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.
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.
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“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.”
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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.
