CAPTAIN Tom’s family yesterday admitted pocketing money from a veteran NHS fundraiser worth £39million.
Tearful daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore said they kept £800,000 from the three books he wrote.
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Captain Tom Moore’s family have admitted pocketing money from veteran fundraiser Credit: The Sun
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Hannah Ingram-Moore said they kept £800,000 from three books he wrote
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Captain Moore’s daughter opened up in a tearful interview with TalkTV’s Piers Morgan
She told TalkTV’s Piers Morgan that Sir Tom wanted them to keep the profits from the book.
In a very tense chat which will be shown on his TalkTV show tonight, Piers questioned the daughter of fundraising hero Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin.
Afterwards, he said: “This was one of the most difficult interviews in my career. . . the point is that they should never have accepted or kept a dime of anything to do with Captain Tom and the public money.
“It was not only a clear conflict of interest, and deeply unethical, it was a betrayal of his legacy.”
Hannah tells the show how her dad, whose walks raised £39m for the NHS during the pandemic, wanted his family to keep the money from the three books at Club Nook Ltd – a separate company from the Captain Tom Foundation charity.
Sobbing, she said: “Those were my father’s books, and it was, frankly, a great pleasure for him to write them, but they were his books.”
“He had an agent and they worked on that business, and his wishes were for that money to sit in Club Nook, and eventually . . . “
Sun columnist Piers then interjected: “For you to keep?”, and she incredibly replied “Yes”.
And she clarified afterwards: “Specifically.”
Thousands of buyers of the three books — including the autobiography Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day — were unaware that they were lining the families’ pockets.
The family told Piers there was no indication anyone buying the books thought they were donating to charity.
But last night that claim came under scrutiny after it appeared in the prologue to the autobiography, published in September 2020, that it appeared he was raising funds for the Captain Tom Foundation.
It said: “Amazingly at my age, along with the offer to write this memoir I’ve also been given the opportunity to raise even more money for the charity that has now been set up in my name.”
Sir Tom became a national hero by walking 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden shortly before his 100th birthday.
He was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth for inspiring the nation.
In another revelation, Hannah told Piers she was paid £18,000 to attend the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards in 2021 — when she was already well paid as the body’s chief executive.
The fee was paid to her family company, the Maytrix Group, and she kept £16,000, donating £2,000 to the Captain Tom Foundation.
Blinking back tears, Hannah told TalkTV: “I think in hindsight I should have stopped the relationship after that.”
She added: “I think it’s very easy to look back and think I should have made different decisions, but I didn’t plan to be a CEO.”
Piers also got Hannah to speak for the first time about the £85,000 pro-rata annual salary on a rolling quarterly basis she received as head of the foundation.
Hannah said: “Yeah, and look, absolutely in hindsight, those two things should have been separated, but it didn’t work out that way, and it was done with love and an effort to benefit the community and the Captain Tom Foundation, and yes, I got paid. “
The family also spoke of their “regret” over the spa and pool complex at their £1.2 million home.
The Sun exclusively revealed they told planners they wanted an office for the charity set up in Captain Tom’s name — then built a pool house with changing rooms, toilets and showers.
They used the charity’s name in the design and heritage statement — and then applied for retrospective planning permission for the spa.
Hannah said: “We have to accept that we made a decision and it was probably the wrong one.”
Husband Colin, who took part in the interview with their children Benji, 19, and Georgia, 14, added: “No doubt we suffered too.”
But instead of dropping their appeal to demolish the pool, the family is awaiting a ruling in the faint hope that they can still enjoy the facility they insist they paid for themselves.
The family admits that now no one wants to touch them or their related companies.
They have come under fire from the public over a series of decisions, including Maytrix Group taking up to £100,000 in leave pay and £47,500 in Covid loans despite making huge profits during the pandemic.
The accounts of the Captain Tom Moore Foundation also reveal that it spent more on administrative fees than on charitable grants.
And the family rejected criticism for taking Captain Tom to Barbados in December 2020.
The hero arrived home on January 6, and on January 12 he was transferred to the hospital with pneumonia.
He later contracted Covid and his death was announced on February 2, 2021, causing grief across the country.
Colin – who now regrets his father-in-law’s charity being set up – added that there had been threats to set their house on fire.
Hannah also sobbed over a sick internet forum where “everyone was discussing how they were going to kill us all in our beds, pitchforks and hammers”.
She added: “It was never our intention to do anything but work with my father’s legacy to give as much as we can to the world.”
Almost all of the £39 million her father helped raise was paid directly to NHS Charities Together.
The Captain Tom Foundation was established as a separate charity to receive further donations.
In its first year, it received almost £1.1 million, of which it spent less than half.
It paid £160,000 to good causes while spending £240,000 on management and fundraising costs, according to audited accounts.
The Charity Commission launched an investigation into the foundation last year over concerns about consultancy fees and payments to the Maytrix group.
It concluded that these payments were “reasonable compensation for the costs incurred by the companies in setting up the charity”.
The commission is now familiar with book money.
Club Nook Ltd registered Hannah in April 2020 — less than two weeks before the Captain Tom Foundation was established — to brand products including beer, spirits, greeting cards, lunch boxes and water bottles.
Club Nook made £809,000 in its first year, leaving just under £500,000 after creditors were paid, accounts show.
- Piers’ interview will be shown tonight at 8pm on TalkTV.
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The family have spoken of their ‘regret’ over the spa and pool complex at their £1.2million homeCredit: Getty
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Piers accused Tom Moore’s family of betraying the legacy of the Covid heroCredit: piersmorgan/Instagram
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Hannah told Piers how her dad wanted his family to keep the money from three of his books at Club Nook LtdCredit: PA
NOT ILLEGAL… BUT IMMORAL
Piers Morgan
This was one of the most difficult interviews in my career.
I absolutely loved Captain Tom Moore and was one of the first people in the media to highlight his incredible walk, and I spoke to him many times during and after it, including on my Life Stories show.
He has rightly become a national hero for raising almost £40 million for NHS Charities, and there is no doubt that his family played an important part in helping him.
But since his death there has been growing public concern over whether Tom’s daughter Hannah and her husband Colin may have personally benefited from exploiting the great man’s name and status.
And when they agreed to sit down with me on camera in their home, with their two children, I knew I couldn’t let my personal history with them cloud my journalistic judgment.
So I asked all the questions that people wanted to ask, and to which journalists sometimes got very stupid or even blatantly untrue answers, and the truth finally came out.
And to be honest, it makes for uninstructive reading.
Under intense questioning, Ingram-Moores finally admitted that he had pocketed over £800,000 from the proceeds of the three Captain Tom books, money which the public assumed from various public statements at the time was going to the Captain Tom Foundation.
What they did is not illegal, but many will think it is immoral.
Hannah also reveals that she accepted £18,000 in awards at a ceremony named after the Foundation while she was the Foundation’s chief executive.
And that was very reckless, as was her decision to take the £85,000 job in the first place (she had originally agreed to be paid £100,000 but was turned down by the charity commission) even though she had no experience of running charities.
As for the infamous spa, there is simply no justification for placing it inside the alleged Captain Tom memorial building.
It was obviously just a luxury treat for the family, almost certainly paid for with book money, and the fact that they secretly used the Foundation’s name to apply for planning permission without the approval of the Foundation’s trustees stinks.
At the end of my interrogation, the whole family was hugging and comforting a sobbing Hannah.
It would take a heart of stone not to feel empathy for the family who undoubtedly did a lot of good with Captain Tom’s walk and now saw their whole world come crashing down.
And the sickening barrage of abuse and death threats everyone has received from the get-go is appalling, especially directed at Hannah’s young daughter Georgia.
But their reaction at the end spoke volumes. Hannah and Colin deliberately kept the details of their financial gains behind Captain Tom’s back, knowing that it would enrage the public, which I’m sure it would.
The bottom line is that they should never accept or keep a penny for themselves of anything to do with Captain Tom and the public money.
It was not only a blatant conflict of interest, and deeply unethical, it was a betrayal of his legacy.
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