Michael Ball says he is ‘disappointed’ by Captain Tom Foundation ‘mismanagement’
The 62-year-old sang with the veteran on his charity single You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Singer Michael Ball has said he is “disappointed” by a report which found a charity set up in Captain Sir Tom Moore’s honour had been “mismanaged”.
Ball, 62, sang with the veteran on his charity single You’ll Never Walk Alone, which raised funds for NHS Charities Together, and 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.
An investigation by the Charity Commission, published on Thursday, found there had been “repeated instances of misconduct and/or mismanagement” of the foundation by Sir Tom’s daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, and her husband Colin.
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.
When asked about his reaction to the report, Ball said on ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “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.”
Findings of the report included a misleading implication that donations from book sales would go to the foundation, when proceeds of a £1.4 million book deal were instead paid to the family company Club Nook.
There were no findings relating to the charity single.
Sir Tom entered the public eye at the age of 99 during the Covid pandemic, walking 100 lengths of his garden to raise money for the NHS charity with the goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday. By the milestone his fundraising had exceeded £30 million.
The former British Army officer’s single with Ball and the NHS Voices of Care Choir sold almost 36,000 copies in its first 48 hours and reached number one in the UK singles chart in April 2020.
After he died in February 2021 at the age of 100, the track was used at his funeral service.
