The household of the NHS charities fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore personally benefited from the charity arrange in his title by means of a collection of profitable offers price greater than £1m, the charities watchdog has dominated in a extremely crucial report.
A Charity Fee inquiry concluded the late Captain Tom’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin Ingram-Moore, have been culpable of “critical and repeated” situations of misconduct, mismanagement and failures of integrity.
The Ingram-Moores, who arrange the Captain Tom Basis in 2020 to help good causes, repeatedly blurred their personal pursuits with these of the charity whereas gaining “vital” private profit, the inquiry discovered.
Regardless of initially claiming they might not be concerned within the basis, the Ingram-Moores exercised excessive ranges of management over it, the inquiry discovered, helped by weak oversight by trustees who have been typically stored in the dead of night by the household.
The inquiry report is particularly crucial of a £1.5m three-book deal signed in Might 2020 on behalf of Captain Tom by Hannah Ingram-Moore, which promotional supplies prompt would profit the charity, however which turned out to be an nearly purely industrial deal enriching the household.
Though the inquiry was advised the Ingram-Moores had promised to make a donation to the charity from the guide deal, they didn’t achieve this. Given the chance by the fee in November 2022 to make a donation from the guide deal proceeds, they declined.
Different findings embody:
Hannah Ingram-Moore “initiated the method to safe her appointment as chief govt” of the charity, suggesting she ought to be paid a wage of £150,000. The charity proposed paying her £100,000 however this was blocked by the fee and he or she was finally employed on £85,000.
Hannah Ingram-Moore obtained £18,000 from Virgin Media in September 2021 to evaluate its Native Legends awards when she was chief govt of the muse. This was unauthorised and a battle of curiosity, and there was no proof it was undertaken, as she claimed, in a private capability.
The Ingram-Moores used the charity’s title inappropriately and for his or her personal profit in a planning software to construct a personal spa pool within the grounds of their household dwelling. The constructing was subsequently demolished.
David Holdsworth, the chief govt of the Charity Fee, mentioned that whereas Captain Tom had “impressed a nation and reminded us what service to others can obtain”, the charity arrange in his title had didn’t stay as much as that legacy.
“The general public – and the regulation – rightly count on these concerned in charities to make an unambiguous distinction between their private pursuits and people of the charity and the beneficiaries they’re there to serve. This didn’t occur within the case of the Captain Tom Basis,” he mentioned.
The report, which is the results of a two-year inquiry, marks a tawdry finish to a narrative which started when Captain Tom, then aged 99, sought to lift £1,000 for charity in the course of the pandemic by strolling 100 laps of his backyard in April 2020. His initiative caught the general public creativeness and have become a world phenomenon, elevating £39m for NHS charities.
In July 2024, Hannah and Colin Ingram-Moore revealed that they had been disqualified as trustees by the fee and banned from holding a senior administration place at any charity for 10 and eight years respectively. They claimed the disqualification order was clear that they had not “misappropriated or obtained unauthorised funds from the charity’s funds” they usually had by no means accessed or made any funds from the charity’s checking account.
The Captain Tom Basis was arrange by the household in June 2020 after his NHS charities fundraising, with the goal of utilizing his title to lift cash to present grants to good causes together with hospices and psychological well being charities.
Of their registration software to the Charity Fee on the time, the household confirmed the muse can be totally impartial of them and that “there have been no plans for any member of the family to obtain profit from it”.
Nonetheless, the inquiry report revealed that, even because it was making use of to register the charity, the household had trademarked “Captain Tom” and arrange a personal firm known as Membership Nook and a personal household belief to handle Captain Tom’s mental property and industrial pursuits.
The household’s charity registration software was deceptive, the report discovered, as a result of it didn’t disclose the muse’s shut hyperlinks to Membership Nook, or its reliance on the goodwill of Membership Nook to make use of Captain Tom’s title.
The household’s energy over the charity by means of Membership Nook was such that the charity’s trustees have been “unable to verify whether or not, for instance, the charity can be permitted to promote mugs printed with the title of the charity to generate funds for the charity with out first searching for the permission of Membership Nook”.
The Ingram-Moores mentioned in an announcement they felt “unfairly and unjustly” handled as they accused the fee of “selective storytelling”.
“A reputable regulatory physique would offer the complete reality, relatively than misrepresenting and conflating info and timelines that align with a predetermined agenda,” they mentioned. “True accountability calls for transparency, not selective storytelling.”
They added that the inquiry had taken a “critical toll on our household’s psychological and bodily well being, unfairly tarnishing our title and affecting our capability to hold on Captain Sir Tom’s legacy”.
The Captain Tom Basis remains to be in existence however stopped taking donations in 2023. It attracted £1.5m in donations over two years, of which £370,000 was distributed in grants. Captain Tom died in February 2021, aged 100.
A spokesperson for the muse mentioned it was “happy with the Charity Fee’s unequivocal findings relating to the Ingram-Moores’ misconduct”.
The charity is “imploring the Ingram-Moores to rectify issues by returning the funds because of the basis, in order that they are often donated to well-deserving charities as supposed by the late Captain Sir Tom Moore”, the spokesperson added.
