Hero fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family have been slammed by a watchdog for pocketing £1 million in his name.
A report said that Sir Tom’s daughter and her husband gained “significant” financial benefit from links to a charity set up during the pandemic. The Mirror reports that the Charity Commission said a probe of The Captain Tom Foundation had uncovered “repeatedly failures of governance and integrity”.
Ahead of his 100th birthday, the World War II soldier walked 100 lengths of his garden, raising about £39 million amid the Covid-19 crisis. A record-breaking influx of donations from well-wishers resulted from his fundraising efforts, which won over the hearts of the country.
As a result, he was given a BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and performed in a chart-topping music single, before being knighted by the Queen in July 2020 and dying, aged 100, in February 2021 after contracting Covid-19.
Daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore, 53, and her husband, Colin, 66, set up the Captain Tom Foundation. However, it became the subject of several allegations, leading to investigations by the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator.
A compliance case was first opened by the Charity Commission in March 2021, who began reviewing the organisation’s setup. It opened a statutory inquiry – usually reserved for only the most serious cases – in June 2022.
With its severe criticism of Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin, the watchdog’s report has now been released. It came to the conclusion that the two, who have previously been barred from serving as trustees for charities, had engaged in persistent misconduct. The report said the couple’s “misconduct and/or mismanagement” was a “repeated pattern of behaviour”.
The sales of Captain Tom’s autobiography ‘Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day’ did not benefit The Captain Tom Foundation. In the book’s foreword, he wrote of being given “the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation now established in my name.” Instead, an advance of £1.4m for the three-book deal was paid to Club Nook – a company of which the Ingram-Moores are directors.
The couple were “very clear” they did not want the money to go to charity, according to Literary agent Bev James, who represented Captain Tom. The Commission said that “to date, the charity has not received any money from the first publishing agreement”.
It said the public “would understandably feel misled” to learn that the charity did not benefit from the book sales. The report said their failure to honour the donation “has seriously damaged the reputation of the charity”. It called on the couple to make a “suitable donation” to “honour the commitment that Captain Tom stated in the foreword” to the book.
Before taking over as the charity’s CEO, Mrs. Ingram-Moore reportedly laid out expectations for a £150,000 salary. Additionally, it was disclosed that she received £18,000 for attending an awards ceremony. After she stated that she attended the Virgin Media Awards in a personal capacity, only £2,000 was given to the charity.
Also, the commission slammed the couple for using the foundation’s name in their Bedfordshire home planning application for a spa pool block. Mrs Ingram-Moore and her husband said it had been an error which they blamed on being busy “undertaking global media work”.
Planners gave “significant weight… to the fact that the charity was to use the proposed building for its charitable purposes,” the report said. But the £200,000 block was demolished earlier this year after a revised planning application did not feature the word “charity” or “foundation”.
The report authors said evidence suggests the couple “were using the charity and its name inappropriately for their private benefit”.
The confusion over the handling of intellectual property rights was also bashed by the charity commission bosses. The report said those rights were owned by the family but offered to the foundation to use without appropriate agreements in place. This led to possible financial losses to the charity, it stated.
The Ingram-Moores described the Charity Commission’s investigation as a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal” in July. But its chief executive David Holdsworth said the foundation had “not lived up to that legacy of others before self, which is central to charity”.
He said the Ingram-Moores had failed to “make an unambiguous distinction between their personal interests and those of the charity and the beneficiaries they are there to serve”.
“We found repeated instances of a blurring of boundaries between private and charitable interests, with Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore receiving significant personal benefit,” he added. “Together the failings amount to misconduct and/or mismanagement.”
Although the commission has not called on the foundation to close, a lawyer for the family has previously indicated the charity might shut down. It halted its donation intake in the summer of 2023. Money raised for the NHS, which was donated to NHS Charities Together, was not part of the scope of the Charity Commission inquiry.
After his fundraising efforts garnered international attention, the Captain Tom Foundation was officially formed in June 2020. According to its initial annual reports, the organisation donated £160,000 to worthy causes while incurring £240,000 in expenses.
A “Captain Sir Tom” gin that was sold to generate funds for the foundation was allegedly in violation of charity law. The website of Otterbeck Distillery had offered bottles of the gin for £100, with a donation of “all profits” to the organisation. As required by law, the limited edition 50cl bottles were sold without mentioning the amount donated to charity.
A spokesman representing the distillery and foundation said “around £30” would go to charity “after duty and production costs”. It was eventually removed from sale.
A spokesperson for the Captain Tom Foundation said: “The Captain Tom Foundation is pleased with the Charity Commission’s unequivocal findings regarding the Ingram-Moores’ misconduct. We join the Charity Commission in imploring the Ingram-Moores to rectify matters by returning the funds due to the Foundation, so that they can be donated to well-deserving charities as intended by the late Captain Sir Tom Moore. We hope they do so immediately and without the need for further action.”
The Ingram-Moores said they felt “unfairly and unjustly” treated and accused the commission of “selective storytelling”. They said: “A credible regulatory body would provide the full truth, rather than misrepresenting, and conflating facts and timelines that align with a predetermined agenda.
“True accountability demands transparency, not selective storytelling.” They said the inquiry had taken a “serious toll on our family’s mental and physical health, unfairly tarnishing our name and affecting our ability to carry on Captain Sir Tom’s legacy“.
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