CAPTAIN Tom’s family yesterday confessed to pocketing money from the £39million NHS fund-raising veteran.
Tearful daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore said they kept £800,000 from three books he had written.
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She told TalkTV’s Piers Morgan that Sir Tom wanted them to keep the book profits.
In a highly charged chat to be shown on his TalkTV show tonight, Piers quizzed the fundraising hero’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin.
He said after: “This was one of the most difficult interviews of my career . . . the bottom line is they should never have accepted or kept a penny from anything to do with Captain Tom and public money.
“It wasn’t just a clear conflict of interest, and deeply unethical, it was a betrayal of his legacy.”
Hannah tells the show how her dad, whose pandemic walks raised £39million for the NHS, wanted his family to keep the money from the three books in Club Nook Ltd — a firm separate to the Captain Tom Foundation charity.
Sobbing, she said: “These were my father’s books, and it was honestly such a joy for him to write them, but they were his books.
“He had an agent and they worked on that deal, and his wishes were that that money would sit in Club Nook, and in the end . . . ”
Sun columnist Piers then interjected, “For you to keep?”, and she incredibly replied “Yes.”
And she followed that by clarifying: “Specifically.”
Thousands of buyers of three books — including autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day — were oblivious that they were lining the family’s pockets.
The family told Piers there was no suggestion that anyone buying the books thought they were donating to charity.
But last night that assertion was under scrutiny after it emerged the prologue of the autobiography, published in September 2020, made out it was raising funds for the Captain Tom Foundation.
It stated: “Astonishingly at my age, with the offer to write this memoir I have also been given the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation now established 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 for attending the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards in 2021 — when already handsomely paid as chief executive of the body.
The fee was paid to her family firm, 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 what I should have done is stalled that relationship to afterwards.”
She added: “I think it’s all very easy to look back and think I should have made different decisions, but I hadn’t planned on being the CEO.”
Piers also got Hannah to talk for the first time about the annual salary of £85,000 pro-rata on a rolling three month basis that she received to head the foundation.
Hannah said: “Yes, and look, absolutely in hindsight, the two things should have been separated, but that’s not how it landed, and it was done with love and with trying to ensure that the community and the Captain Tom Foundation benefited, and yes I got paid.”
The family also spoke of their “regret” over the spa and pool complex at their £1.2million 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 poolhouse with changing rooms, toilets and showers.
They used the charity’s name in the design and heritage statement — 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, sitting in on the interview with their children Benji, 19, and Georgia, 14, added: “Without any doubt, and we’ve suffered.”
But rather than ditch their appeal to demolish the spa, the family are holding out for the verdict in the faint hope they can still enjoy the facility, which they insist they paid for themselves.
The family admit no one now wants to touch them or their associated companies.
They have been attacked by the public for swathes of decisions, including Maytrix Group taking up to £100,000 in furlough money and £47,500 in Covid loans despite bumper profits in the pandemic.
The Captain Tom Moore Foundation accounts also reveal spending more on admin fees that it did on charity grants.
And the family brushed aside criticism for taking Captain Tom to Barbados in December 2020.
The hero arrived home on January 6 and was taken to hospital with pneumonia on January 12.
He later caught Covid and his death was announced on February 2, 2021 — sparking nationwide grief.
Colin — who now regrets how his father-in-law’s charity was set up — added there were threats to firebomb their house.
Hannah also sobbed about a sick online forum in which, “they were all discussing how they were going to kill us all in our beds, with pitchforks and hammers.”
She added: “It was never our intent to do anything other than work with my father’s legacy to give as much as we could to the world.”
Nearly all the £39million her dad helped raise was paid directly to NHS Charities Together.
The Captain Tom Foundation was set up as a separate charity to receive further donations.
In its first year, it received nearly £1.1million, 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 its audited accounts.
The Charity Commission last year launched an inquiry into the foundation amid concerns about consultancy fees and payments to Maytrix Group.
It concluded these payments were “reasonable reimbursement for expenses incurred by the companies in the formation of the charity”.
The commission has now been made aware of the book money.
Club Nook Ltd was registered by Hannah in April 2020 — less than two weeks before the Captain Tom Foundation was incorporated — to trademark products including beer, spirits, greeting cards, lunchboxes and water bottles.
Club Nook made £809,000 in its first year, and after creditors were paid, it was left with just under £500,000, accounts show.
- Piers’ interview will be shown tonight at 8pm on TalkTV.
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NOT ILLEGAL… BUT IMMORAL
By Piers Morgan
This was one of the most difficult interviews of my career.
I absolutely loved Captain Tom Moore and was one of the first people in the media to put the spotlight on his amazing walk, and I spoke to him many times during and after it, including for my Life Stories show.
He rightly became a national hero for raising nearly £40 million for NHS Charities, and there’s no doubt his family played an important role in helping him do that.
But there has been mounting public concern since he died over whether Tom’s daughter Hannah and her husband Colin may have personally benefitted from exploiting the great man’s name and status.
And when they agreed to sit down with me on camera at their home, with their two kids, I knew I couldn’t let my personal history with them all cloud my journalistic judgement.
So I asked all the questions people have been wanting to ask them, and which journalists have sometimes been getting very obtuse or even blatantly untrue answers to, and the truth has finally emerged.
And to be blunt, it makes unedifying reading.
Under intensive questioning, the Ingram-Moores finally admitted that they pocketed over £800,000 from the proceeds of three Captain Tom books, money that the public will have assumed from various publicity statements at the time was going to the Captain Tom Foundation.
What they did wasn’t illegal but many will think it’s immoral.
Hannah also reveals that she accepted £18,000 to present awards at a ceremony named after the Foundation, when she was CEO of the Foundation.
That too was very ill-advised, as was her decision to accept the job in the first place on a salary of £85,000 (she originally agreed to be paid £100,000 but the charity commission rejected that) when had zero experience of running charities.
As for the infamous spa, there is simply no justification for them putting it inside the supposed Captain Tom memorial building.
It was obviously just a luxury treat for the family, almost certainly paid for by the book money, and the fact they secretly used the Foundation’s name to apply for planning permission for the building without clearing it with the Foundation trustees, stinks too.
At the end of my interrogation, the whole family hugged and consoled a sobbing Hannah.
It would take a heart of stone not to feel some empathy for a family who undoubtedly did a lot of good with the Captain Tom walk and have now seen their whole world come crashing down.
And the disgusting torrents of abuse and death threats they’ve all received from the very start are appalling, especially those directed at Hannah’s young daughter Georgia.
But their reaction at the end spoke volumes. Hannah and Colin have deliberately kept secret the details of their financial windfalls off the back of Captain Tom, knowing that it would enrage the public as I’m sure it will.
The bottom line is they should never accepted or kept a penny for themselves from anything to do with Captain Tom and public money.
It wasn’t just a clear conflict of interest, and deeply unethical, it was a betrayal of his legacy.
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