The Charity Commission’s report on the Captain Tom Foundation is highly critical of the conduct and actions of its founders, Hannah and Colin Ingram-Moore, who it said had directly and inappropriately benefited financially from their links to the foundation.
Here are three examples of how the Ingram-Moores’ failure to manage conflicts of interest – not least between the foundation and their private company – constituted misconduct, mismanagement and what the commission called failures of governance and integrity.
The book deal
The Ingram-Moores signed a three-book deal worth £1.5m on behalf of Captain Tom with the publisher Penguin in 2020. Moore himself wrote in the prologue to the first book that its publication would raise money for his foundation.
Penguin, Captain Tom’s literary agent and publicists, and a foundation trustee later told the commission the family had made it clear they would donate part of the publishing advance to the charity.
No donation was forthcoming from the Ingram-Moores, even when the commission offered them the chance to do so. Members of the public who bought the book thinking they were supporting the charity were misled, the commission suggests: apart from £18,000 from a £1-a-copy donation on the first book, the deal was a “purely commercial endeavour” benefiting the family.
The personal appearance
Captain Tom himself was paid £10,000 by Virgin Media to be a judge in its Local Legends awards in 2020, a role subsequently inherited by his daughter. In September 2021, Hannah Ingram-Moore arranged an £18,000 deal with Virgin Media to take over the judging role, even though she was at the time chief executive of the foundation, receiving £85,000 a year.
The inquiry found a month before she signed the agreement that Ingram-Moore had removed a “conflicts of interest” clause from her employment contract. It rejected her claim that she had undertaken the work in a personal capacity and concluded her failure to manage a conflict of interest constituted misconduct and mismanagement.
The swimming pool planning application
The Ingram-Moores used the charity’s name in a planning application in August 2021 for a “Captain Tom Foundation building” in the grounds of their family home. Initially given approval by the council – not least because of its supposed charitable purposes – the family subsequently resubmitted the application, removing references to Captain Tom, and adding their intention to build a spa/pool facility.
The Ingram-Moores told the inquiry the inclusion of the charity name in the original application was “an error” – both were distracted because they were “busy undertaking global media work”. The foundation’s board were unaware of the planning application, even though Colin Ingram-Moore was a trustee. Amid public outrage, the building was demolished in February as it had not conformed to planning permission.
