and had been hospitalized.
“I have done something horrendous, you can’t tell anyone until I have sorted it out,” Saleem said in a June 2021 WhatsApp message to a friend. “I get really bad psychosis which I have mentioned to psychiatrists. This charity asked me to hold money for them, God knows why. Let’s just say my brain spent it. I can’t tell you what, where or why. I don’t know what I spent it on.”
Avon and Somerset police officers arrested Saleem in July 2021. She initially denied committing fraud but appeared before Bristol Crown Court on Sept. 19 to enter a guilty plea.
In mitigation, Tom Edwards, defending Saleem, claimed she was diagnosed with depression “at a young age” and worked as a nanny and volunteered for the Islamic Aid organization at the time.
BBC News reported Saleem also faces charges in connection to a second fundraising website set up after the demonstration to help individuals facing charges with their legal fees – funds again allegedly not handed over.
According to The Times, the Changing Your Mindset directors were “disillusioned and exhausted” about the entire ordeal and closed the club. Royal noted a young person they were aiding had died following the termination of the youth group.
“I feel we could have been the people that saved that young person’s life,” Royal said, The Times reported.
Edwards stated that the young man being aided by the club was Saleem’s cousin, who was stabbed to death, and that Saleem could not be blamed.
Scott and Royal stated in victim impact statements that they were accused of taking the money and had their integrity questioned. “I have lost trust in people and question myself all the time. The emotions have affected how I treat my family,” Royal said.
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