CASH GRAB
Captain Tom’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore pocketed £18,000 to judge charity awards – while foundation got just £2k
The Captain Tom Foundation is being probed by the Charities Commission
CAPTAIN Tom's daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore pocketed £18,000 for judging a charity award and handing out a plaque - while the family's foundation got just £2,000.
Ingram-Moore was paid the hefty sum for appearing at a youth club in Bristol in January last year.
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Virgin Media paid her £18,000 to judge and present "The Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Award" at the Ashton Vale Club for Young People.
But the Captain Sir Tom Moore Foundation, which Hannah ran in the lockdown hero's name, was given just £2,000.
The Ashton Youth Club itself received £5,000 worth of tech equipment including iPads for its work during the pandemic.
Details of Ingram-Moore's paid appearance have surfaced in the past week, after she admitted accepting the fee last month.
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According to , she said: "Ashton Vale Club for Young People is so deserving of this award as they proved to be a vital lifeline during the pandemic.
"At such a distressing time for many, they ensured a community remained as one.
"We can’t wait to see what this vital injection of gigabit broadband and tech prizes can do for future projects."
The Charities Commission is now probing the appearance fee as part of its inquiry into the running of the foundation.
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Ingram-Moore admitted accepting the £18,000 fee while still the foundation's boss in an interview with Piers Morgan last month.
But rather than apologise, Ingram-Moore said she should have moved the visit to a later date.
She said: "That relationship with Virgin Media started way back in 2020.
"My father was paid to be a judge, and judges are often paid.
"I was doing it with him, because of course he couldn’t do it by himself.
"That relationship continued and they asked me to keep working with them.
"All of those discussions were happening even before I was imagining being interim CEO. So those plans were already in place.
"I think in hindsight what I should have done was stalled that relationship with Virgin O2 to afterwards."
She added: "I think that 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.
"When we were planning all those dates, they may well have fallen in a period of time when I wasn’t the CEO, but that’s how it landed.
"And I absolutely ensured that the charity got a donation.
"The better thing to have done was to push those awards to outside that period of time, because I was only ever going to be there for nine months.
"I should’ve just pushed them forward or brought them in advance."
Ingram-Moore said: "The reality is that I have to work for a living, and that relationship with them was an ongoing relationship.
"Absolutely in hindsight the two things should have been separated, but that’s not how it landed.
"It was done with love and with trying to ensure that the community benefited, and the Captain Tom Foundation benefited.
"And yes, I got paid."
Virgin Media said: "We worked directly with the late Sir Captain Tom to recognise community groups and charities that went above and beyond during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"When payment was made, we were not aware of any concerns about Ms Ingram-Moore’s family companies or the Captain Tom Foundation that have since come to light after our campaign and relationship with Captain Tom finished."
It comes after Ingram-Moore and her husband were hit by an expensive extra demand after losing an appeal to keep their spa complex.
Fuming neighbours went to war against Ingram-Moore over the illegal £200,000 pool house.
The Captain Tom Foundation will be shut down when the Charity Commission probe is over.
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The family also confessed to pocketing money from the £39million NHS fund-raising veteran in the bombshell interview with Morgan.
A tearful Hannah revealed they kept £800,000 from the three books her dad had written - claiming he had wanted them to keep the profits.
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