A charity has been ordered to shut down after a south London preacher sold a bogus cure for Covid. 

Bishop Climate Wiseman – head of the Kingdom Church in Camberwell - warned his followers they could “end up dropping dead” during the pandemic.  

He urged them to buy his mixture – consisting of hyssop, cedarwood and olive oil – as soon as possible. 

Bishop Wiseman was convicted of fraud and was sentenced to one year in jail, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 130 hours of unpaid community work. 

Kingdom Church GB, a charity which Bishop Wiseman was a trustee for, has been removed from The Charity Commission’s register this week. 

The commission, which opened its inquiry into the charity in August 2020, found “significant shortcomings” within its management, administration and operation. 

The regulator said the other trustees – one of whom was Wiseman’s wife – had not taken part in decision making, “allowing Bishop Climate Wiseman to make unilateral decisions about the charity and its operations”. 

It also found that the charity, which registered with the commission in August 2010, failed to manage conflicts of interest between Wiseman’s business interests and the charity, demonstrated poor financial controls and management and failed to keep accurate charity records. 

The regulator added that the trustees had “exposed the charity’s reputation to undue risk” by allowing it to be linked to Wiseman’s private business interests “which included using the website linked to the charity to sell an oil alleged to protect against Covid in the midst of a worldwide pandemic”. 

Helen Earner, director of regulatory services at the Charity Commission, said: “The public rightly expects charities to be places of safety. 

“Trustee Bishop Climate Wiseman fell woefully short of that expectation when he scammed vulnerable people at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“The Charity Commission acted robustly to investigate the charity and its governance, and ultimately concluded that The Kingdom Church GB should be wound up and removed from the charity register.”