Naomi Campbell banned from being charity trustee
Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been disqualified from being a charity trustee for five years after the Charity Commission found serious mismanagement of funds at the charity she fronted.
The 54-year-old model founded Fashion For Relief, a charity merging fashion and philanthropy, in 2005, but an investigation found that just a small proportion of the money went to actual good causes.
Fashion For Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year.
Misconduct included using charity funds to pay for Campbell’s stay at a five-star hotel in Cannes, France, as well as spa treatments, room service and cigarettes.
Campbell is one of three of the charity’s trustees to be disqualified as a result of the probe.
The Charity Commission, which registers and regulates charities in England and Wales, opened an inquiry into Fashion For Relief in 2021.
The charity’s mission was to make grants to other organisations and give resources towards global disasters in a bid to relieve poverty and advance health and education.
It hosted fundraising events to generate income, including in Cannes and London.
However, the inquiry found that between April 2016 and July 2022, just 8.5% of the charity’s overall expenditure was on charitable grants.
Campbell walking a runway in Milan, Italy, in 2012. Pic: AP
The Charity Commission says it has recovered £344,000, as well as protecting a further £98,000 of charitable funds.
Three nights at a five-star hotel
They say they saw no evidence that trustees took action to ensure fundraising methods were in the charity’s best interests, or that the money it spent was reasonable relative to the income it generated.
It also said it found some fundraising expenditure to be misconduct or mismanagement by the charity’s trustees.
This included a €14,800 (£12,300) flight from London to Nice for transferring art and jewellery to a fundraising event in Cannes in 2018.
It also looked into the decision to spend €9,400 (£7,800) of charity funds on a three-night stay at a five-star hotel for Campbell.
In these cases, the trustees “failed to show how these were cost-effective and an appropriate use of the charity’s resources”, the Charity Commission said.
Spa treatments, room service and cigarettes
Furthermore, it examined expenses incurred by Campbell totalling nearly €7,940 (£6,600), alongside the hotel stay, paid for by the charity.
These costs included spa treatments, room service, and the purchase of cigarettes and hotel products.
The regulator said trustees explained that hotel costs were typically covered by a donor to the charity, therefore not costing the charity, but failed to provide any evidence to support this.
Bianka Hellmich has been disqualified as a trustee for nine years, and Veronica Chou for four years, as well as Campbell’s five-year ban.
It means they are prevented from being a trustee or holding a senior management role in any charity in England and Wales during the length of the disqualification.
Campbell was discovered as a schoolgirl, and she went on to become the first British black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue.
The 54-year-old model welcomed her second child, a son, last year, following her daughter who was born in 2021, shortly before her 51st birthday.
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Joy star James Norton on the ‘postcode lottery’ of IVF – and playing the scientist who was part of creating the first ‘test-tube baby’
Actor James Norton, who stars in a new film telling the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has criticised how “prohibitively expensive” IVF can be in the UK.
In Joy, the star portrays the real-life scientist Bob Edwards, who – along with obstetrician Patrick Steptoe and embryologist Jean Purdy – spent a decade tirelessly working on medical ways to help infertility.
The film charts the 10 years leading up to the birth of Louise Joy Brown, who was dubbed the world’s first test-tube baby, in 1978.
In the UK, statistics show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade
Norton, who is best known for playing Tommy Lee Royce in the BAFTA-winning series Happy Valley, told Sky News he has friends who were IVF babies and other friends who have had their own children thanks to the fertility treatment.
“But I didn’t know about these three scientists and their sacrifice, tenacity and skill,” he said. The star hopes the film will be “a catalyst for conversation” about the treatment and its availability.
“We know for a fact that Jean, Bob and Patrick would not have liked the fact that IVF is now so means based,” he said. “It’s prohibitively expensive for some… and there is a postcode lottery which means that some people are precluded from that opportunity.”
Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie and James Norton star in Joy. All pics: Netflix/ Kerry Brown
Now, IVF is considered a wonder of modern medicine. More than 12 million people owe their existence today to the treatment Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy worked so hard to devise.
But Joy shows how public backlash in the years leading up to Louise’s birth saw the team vilified – accused of playing God and creating “Frankenstein babies”.
Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie star alongside Norton, with the script written by acclaimed screenwriter Jack Thorne and his wife Rachel Mason.
The couple went through seven rounds of IVF themselves to conceive their son.
Norton portrays scientist Bob Edwards, while McKenzie plays embryologist Jean Purdy
While the film is set in the 1970s, the reality is that societal pressures haven’t changed all that much for many going through IVF today – with the costs now both emotional and financial.
“IVF is still seen as a luxury product, as something that some people get access to and others don’t,” said Thorne, speaking about their experiences in the UK.
“Louise was a working-class girl with working-class parents. Working class IVF babies are very, very rare now.”
In the run-up to the US election, Donald Trump saw IVF as a campaigning point – promising his government, or insurance companies, would pay for the treatment for all women should he be elected. He called himself the “father of IVF” at a campaign event – a remark described as “quite bizarre” by Kamala Harris.
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Bill Nighy ‘proud’ of new film on IVF breakthrough
“I don’t think Trump is a blueprint for this,” Norton said. “I don’t know how that fits alongside his questions around pro-choice.”
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In the UK, statistics from fertility regulator HEFA show the proportion of IVF cycles paid for by the NHS has dropped from 40% to 27% in the last decade.
“It’s so expensive,” Norton said. “Those who want a child should have that choice… and some people’s lack of access to this incredibly important science actually means that people don’t have the choice.”
Joy is in UK cinemas from 15 November, and on Netflix from 22 November
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