Ingram-Moores made more than £1m from family link to Captain Tom Foundation

The family of renowned pandemic fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore made more than a million pounds for themselves through their association with the charity set up in his name, a damning report has found.

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

Sir Tom became a household name in the pandemic, raising millions for NHS charities by walking laps of his garden in lockdown.

But separately, a £1.4 million book deal and an £18,000 awards ceremony appearance fee were among the financial benefits Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore enjoyed through their family links to the Captain Tom Foundation.

A spokesperson for the foundation said it is “imploring the Ingram-Moores to rectify matters by returning the funds due” to the charity.

The Charity Commission found a “repeated pattern of behaviour” which saw the pair make private gains and which the watchdog said will have left the public feeling “misled”.

The commission has called on the Ingram-Moores to make a “suitable donation” – declining to say how much – from the book advance deal, to “honour the commitment that Captain Tom, in his own words in his first book, stated in the foreword about the money benefiting the foundation set up in his name”.

The pair were asked by the commission on two occasions in 2022 to “rectify matters by making a donation to the charity” but declined both times.

A spokesperson for the foundation said they are “pleased with the Charity Commission’s unequivocal findings regarding the Ingram-Moores’ misconduct”.

They added: “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 foundation declined to comment when asked how much should be returned.

The Ingram-Moores have already been banned from being charity trustees, but a 30-page report published on Thursday, after a two-year inquiry, set out their failings in detail.

These include:

– “Disingenuous” statements from Mrs Ingram-Moore about not being offered a six-figure sum to become the charity’s chief executive, when she had in fact set out expectations for a £150,000 remuneration package before taking on the role.

– A misleading implication that donations from book sales would be made to the foundation. An advance of almost £1.5 million was paid to Club Nook, a company of which the Ingram-Moores are directors, for a three-book deal and none of that has gone to the foundation, the watchdog said.

– A claim by Mrs Ingram-Moore that an appearance at an awards ceremony for which she was paid £18,000 was undertaken in a personal capacity. The commission disagreed, saying there was no evidence to support this, and the charity received just £2,000, separately to her fee.

– Use of the foundation’s name in an initial planning application for a spa pool block at their home, something the couple said had been an error while they were both “busy undertaking ‘global media work’”. The block was demolished earlier this year, after the family lost an appeal against Central Bedfordshire Council’s order for it to be torn down.

– Confusion over handling of intellectual property rights, which the commission said were owned by the family but offered to the foundation to use without appropriate agreements in place, leading to possible financial losses to the charity.

The Charity Commission opened a case into the foundation in March 2021, escalating it to become a statutory inquiry in June 2022, amid concerns about the charity’s management and independence from Sir Tom’s family.

In July, the Ingram-Moores released a statement saying they had been banned from being charity trustees, describing the commission’s investigation as a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal” and a “relentless pursuit”.

In an interview with the PA news agency, David Holdsworth, commission chief executive, insisted the inquiry has been fair and balanced, saying: “We are relentless as a regulator and, yes, we will follow wrongdoing where where we find it in the sector.”

The disqualification orders against both – meaning Mrs Ingram-Moore cannot be a trustee or hold a senior management role in any charity in England and Wales for 10 years, nor Mr Ingram-Moore for eight years – were issued in May and came into effect on June 25.

Mr Holdsworth said disqualification is rare, with only 140 people disqualified out of around 900,000 trustees since 2019.

“The fact we’ve disqualified Hannah and Colin Ingram-Moore shows the serious nature of the issues we found,” he said.

Asked to put a figure on how much the Ingram-Moores had made from their association with the charity, he declined to give a total but said the public “can draw their own conclusions” from the details in the report.

He told PA: “As the report sets out, there was a book deal agreed for £1.4 million which the Ingram-Moores benefited from. There was the payment of a fee for an award ceremony for £18,000 which Mrs Ingram Moore received directly, not the charity.

“And so I think if you read the report, the public can draw their own conclusions about the total amount of private benefit the Ingram-Moores have achieved through their association with the charity.”

Mr Holdsworth said the foundation had “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 did not happen in the case of The Captain Tom Foundation. We found repeated instances of a blurring of boundaries between private and charitable interests, with Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore receiving significant personal benefit. Together the failings amount to misconduct and/or mismanagement.”

The commission cannot order the closure of a foundation, the watchdog chief said, adding that such a decision is “a matter for the trustees to consider”.

A lawyer for the family has previously indicated the charity might shut down, and 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.

Published: 21/11/2024 by Radio NewsHub