Did the captain Tom foundation charity really use the money to build their own spa pool??

[Terryer]

Just reading the paper this morning and see the family of Captain Tom have been ordered to pull down a building in their garden with a spa pool. I think it's a planning issue but the inference is that they used the money raised to build it. Did they really?

I read it on the BBC news site yesterday. I never ever click a DM link. I don’t think this is a story the DM broke.

I would never have said this at the time but I never liked the Man ! Something just seemed off. Felt validated when he wrote in his memoirs that he left his first wife as marriage was sexless & went off with a younger wife. Tells you everything you need to know really about this character.

@Plbrookes eh ?

I didn’t understand the hype at the time. I never warmed to him. Didn’t ever get that feeling

The whole thing was iffy from the start. The public and media reaction was embarrassing.

His daughter is a grifter who exploited her father for her own gain. The charity commission is still investigating hopefully the truth will come out (a lot is already out there).

Like many charities, most of the money goes on the ‘staff’ not the cause. Legal.

Charity law lets you fundraise millions and only give away £1 if you show that you’re spending the bulk of the donations on ‘running the charity’.

That includes buying buildings and/or homes for the staff, private pensions, private medical care, years of paid sick leave, entertainment, hotel bills, flights abroad, you name it.

Now Big Charities have got used to this life, they argue indignantly that it should continue.

Anyone who asks why it costs £92 to give £8 away (irl example) gets shouted down coz charidee. Oh and ‘charity provides jobs’. Doing what? Asking for more money, you don’t say.

Why take an old boy of 100 on a long haul flight to Barbados

Probably where he caught covid too. Fully paid for family holiday though.

I'm a bit baffled as to why they had no room in their house. I mean it was hardly a council flat was it?

@Dotjones i don’t think you can compare the “self interest” of those who genuinely want to see a better world for all with the corruption suggested, of one wealthy family using media and publicly donated funds to build a new stately family home!

I do agree that the shift in our society from the idea of a meritocratic public sector funding things for all to a model of wealthy inheriting families “donating” out of the goodness of their hearts, with big plaques to remind everyone of their benevolence, is shit. It was modelled on old imperial values and if it was not always intended to rebuild the mentality of old empires, it was obvious that that was what would happen.

I have always grieved for the shift, and the betrayal of the hope left to us by those who fought a war to stop empire building. We could have had something new.

It was also always bloody stupid given that empires always die and the unavoidable seeds of death for this one, climate and ecological change, were already there.

It's terrible when people take British public for fools then get away with basking in unearned luxury.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/20612012.rishi-sunaks-huge-swimming-pool-north-yorkshire-pictured/

The thing is lots of us in the nhs didn’t see any evidence of this . As an ITU nurse that worked through covid the public fixating on the feel good factor for themselves around this has neither benefitted patients or nursing staff. That isn’t all on what may or not have happened with the charity (the nhs is great at mismanaging money) but don’t use nurses or patients as a way to censor discussion.

It was a morale boost for the public in a lonely and difficult time, it’s difficult for many if it turns out there was/is corruption.

Wasn’t the money raised for the NHS charities separate to this?

Members of the public shouldn’t have to br raising money for the NHS. It needs to be properly funded by taxes

The charity's trustees have said that they knew nothing about this build and would never have sanctioned using the organisation's funds for it if they had known about it.

I'm a trustee of a charity myself, and that they've come out and said this is absolutely damning. The trustees are ultimately legally and financially responsible for actions taken in its name. They must be appalled.

I was sick of the sight of him, he's one of the prevailing faux facade's of the covid era - elderly chap enjoying his restriction induced spare time... In reality, the elderly were dying in their droves of restriction induced isolation and loneliness.

Disgusting. Wtf does he know about the real world.

I’m against quite a bit of charity (not the charity themselves mind but the need for it).

Staff comfort (or public services themselves) shouldn’t be at the mercy of donations/charity, it should be a feature of the service and embedded within the cost.

This ‘feel good’ was at a time when govt was coughing up £££ but not providing PPE and god knows what else.

I never quite bought into the kindly old gentleman persona when he was happy to broadcast to the world intimate details of his first marriage. Just didn’t see how it was a necessary or kind thing to do.

Or what ⬆️ succinctly said.

Staff well-being areas + tea coffe etc should be a standard supplied feature IMO.

100%

all the elements that move the British public to donate!

They're crooks.

It isn't about compassion , it's about the fact that they said they were building an office for charities when they clearly weren't .

It did my head in at the time I was bloody sick of hearing about it
I remember BBC’s top story being that he’d completed his 100th lap. Thought it was a con from the get go