Captain Tom’s daughter says he wanted her to keep book profits – despite readers being told they were going to charity
Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter has admitted keeping £800,000 from the three books he wrote before he died – despite the prologue of one of them saying the money would go to the charity in his name.
Hannah Ingram-Moore has also told TalkTV her father had wanted the family to keep the profits from the books in Club Nook Ltd – a firm separate to the Captain Tom Foundation charity.
In extracts of the interview with Piers Morgan published in The Sun, Ms Ingram-Moore is reported to have said: “These were 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 . . . ”
Morgan interjects with: “For you to keep?”
She replies: “Yes… specifically.”
Sir Tom, who died in February 2021, became a national figure after raising £38.9m for the NHS, including gift aid, by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the height of the country’s first national COVID lockdown in April 2020.
Thousands of buyers of his three books, including the autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, were reportedly unaware that the profits were going to the family.
Ms Ingram-Moore was joined by her husband Colin and their children Benji, 19, and Georgia, 14 during the interview – with the family insisting there was no suggestion anyone who bought the books thought the money was going to charity.
However, the prologue of the autobiography reads: “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.”
Ms Ingram-Moore was also asked by Morgan about when she was paid £18,000 for attending the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards in 2021.
This was despite the fact she was already paid as the chief executive of the charity.
The money was paid to her family firm the Maytrix Group, with Ms Ingram-Moore keeping £16,000 and donating £2,000 to the Captain Tom Foundation.
Holding back tears, she told TalkTV: “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.”
The family also spoke of their “regret” over the spa and pool complex at their £1.2m home.
Ms Ingram-Moore reportedly told planners they wanted an office for the charity set up in Sir Tom’s name but built the complex instead.
Plans for the site said it would be used partly “in connection with The Captain Tom Foundation and its charitable objectives”.
However, a subsequent retrospective application a year ago for a larger building containing a spa pool was refused by the planning authority.
Ms Ingram-Moore’s home where she built the unauthorised spa
The Captain Tom Foundation stopped taking donations when the planning dispute came to light.
Ms Ingram-Moore said: “We have to accept that we made a decision, and it was probably the wrong one.”
In the interview, which airs at 8pm on Thursday night, Morgan also asked Ms Ingram-Moore about the annual salary of £85,000 pro-rata on a rolling three month basis that she received to head the foundation.
She replied: “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 Maytrix Group is also reported to have accepted up to £100,000 in furlough money and £47,500 in COVID loans despite making huge profits in the pandemic.
Paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins has died after being attacked in prison.
Watkins, 48, was serving a 29-year jail term for multiple sexual offences, including serious crimes against young children and babies at HMP Wakefield, in West Yorkshire.
He was attacked with a knife by another inmate on Saturday morning, sources have confirmed.
West Yorkshire Police said two men, aged 25 and 43, have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
A police van outside Wakefield prison. Pic: YappApp
Watkins was pronounced dead at the scene after prison staff reported the assault to police.
The prison went into lockdown in the immediate aftermath of the incident, sources added.
A Prison Service spokesperson said they could not comment while the police investigate.
Watkins was previously stabbed in an incident at the same prison in 2023, suffering non life-threatening injuries after he was reportedly taken hostage by three other inmates before being freed by prison officers six hours later.
He was sentenced in December 2013 to 29 years in prison, with a further six years on licence, after admitting 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby.
Watkins performing in 2004. Pic: PA
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He also encouraged a second fan to abuse her child during a webcam chat and secretly stashed child sexual abuse videos, some of which he had made himself.
At the time, police described him as a “committed, organised paedophile”.
Having found fame in Welsh rock band Lostprophets, Watkins was arrested after his Pontypridd home was searched on orders of a drug warrant in September 2012.
A large number of computers, mobile phones and storage devices were seized during the search.
When sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court, the singer was told he was being given an extended sentence – and a judge said his crimes “plumbed new depths of depravity”.
After being caught with a mobile phone behind bars in 2019, he told a court that he was locked up with “murderers, mass murderers, rapists, paedophiles, serial killers – the worst of the worst”.
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