Hannah Ingram Moore. AIBU Not To Be Surprised At Charity Commission Findings?

I agree with others about the family. It must be mortifying for the IM children. I also feel for Tom's (I'm not prepared to call him Captain as that's incorrect) other daughter. I'm sure there is no love lost there.

I could see it for the grift it was from the outset but I was amazed that the holiday (I think funded by Virgin/Branson) did not peak more people. His family said going to Barbados or wherever was his ultimate dream and then he and the IMs gurned away in the holiday photos.
And then the holiday effectively killed him...

I do feel sorry for the kids, what a horrible association for them and the sister

...though you know, and I know, that that is not going to happen... 😏

One of their kids is still at school, right? I'm sure today is going to be a fun day for her.

I was gobsmacked at the Piers Morgan interview. I can't stand the man, but he did try to hold them to account. They were absolutely shameless, refused to accept any responsibility for anything, turned on the tears, wheeled out the children to gain sympathy... it was absolutely shocking.

It always seemed a very contrived thing, but the start of Covid was a funny old time. People latched onto an old person walking around a garden, and it became huge.

A shame it’s ended up like this. But, not that surprising. 🤷‍♀️

Read this elsewhere and - ouch:

The book deals were negotiated and signed in April 2020, before the charity was even set up. It appears Hannah and Colin immediately set up a private company to cash-in.

Penguin random house ultimately gave them £1.47m as an advance. First we've heard of this amount that I can recall, I don't think it's been made public and PRH only provided that figure when compelled. PRH offered to donate this directly to the NHS Together fundraising effort (still ongoing at that time) "but that offer was rejected". PRH didn't know who they were dealing with and blithely assumed Hannah and Colin were in it for the charity work.

Instead, the pair asked for the money to be paid to themselves directly so they could set up their own charity. Details become hazy here because they (intentionally?) documented fuck all, but basically everyone was under the impression H&C would get a personal cheque for £1.47m then use (some? Most? All of?) the proceeds to start the charity that would become the captain Tom foundation.

If you've read the charity's financial books as I have, you'll know no such payment ever came. In fact the charity commission wrote to them, twice, last year before they went on piers morgan's thing, presented the evidence they'd gathered, and offered them a chance to make a donation to clear it all up. They refused both times and kept the money. They forgot to mention this amount to piers who will no doubt be upset.

With the £800k in sales (also directed to club nook) I make that £2.3m they've profited off the books without the charity seeing a penny.

@BustingBaoBun Ahh I didn't realise that. No that's awful!

Agreed particularly ahead of Christmas appeals which many charities rely on. And the charity sector needs to find an additional £1.6bn for national insurance as well as the minimum wage increase so it’s been a very tough few years with many brilliant charities laying off staff and some smaller ones closing. All I’d say is if you want to know how a particular charity you want to support spends money then search their annual report. Decide for yourself. Don’t listen to the tired old narratives about fat cat CEOs and admin costs. Well run charities cost money to run. They have to hold back money for lean years. It’s complicated.

Trustees don’t get paid but are allowed claim reasonable expenses, what constitutes a reasonable expense is set out in the policy document. But many trustees don’t claim small expenses. But they have to be allowed claim because otherwise only well off people would/could be a Trustee.

And let's not forget Hannah IM took him off to Barbados, fully paid for by BA, when none of us could travel like that. He tested positive for Covid on his return and then caught pneumonia and died.

Obviously the daughter didn't want to pass up the chance of free first class to Barbados for herself, husband and children.

He specifically said in the foreward to the book/books he was writing it to add to the charity. And the Trustees have asked the Ingrams twice to give a donation from the millions they made from that, and twice they have refused.

And let's not forget the gin, beer, and other tat they marketed, and they kept most of the money. The special edition Gin was £100 ! (and some fools bought it)

Rich retired Tory salesman "Captain Tom" wasn't as 'innocent' in all this as posters (who write about his 'reputation' now being tarnished by the actions of his daughter) believe.
He was a soldier during WW2, along with millions of other people. He was conscripted, and didn't do anything especially heroic, just managed not to get killed.
No other military veterans would refer to themselves as 'Captain X' 70+ years later. The etiquette is that you only use your military title if you had reached the rank of Major or above while you were in the forces.
If he had any ethics at all, he would have told her not to market his sponsored walk using the 'Captain' name, but just refer to his name and age.
Grifters, the lot of them.

Totally agree. I volunteer for a charity that does amazing work and has one clerk (paid a very modest wage).and everything else is run by volunteers. As trustees we get no payment, no perks, we do it because believe it is a great cause.

I also agree that there is lots of sneering about charity in general. I'm not sure what motivates those sorts of posters. It's either resentment that people are earning money (albeit in many cases minimum wage) for working in charity shops or providing services and they think it should be done for free, or just that people are ignorant about what charities do and what their mission statement is, and can't be arsed to find out.

I do think though that in the initial covid hysteria, this fundraising was marketed as "for the NHS" and even though press/tv mentioned the NHS CHarities Together, a lot of people had no idea what that was and just assumed it was to buy PPE or pay salaries.

I think the money donated by the public when he did the walk did actually all go to the charity. And it was millions. This seems to be about money from his memoirs being used by the family. Not great, but maybe he wanted them to get some benefit?

Yes there were people at the time who expressed concern on MN and were shouted down as granny killers or some such nonsense

I never agreed with any of it. Raising money "for the NHS" sounded not very specific, and an old man with poor mobility having to walk round his garden to fund public services. We shouldn't need to rely on charity to fund them.

Once the tabloids got hold of it, the whole thing was a circus.

I appreciate mumsnet cannot monitor every post but there is so much bullshit and misunderstanding about how charities are run in here. It is so damaging to charities as people read things like 'it was spent badly' or 'Trustees get paid a fortune' and are put off donating in the future. There needs to be much better moderation to wheedle out the idiots and stop the smear campaign some of the great British public seem to be pursuing against the truly amazing world that is the charity sector.

38 million wouldn't build a hospital ward. I'm not sure we even need more hospital building in many cases. The shortage issues are to do with staffing and equipping the wards we have. The money raised for NHS charities doesn't go towards running hospitals.

But in any case I think people underestimate the huge cost to run the NHS. 38 million is a drop in the ocean. It costs approximately 4 times that to run the NHS for a single day.

TRUSTEES DO NOT GET PAID, THEY DO IT FOR FREE.

I could work through this post and question/put right much of what you have said in your support of them but I can't be bothered. However one thing that is important to say as you are unfairly misleading people which could damage other charities. Charity Trustees are almost never salaried. They don't get paid a single penny. Please do not publicly tarnish charities with your ill-informed twaddle.

@Curtainqueen nearly every hospital has a Trust, which pays for things central government and indeed devolved government doesn’t. So it did benefit the NHS, that £38m was administered correctly.

Captain Tom’s foundation could have said we’re raising money to build a new hospital or to pay nurses, or we’ll give each Trust £50k or be quite specific but I think actually NHS charities together was set up to resolve precisely the issue of how best to decide where to give the donation across the NHS. It’s based on the Trusts themselves applying and saying what they need.

Unfortunately all this means that it’ll likely be confused in public minds and the funding will dwindle over time, which is a real shame for Trusts under more pressure and who’ve probably come to rely on that income.

However I think some of the blame has to be laid at everyone who completely lost their minds during the whole “Blitz spirit of COVID, keep calm and carry on” nonsense. It was a tremendous over reaction and many of us thought so at the time. I remember how mad people were going for Tom and I thought it’s just an old bloke who caught someone’s attention, but people were deifying him at ridiculous levels. I remember thinking “do people equate a WW2 veteran with themselves having to heroically stay indoors for a bit, is that why he’s so popular?”. Penguin sensed there was enough hysteria from the very start to warrant three books, because people who aren’t especially bright are whipped up into a frenzy over what is actually a fairly pedestrian story. People who enable these ridiculous fads about humans maybe wanna have a word with themselves. They overly worshipped an ordinary man and his family reaped the glory and then some

Absolutely agree. I would really hope that people remember this the next time there is some silly, mawkish fad for an individual person.