Captain Tom Moore’s daughter ‘admits pocketing £800,000 from three books’ written by the veteran who helped raise £39million for the NHS – as family reveal ‘regret’ over spa and pool complex at their £1.2m home… but still want to keep it

Captain Sir Tom Moore‘s daughter has confessed to pocketing £800,000 from books written by the NHS fundraising war veteran.

In a tearful interview, Hannah Ingram-Moore revealed how the family received the money thanks to her father – whose lockdown walks raised £39million for the nation’s health service.

Mrs Ingram-Moore said her father wanted them to keep the profits from his three books: Captain Tom’s Life Lessons, One Hundred Steps and his autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day.

The family is also adamant that people buying the books were never told their money was going to charity. 

However, the prologue of his autobiography calls this claim into question and suggests the veteran thought his books were just another way for him to raise cash. 

The extract read: ‘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.’ 

During the bombshell interview with TalkTV‘s Piers Morgan – which will air in full on Thursday night – Mrs Ingram-Moore also broke her silence on the £85,000 salary she earned as interim CEO of the Captain Tom Foundation as well as the £18,000 she made for being a judge at an awards ceremony which featured the charity’s name. Only £2,000 of that fee was donated to the charity.

The highly charged discussion sees Mrs Ingram-Moore speak alongside her husband Colin and two children Benji, 19, and Georgia, 14, at their £1.2million Bedfordshire home – where Captain Tom walked his laps before his death in February 2021.

In a trailer released ahead of the one-hour special, the family doubles down on their assertion that they never took ‘a penny’ directly from The Captain Tom Moore Foundation for personal gain.

They also open up about their regret over building a controversial spa and pool complex at their mansion – but confess that they are hoping to win an appeal to keep it nevertheless. 

Discussing his books, which were written before his death aged 100, Mrs Ingram-Moore says the money made went into Club Nook Ltd – a firm separate to the charity in his name.

‘These were my father’s books, and it was honestly such a joy for him to write them, but they were his books,’ she says.

‘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 then interrupts, asking her: ‘For you to keep?’, to which she replied: ‘Yes.’

The family also open up about the death threats they have received since it emerged they earned money from her late father’s hard work.

Mrs Ingram-Moore says: ‘There is a forum… they were all discussing how they were going to come and kill us all,’ while her husband added: ‘We should have done it in a different way.’ 

She describes the experience as ‘utterly devastating’, with her son confessing that ‘there has been genuine times where I don’t think she’s known if she could go on.’

In the trailer, Morgan also asks whether she had any qualms in receiving public donations, to which she admits: ‘I should have said no.’ 

It comes after the family came under fire for allegedly building a spa pool complex extension to their seven-bedroom Grade II-listed house using the Captain Tom Foundation’s name.

In the new interview, Morgan puts to them: ‘When I first walk in the first thing I see is a luxurious spa pool, that’s got nothing to do with Captain Tom,’ he says, seemingly in reference to the building.

‘We should have done it in a different way,’ Mr Ingram-Moore responded as his wife nods along.

Morgan then says: ‘Why are you reluctant to get rid of it?’ 

Instead of ditching their appeal to demolish the spa, the family are hoping that they can still enjoy the facility – which they insist was paid for themselves. 

They launched the appeal after it emerged they had added a swimming pool and facilities including changing rooms, showers and toilets without permission. 

The Charity Commission launched a statutory inquiry into the foundation last year over decisions that ‘may have generated a significant profit’ for a company run by the couple.

It said Club Nook Ltd had been given the ‘opportunity to trademark variations of the name ‘Captain Tom’ without objection from the charity, which raised money from branded products including gin and T-shirts.

The commission previously turned down an application for Mrs Ingram-Moore to become the foundation’s chief executive on £100,000-a-year – a salary similar to that run by the heads of major charities.

She was later allowed to take the post on an interim basis on the equivalent of £85,000-a-year.

Speaking about the whopping salary, she tells Morgan: ‘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.’ 

Mrs Ingram-Moore will also speak about how she helped judge the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards, which included the name of the charity and the charity’s logo on its awards plaque, in 2021 and 2022.

When asked about payment made to her for the appearance at the awards, Mrs Ingram-Moore reveals she was paid £18,000 while the charity set up in her father’s name received just a £2,000 donation.

According to The Sun, Morgan 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.

‘It wasn’t just a clear conflict of interest, and deeply unethical, it was a betrayal of his legacy.’