THE story of Oxfam in recent years is a tragedy and perhaps even a parable of our modern age.

This was an organisation that was founded solely to do good in the world, has done an incalculable amount of good in the past 70 years, and whose staff are largely decent, charitable people.

Two years ago it was revealed that some of its staff who had been helping with aid work in Haiti had used prostitutes, some of whom may have been underage.

It was then alleged that managers had tried to cover up this information.

The result was almost instantaneous: people across the world stopped giving money to this organisation, which continued to do so much good in the world, because of the actions of a tiny minority.

If only people would take such swift decisive action against banks, car manufacturers or housing developers when a tiny number of their employees do things which aren't squeaky clean.

Sadly, and perversely, we hold our charities to far higher standards: because we expect and trust charities to do the right thing, often the people who work there are not allowed to make mistakes.

Obviously that is not to say that charity workers taking advantage of vulnerable women is acceptable, but by the time that scandal was exposed in 2018, four members of staff who were implicated had already been dismissed and three had resigned.

Charity bosses had immediately recognised that this conduct was unacceptable and those involved were no longer allowed to work there.

It didn't matter: in the three days after the first revelations, more than 1,200 people cancelled their direct debit payments to the charity.

If they wanted to send a message, they certainly did.

If they wanted to hurt this proud Oxford institution, well, we hope they are now happy.

Not only is its valuable international aid work now under threat, so are the jobs of hundreds of its hardworking staff.