Naomi Campbell called unfit to run a charity in her appeal against ban

Naomi Campbell arrives at a tribunal in London for a hearing in an appeal against her charity commission ban on Tuesday 16 June. Photograph: Stanley Murphy-Johns/PA View image in fullscreen Naomi Campbell arrives at a tribunal in London for a hearing in an appeal against her charity commission ban on Tuesday 16 June. Photograph: Stanley Murphy-Johns/PA Naomi Campbell called unfit to run a charity in her appeal against ban Supermodel ‘completely abdicated’ her trustee responsibilities at Fashion for Relief, Charity Commission tells hearing Naomi Campbell showed herself to be unfit to run a charity after the supermodel “completely abdicated” her responsibilities as a trustee of her now defunct Fashion for Relief project, according to the charity watchdog. The Charity Commission told a tribunal that Campbell, who is trying to overturn a five-year ban on running a charity, was “highly culpable” for mismanagement and misuse of funds at Fashion for Relief, the former charity she founded in 2015. It said Campbell had shown an “absence of the competence that could be expected” from a trustee when she delegated oversight of the charity to a fellow trustee and failed to properly engage even when it became clear there were problems . Lawyers for Campbell rejected the commission’s claims, arguing the watchdog had treated her as a “high-profile scalp”. They said she was a victim of fraud who had made an honest mistake and had not derived any personal benefit from the charity. Fashion for Relief, which had raised millions of pounds for anti-poverty projects through a series of glitzy high-profile fashion events hosted by Campbell, was wound up in March 2024 after managers sent in by the commission found it was insolvent. The commission’s inquiry report on Fashion for Relief, published six months later, highlighted shambolic financial management, misconduct and chaotic record-keeping, including failure to keep receipts or minutes of meetings and decisions. In one instance, the charity was charged thousands of pounds for Campbell’s use of luxury hotel rooms, flights, spa treatments and cigarettes. While it raised £4.8m over five years, its partner charities, which included Save the Children and the Mayor’s Fund for London, received just 10% of the proceeds. Challenging the disqualification, Campbell’s lawyers told the tribunal she had been the victim of an elaborate deception by a fellow trustee, Bianka Hellmich, who had forged documents and emails and kept her in the dark about the charity’s finances. Campbell had in good faith relied on Hellmich, at the time a trusted friend and adviser, to oversee financial and business matters, and was unaware of what the commission would later find to be misuse of charity funds and poor governance. Campbell had not acted dishonestly, lacked integrity or derived any personal benefit, her lawyer Andrew Westwood KC told the tribunal on Thursday. Her “misplaced reliance” on Hellmich was a mistake but an honest one, he said, and