Captain Tom's family repeatedly benefited from mismanaging charity, UK watchdog finds

Reuters

Captain Tom's family repeatedly benefited from mismanaging charity, UK watchdog finds

Nov 21, 2024 at 12:01 am GMT

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Charity Commission disqualified Ingram-Moores from charity roles in July

Ingram-Moores used charity involvement for own advantage, report says

Autobiography sales did not benefit charity, despite public belief, it says

By Michael Holden

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) -The family of record-breaking British fundraiser Captain Tom Moore committed repeated serious misconduct in their running of a foundation set up in his honour, using its work to benefit themselves, Britain's charity watchdog said on Thursday.

Moore, a World War Two veteran, became a national hero in Britain and made headlines globally after raising 38.9 million pounds ($50 million) for the National Health Service by walking around his garden with the help of a frame in April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

His efforts saw him knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth, and such was his fame that his 100th birthday was marked by a message from the then British prime minister and a military plane flypast above his home.

He also became the oldest person to reach number one in Britain's main music singles chart before he died aged 100 in February 2021 after contracting COVID himself.

Whilst the initial millions raised by Moore were donated to a separate charity, the Charity Commission opened an inquiry last year into concerns about the management of the Captain Tom Moore Foundation.

Its highly-critical report concluded on Thursday that his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin had repeatedly used their involvement in the charity for their own advantage, failing to act in its best interests or to manage any conflicts of interest.

"We found repeated instances of a blurring of boundaries between private and charitable interests, with Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore receiving significant personal benefit," Charity Commission head David Holdsworth said.

In July, the watchdog disqualified the couple, who could not be reached for comment, both from being charity trustees or holding any senior positions in a charity.

The most high-profile incident was their attempt to build a spa on their property which they had originally described in a planning application as a "Captain Tom Foundation Building".

The watchdog said the charity's other trustees had no knowledge of the plans and the couple were not authorised to use its name, saying it amounted to misconduct. The local council later ordered the building was demolished.

In a previous statement, Ingram-Moore said she had had no involvement with the foundation since April 2022, and had not made any payments from the charity’s bank account, while her husband never had access to it. She said no charity money had been involved in the construction of the building at their home.

The commission said the public "would understandably feel misled" that the charity had received no money from the sales of the fundraiser's autobiography despite Moore himself apparently believing that it would, and press statements at the time implying donations would be made.

The autobiography was one of three titles by Moore for which Penguin Books paid an advance of almost 1.5 million pounds to a private company for which the Ingram-Moores were directors, the report said.

($1 = 0.7901 pounds)

Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by William Maclean

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