Captain Tom’s family gained ‘significant’ financial benefit from charity

The family of renowned pandemic fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore gained “significant” financial benefit from links to a charity set up in his name, a watchdog report has found.

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

They 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. While she may not have been offered this, the commission said it had seen written evidence that she had 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. The commission said the public “would understandably feel misled” to learn that sales of his autobiography, Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, did not benefit the charity. 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.
• 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. While she received £18,000, just £2,000, separate from that sum, was donated to the charity.
• 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, and describing the commission’s investigation as a “harrowing and debilitating ordeal”.

The 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.

But the watchdog’s chief executive said its report had found “repeated failures of governance and integrity”, and that its inquiry had been fair, balanced and independent.

David Holdsworth, commission chief executive, said the foundation set up in Sir Tom’s name “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 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 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 “one of Britain’s leading business women”, 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 knowledge and expertise” from working over the years with well-known brands including clothing retailer Gap and high-end department store Fortnum & Mason.

Her story has been “one of business, family and leadership”, 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 living in a multi-generational household”, 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 “constant fear and mental anguish”.

A quote on her website, attributed to Mrs Ingram-Moore, described how she feels a “weight of responsibility for doing the right thing, for not letting people down and responding to the love and compassion that has come our way”.