Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter has defended a luxury pool and spa built on the grounds of the family’s home, saying it was intended to be part of the war hero’s “legacy”.
Hannah Ingram-Moore admitted this week that the family kept £800,000 from three books the late veteran had written - despite the prologue of one of them suggesting the money would go towards raising “even more money” for the Captain Tom Foundation.
Ms Ingram-Moore has faced a string of allegations about her finances and the foundation she set up to honour her father.
The Independent exclusively revealed in February that the foundation had paid tens of thousands to companies run by Ms Ingram Moore and her husband - one of which was registered only days before the charity was incorporated.
Sir Tom became a national hero after raising £38 million for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the height of the first national Covid-19 lockdown in April 2020. He died from the virus in February the following year.
In an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored, Ms Ingram-Moore said it was a mistake to lodge the planning application for the complex in her father’s name, claiming the building was only meant to bear his name.
She denied seeking to give herself “a little treat”, and suggested that the pool was built in part with the aim of helping her father recover from a hip injury - despite the plans being being submitted after he died.
Hannah Ingram-Moore— (ITV/This Morning)
She said: “People would have seen we had a small above-ground pool on the driveway and when [Captain Tom] had fallen and broken his hip and was terribly ill he came home and wanted to rehabilitate and said ‘I fancy walking up and down in the pool’.
“No chance of that - maybe we could get one (where he could)...walk against the resistance.”
She also said she wanted somewhere to store thousands of cards sent to the family by well-wishers and that the pool was intended to be a “community” space.
“We had 225,000 birthday cards arrive, stored in London at a large cost to us. Thousands of things stored - it was taking over our house and our office. (We thought) why don’t we recentre it so we have somewhere to put all those things? This isn’t doing things selfishly.
“Storage, multipurpose, to be able to put some of his things, his memorabilia, and a community building to help the local ageing population, holding Pilates classes, walking up and down in the resistance pool, and have meetings, as the perfect place to speak about the legacy my father left.”
In the interview aired on Thursday, she said that her father “specifically” wanted her to keep the book profits.
She insisted there was no suggestion anyone who purchased the books thought the money was going to charity, despite the prologue of Sir Tom’s autobiography saying it was a “chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation now established in my name.”
The Charity Commission first opened a case into the Captain Tom Foundation in March 2021, a month after the veteran died, and began reviewing the set-up of the organisation.
The watchdog escalated the case into an inquiry in June 2022 after it became concerned about arrangements between the charity and a company linked to Ms Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin, as well as the trustees’ decision-making and how the charity is governed.
The commission said the money raised for the NHS, which was donated to NHS Charities Together, is not part of the scope of its inquiry.
Captain Sir Tom Moore— (PA Archive)
In March 2022, the publication of the first annual accounts of the foundation, which was registered on 5 June 2020 following his fundraising efforts, showed the charity incurred £240,000 in costs and gave £160,000 to good causes.
The commission said it is concerned that a “failure to consider intellectual property and trademark issues” when the charity was set up gave a private company, Club Nook Limited, the opportunity to trademark variations of the name “Captain Tom” without objection from the charity.
This could have generated “significant profit” for the company, which is controlled by Ms Ingram-Moore and Mr Ingram-Moore, the commission added.
The inquiry is analysing if the trustees of the Captain Tom Foundation have been responsible for mismanagement or misconduct in the administration of the charity leading to any losses, adequately managed conflicts of interest and complied with their duties and responsibilities under charity law.
The inquiry is ongoing.
