Captain Sir Tom Moore's family 'made £1m for themselves' through charity link

The family of renowned pandemic fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore made more than £1m 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 £1.4m 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 was “imploring the Ingram-Moores to rectify matters by returning the funds due” to the charity.

In response, the Ingram-Moores argued it was a “breach of privacy” for the book deal to have been disclosed by the Charity Commission and said “significant fees” had been paid to the literary agent, legal and PR professionals, as well as some money having “supported” the foundation.

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.

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. 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 25 June.

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.

In an interview with the PA news agency, commission chief executive David Holdsworth insisted the inquiry had 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 25 June.

Mr Holdsworth said disqualification was 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.

He 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”.

But the Ingram-Moores said they felt “unfairly and unjustly” treated and accused the commission of “selective storytelling”.

In a statement, 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”.

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.

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