The shamed family of Captain Sir Tom Moore have been forced to slash the asking price of their country mansion for a second time, the Mirror can reveal.
The lockdown hero’s loved ones had tried to shift the sprawling seven-bed mansion for a whopping £2.25m using his name last year. They strategically placed a photo of Captain Tom being knighted by the late Queen in 2020 in an online listing. But when it struggled on the market, they slashed £250,000 off the price. Now, just three months later, they have cut another £50,000 in a desperate bid to offload it. A source said: “It’s a blow for the family who have been trying to sell the property for months.”
In an initial listing placed online, a bust recreating the moment Captain Tom finished his multi-million pound fundraising walk during the pandemic was seen in a snap of the main hallway. But they pulled the property off the open market amid a backlash at their handling of the charity set up in his name.
In January the property in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, was put back up for grabs for offers in excess of £2million – with no sign of Captain Tom in any of the images. But this week it was re-listed for £1.95m.
The online advert makes no mention of the veteran’s charity heroics and does not name his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore, 53, and husband Colin, 66. It simply states: “The vendors have owned the property for 18 years and have undertaken a comprehensive programme of improvement and renovation.”
In November the couple were criticised by a watchdog for pocketing more than £1million in his name. They gained significant financial benefit from links to a charity – the Captain Tom Foundation – that they set up in 2020, a report said.
The Charity Commission said its probe into the foundation uncovered “repeated failures of governance and integrity” by trustees mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore. Second World War veteran Captain Tom raised nearly £39m for charity during the pandemic by walking 100 lengths of his garden ahead of his 100th birthday in April 2020. He was knighted months later and died aged 100 in 2021.
The Charity Commission’s statutory inquiry found the Ingram-Moores’ “misconduct and/ or mismanagement [was a] repeated pattern of behaviour”. It added sales of Captain Tom’s autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day did not benefit the Captain Tom Foundation.
In the prologue he wrote of being given “the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation established in my name”. But an advance of £1.4m for the three-book deal was paid to Club Nook, which the Ingram-Moores are directors of.
The commission said the charity “hasn’t received any money from the first publishing agreement”. It added the public “would feel misled” to learn the charity did not benefit from sales.
In 2023 Mrs Ingram-Moore admitted keeping the profits from the books for themselves and said there was no agreement with her dad the book money would go to charity. The commission said there is evidence Mrs Ingram-Moore set out expectations for a £150,000 salary before becoming the charity’s chief.
The watchdog criticised the pair for using the foundation’s name in a planning application for a spa pool block at their Bedfordshire home. The couple said it was an error they blamed on being busy.
The report said that when giving permission for the building, planners gave significant weight to the pledge that it was to be used for charitable purposes. The council later ordered the family to demolish it.
The Ingram-Moores, now barred from being charity trustees, argued it was a breach of privacy for the book deal to have been disclosed. In a statement they added they felt “unfairly and unjustly” treated and accused the commission of “selective storytelling”.
They said the inquiry had taken a “serious toll on our family ‘mental and physical health, unfairly tarnishing our name and affecting our ability to carry on Captain Sir Tom’s legacy”.
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