Attempted child abductor Paul Dean was kicked out of another charity before setting up the Dream Team.

Bosses of the Medical Care Foundation said police prevented them from checking his background when he joined in 1996.

Dean, of Woodgrange Drive, Southend, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at the Old Bailey after the attempted abduction of a four-year-old boy from an east London housing estate.

The court heard Dean, 30, had set up the Dream Team, a Southend-based charity which made wishes come true for sick children, despite a conviction for sending obscene letters and making obscene calls to two young boys in 1986.

Today Doug Angus, of the Medical Care Foundation, which is now closed, said he tried to check Dean's background, but was prevented from doing so.

He said: "We did try to do checks with the police, and they said they didn't have facilities for doing that, and the information was confidential.

"At that time they made it clear they could not give us information on people we were taking on, but that was in 1996 - I think procedures have changed now."

But even without police checks to reveal his background, Dean only lasted a matter of weeks with the organisation.

Mr Angus continued: "He kept messing us about with the paperwork and the accounts, and it was a bit of a struggle getting everything in from him, although we got it eventually.

"He was all talk - he was going to do everything - he had 50 ideas about doing things and all we got was talk and nothing ever happened. In the end we parted company and that was that."

The Medical Care Foundation, based in Kent, sold lottery-style tickets door-to-door to raise money to provide medical equipment for disabled people.

Dean set up the Dream Team charity in Southend with his wife Maree.

Paul Dean - pervert who set up children's charity

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