Positive Lives

Positive Lives was a HIV charity set up by two well-known gay businessmen, David Bridle and Kelvin Sollis, and three other trustees, William Curry, Simon Brycesson and Glyn Maddocks, in 1996.

Additional recommended knowledge

Daily Visual Balance Check

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Weighing the right way

At the time, Bridle and Sollis owned Chronos Publishing, the company that published gay weekly magazines The Pink Paper and Boyz. They also had a stake in the commercial gay pride festival London Mardi Gras.

According to its trust deed, Positive Lives was set up to run a helpline, produce information videos, provide housing and promote safer sex. Bridle and Sollis said it would also take over running of a magazine, Positive Times, which they had previously run as a successful commercial venture.

In May 2000, Outcast magazine ran an exposé claiming that Positive Lives had "done no charitable work whatsoever" and alleged that all the money raised by the charity had "mysteriously disappeared".

The Charity Commission investigated the allegations made in the article and concluded:

• The Commission found little evidence that any charitable activity had ever been undertaken by Positive Lives
• The accounts produced for Positive Lives did not show a true and fair view of the charity’s activities
• The charity’s accounts suggest that [The Pink Paper] donated £55,300 to the charity but the reality is that little or no money changed hands
• The Commission found that the trustees of Positive Lives failed in even the most basic duties that would be expected of them

Positive Lives was shut down by the Commission.

• Charity Commission Report into Positive Lives