Singer Michael Ball has addressed the scandal surrounding a charity set up in Captain Sir Tom Moore’s honour, saying he is “disappointed” by a report that found it was “mismanaged”.
Ball sang with the late veteran on his charity single, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, which raised funds for NHS Charities Together during the pandemic.
Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, the 62-year-old said it was “almost like I don’t want to talk about my association”, after it was found that Captain Tom’s family “repeatedly benefitted” from the Captain Tom Foundation.
A damning report published this week found that Captain Tom’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin, had allowed the public to “understandably feel misled” after sales from the Second World War veteran’s autobiography were not donated to the charity.
It also found “serious and repeated instances of misconduct and/or management” in the administration of the charity by the couple’s conduct and actions.
There were no findings relating to the charity single.
When asked about his reaction to the report, Ball said he was "disappointed… and if you take yourself back to what was happening during that time, I’m doing my radio show on Radio 2, just come back with Covid, we don’t know what’s going to occur.
“I hear about this story of him, get him on the radio, we’ve got a bond, the money starts coming in, and it grew, and then I had this idea of this record.
“It’s entirely, including from Tom, entirely altruistic, entirely just wanting a focus, something for people to bond with, to show the good, and now it’s almost like I don’t want to talk about my association.
“It was something I was so incredibly proud of for all the right motives, to see it twisted, really it’s a real shame.”
Sir Tom became a national celebrity aged 99 during the Covid pandemic when he began walking 100 lengths of his garden to raise money for the NHS charity, with a goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday. By the time he reached that milestone, his fundraising had exceeded £30m.
Meanwhile, his single with Ball and the NHS Voices of Care Choir reached No 1 in the UK singles chart in April 2020, selling almost 36,000 copies within its first 48 hours.
After Sir Tom died in February 2021, aged 100, the song was used at his funeral service.
Ingram-Moore and her husband have now been disqualified from serving as charity trustees.
The family have said they dispute the report’s findings, saying the report has taken a "serious toll" on their health, "unfairly tarnishing" their name.
Findings of the report included a misleading implication that donations from book sales would go to the foundation, when proceeds of a £1.4m book deal were instead paid to the family company Club Nook.
