Real Housewives of Cheshire star Ampika Pickston has said she believes she has been ‘made a scapegoat’ after the children’s home she opened for vulnerable young girls was permanently closed this week.
The mum-of-one, 43, fears that bosses with Housewives’ parent company NBCUniversal will give her the chop after her ‘name was dragged through the mud’ during the lengthy legal battle to reopen it.
Speaking to MailOnline about the ordeal, Ampika said: ‘This is NBCUniversal, they don’t want to be associated with something like this and I’ve been portrayed as someone not capable of running a children’s home.
‘I’ve been made a scapegoat and my name has been dragged through the mud.
‘If I’d done something wrong, I would hang my head in shame. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of at all.’
Ampika Pickston has said she believes she has been ‘made a scapegoat’ after the children’s home she opened for vulnerable young girls was permanently closed this week
The mum-of-one, 43, fears that bosses with Housewives’ parent company NBCUniversal will give her the chop after her ‘name was dragged through the mud’ (pictured with fiancé David Sullivan, 76)
Eight managers at Moss Farm Care Home quit in just a 13 month period after voicing concerns over Ampika’s ability to run the home.
Staff working for the OnlyFans model alleged they were pressured to make false statements regarding child safeguarding practices at the facility, a tribunal heard.
A senior Ofsted inspector told the hearing that Ampika deliberately obstructed the watchdog’s attempts to inspect Moss Farm by instructing employees to hide behind doors during an Ofsted visit.
It is also alleged that emails and statements were written in the name of staff without their knowledge and approval.
Moss Farm, which is the sole home of Ampika’s company AP Care Homes Ltd, was intended to be a social care facility for girls between the ages of 12 to 16.
However, multiple staff came forward to tell regulators that she planned to also open an unregulated children’s home despite it being illegal to do so, with Ms Pickston allegedly even printing brochures to promote it.
The reality star has maintained though that she is not involved in the day-to-day running of the facility.
Along with WAGS Dawn Ward, Leanne Brown and Tanya Bardsley, Ampika became an instant star on Real Housewives of Cheshire when the series first aired in 2015.
Speaking to MailOnline, she said: ‘I’ve been made a scapegoat and my name has been dragged through the mud. ‘If I’d done something wrong’
Moss Farm Children’s Home in Styal, in the Cheshire countryside, had placements for four vulnerable girls
Ampika pictured at Moss Farm Care Home giving a tour of its facilities on her social media
Moss Farm care home was intended to be a social care facility for girls between the ages of 12 to 16
Viewers quickly became fixated with their opulent, drama-filled lives inside the so-called Golden Triangle where scores of Premier League players also reside.
Ampika is the CEO of Ampika’s Aesthetics, a cosmetics training business, and she has become something of a Wag herself since going public with her relationship with West Ham chairman David Sullivan, 76, who is said to be worth over £1bn.
Her rise is all the more remarkable given that she was raised by her factory foreman grandfather William Fawcett, who passed away aged 82 in 2009, in Oldham and her parents – who she does not wish to name – were absent for most of her life.
In July 2023, having decided she wanted to give something back, she opened a care home for girls aged eight to 18, remortgaging her mansion so she could purchase a five-bedroom farmhouse in Altrincham, Greater Manchester and employ eight members of staff.
Ampika said: ‘Everyone has a purpose and for me it was something I always wanted to do because of my traumatic childhood.
‘I had a turbulent relationship with both my mother and father. Dad wasn’t around much and I felt like my mum, who was from Thailand, only wanted me so she could get a British passport.
‘If it wasn’t for my strong loving grandfather, who took early retirement to bring me up from the age of four, I would have been a child in the care system.
‘But not everyone is lucky enough to have a loving grandfather to give them stability and safety.
‘I got to my late 30s and thought, I have the time and resources to create a beautiful home and to give something back.
‘I wasn’t in this to make a quick buck. I still own the home, which is in the rolling hills of Cheshire with a petting farm next door.
‘It’s a luxury property that was filled with love and maybe I got too emotionally involved in it, but it was the type of place I would have loved to have lived in when I was a little girl.’
Problems at the care home began to emerge just a few months after it opened.
Ampika has claimed she was not involved in the day-to-day running of the care home
Ampika was criticised for showing off the care home to her 248,000 Instagram followers and for bringing a child back to her Cheshire mansion
In November 2023, Ofsted inspectors rated it ‘inadequate’ and reported: ‘serious and widespread safeguarding failures’.
Issues highlighted included a lack of stable leadership, unsafe recruitment practices and a dearth of staff training, according to the report.
Ampika meanwhile was criticised for showing off the care home to her 248,000 Instagram followers and for bringing a child back to her Cheshire mansion, which an Ofsted inspector complained ‘was inappropriate (and) shouldn’t have happened’.
In March 2024 it was ruled that AP Care Homes Limited should be ‘no longer be authorised to carry on the regulated activity’ and this week a tribunal judge upheld a decision to cancel its registration.
Ampika had appealed against the decision but a First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care) ruled that the registration should not be reinstated.
Tribunal Judge Siobahn Goodrich and panel found a ‘significant’ risk of ‘harm to the health, well-being and safety’ of children.
Ampika feels her reality TV background counted against her from the start, however.
Explaining why she brought the vulnerable youngster to her house, she said: ‘My son called to say he had lost the dog, who was running around the back of a golf course. ‘This girl said, ‘Please can I come? I want to find Billy.’
‘I said, ‘Not a problem.’
‘We managed to find the dog, the child asked for a drink and to go to the toilet, and we were in my house with a support worker for no more than five minutes – then we went back to the care home.
‘I feel like I’ve committed a crime, but it was an act of compassion.
Ampika said: ‘Everyone has a purpose and for me it was something I always wanted to do because of my traumatic childhood’
She said: ‘I’ve been branded as someone not capable of running a children’s home, but it’s prejudice and judgemental and stereotyping people’ (pictured with David Sullivan)
‘We used to go out with the children and the support workers every Tuesday night and one of the children had never been to a Chinese restaurant or seen a napkin before.
‘A number of children said they felt like it was their forever home and when they moved out they wanted to apply for a job there as they were so happy.
‘Given how few good homes there are, for me to be vilified in this way, there must be something seriously wrong with the system.
‘But if you challenge Oftsted, they persecute you.
‘I had three really experienced people working at the home and I felt I had a good team so I was absolutely dumbfounded when they closed it down.
‘I don’t think they like people who challenge them and I know they’ve got a problem with anyone with a large social media platform.
‘If you boil it down to the basics, look at this history of the home. There were four children residing there. I’ve worked relentlessly to get new staff in, which is really difficult when you’ve got a notice of decision to close your home down, it’s almost like a death penalty.
‘I’ve been branded as someone not capable of running a children’s home, but it’s prejudice and judgemental and stereotyping people.
‘The inspectors need to realise that Real Housewives of Cheshire is a job and we are paid to create drama – we are playing a part.
‘Anyone that knows anything about the television world, knows you should take it with a pinch of salt.
‘If you look at the facts – how much I spent to bring the home in line with regulations and the fact the tribunal judge said I set it up with good intentions.
‘There’s a huge sense of injustice and what they did is disproportionate and unmeasured.
‘I’m going to rent out the farmhouse, maybe to another children’s home company so at least it will go to good use.
‘I’m still sitting here. I’ve got things I can sell and it’s not about the money, really.
‘I’ve obviously got resilience from somewhere. I watch the news and that puts things into perspective because there’s so much suffering in the world.
‘There are so many badly run homes that are allowed to stay open and we still don’t have enough of them to meet demand, so we need to be asking why?
‘In my view, the system is completely broken and something needs to be done about it.’
