Captain Tom’s household gained ‘vital’ monetary profit from charity | UK | News | EUROtoday

The household of famend pandemic fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore gained “significant” monetary profit from hyperlinks to a charity arrange in his title, a watchdog report has discovered.

The Charity Commission concluded there had been repeated cases of misconduct by the veteran’s daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin.

They have already been banned from being charity trustees, however a 30-page report revealed on Thursday, after a two-year inquiry, set out their failings intimately.

These embody:

• “Disingenuous” statements from Mrs Ingram-Moore about not being provided a six-figure sum to develop into the charity’s chief government. While she might not have been provided this, the fee stated it had seen written proof that she had set out expectations for a £150,000 remuneration bundle earlier than taking up the position.
• A deceptive implication that donations from e-book gross sales could be made to the inspiration. The fee stated the general public “would understandably feel misled” to study that gross sales of his autobiography, Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, didn’t profit the charity. An advance of virtually £1.5 million was paid to Club Nook, an organization of which the Ingram-Moores are administrators, for a three-book deal.
• A declare by Mrs Ingram-Moore that an look at an awards ceremony for which she was paid £18,000 was undertaken in a private capability. The fee disagreed, saying there was no proof to help this. While she obtained £18,000, simply £2,000, separate from that sum, was donated to the charity.
• Use of the inspiration’s title in an preliminary planning software for a spa pool block at their residence, one thing the couple stated had been an error whereas they had been each “busy undertaking ‘global media work”‘. The block was demolished earlier this 12 months, after the household misplaced an enchantment in opposition to Central Bedfordshire Council’s order for it to be torn down.
• Confusion over dealing with of mental property rights, which the fee stated had been owned by the household however provided to the inspiration to make use of with out acceptable agreements in place, resulting in doable monetary losses to the charity.

The Charity Commission opened a case into the inspiration in March 2021, escalating it to develop into a statutory inquiry in June 2022, amid issues concerning the charity’s administration and independence from Sir Tom’s household.

In July, the Ingram-Moores launched an announcement saying that they had been banned from being charity trustees, and describing the fee’s investigation as a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal”.

The orders in opposition to each – which means Mrs Ingram-Moore can’t be a trustee or maintain a senior administration position in any charity in England and Wales for 10 years, nor Mr Ingram-Moore for eight years – had been issued in May and got here into impact on June 25.

But the watchdog’s chief government stated its report had discovered “repeated failures of governance and integrity”, and that its inquiry had been honest, balanced and unbiased.

David Holdsworth, fee chief government, stated the inspiration arrange in Sir Tom’s title “has not lived up to that legacy of others before self, which is central to charity”.

He added: “The public, and the law, rightly expect those involved in charities to make an unambiguous distinction between their personal interests and those of the charity and the beneficiaries they are there to serve.

“This didn’t occur within the case of The Captain Tom Foundation. We discovered repeated cases of a blurring of boundaries between personal and charitable pursuits, with Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore receiving vital private profit. Together the failings quantity to misconduct and/or mismanagement.”

The commission has not called on the foundation to close, but a lawyer for the family has previously indicated the charity might shut down.

The foundation stopped taking donations in summer 2023.

The millions raised by the late Sir Tom and donated to NHS Charities Together before the foundation was formed were not part of the commission’s inquiry.

The Ingram-Moores and the foundation have been contacted for comment.

When her fundraising father Captain Sir Tom Moore hit the headlines for his pandemic efforts, his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore was never far from the spotlight.

But before that, she was “certainly one of Britain’s main enterprise ladies”, according to her official website.

She is also described as a life coach and motivational speaker, with the site saying she has gained a “wealth of information and experience” from working over the years with well-known brands including clothing retailer Gap and high-end department store Fortnum & Mason.

Her story has been “certainly one of enterprise, household and management”, the website stated.

When Sir Tom soared to prominence as Covid-19 spread across the globe, Mrs Ingram-Moore – one of the veteran’s two daughters – often gave interviews and appeared in photographs and video footage taken by the media as her father’s charitable efforts captured the imagination of a locked-down UK.

She spoke of the “richness of residing in a multi-generational family”, having asked her elderly father to move in with her family in their property in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire – on the lawn of which he completed his 100 laps, raising £38.9 million for the NHS.

Alongside her chartered accountant husband, Colin, Mrs Ingram-Moore co-founded business recruitment agency Maytrix and both are co-directors of private limited company Club Nook.

Mrs Ingram-Moore accompanied her father to the regal surrounds of Windsor Castle in the summer of 2020 to see him knighted, and took a seat in the Royal Box at Wimbledon months after Sir Tom’s death in 2021 where she stood to applause and cheers.

But just three years later she and her husband had been banned by the Charity Commission from being charity trustees.

Mrs Ingram-Moore described the commission’s inquiry as a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal” which had left the family feeling suspended in “fixed concern and psychological anguish”.

A quote on her website, attributed to Mrs Ingram-Moore, described how she feels a “weight of duty for doing the proper factor, for not letting individuals down and responding to the love and compassion that has come our method”.