Trustee failed to adequately demonstrate how charitable funds raised had been spent
The Charity Commission has disqualified a trustee, after he set up and collected charitable funds to help people in Syria, but made a series of failures amounting to misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the fund.
The Commission opened a compliance case into the charitable fund, known as Team Syria, in April 2015 after identifying that its website invited donations to help people affected by the conflict in Syria. The Commission found there was only one trustee, who was also the founder of the charitable fund.
Although the trustee never registered Team Syria as a charity, the funds raised are legally charitable.
The trustee was subject to a criminal investigation in February 2016, of which he was acquitted in December 2016. As part of the criminal investigation the police seized £7,691.92 of charitable funds held by the trustee.
The Commission opened a statutory inquiry into the charitable fund in June 2017.
Soon after the opening of the inquiry the Commission directed the police not to part with the charitable funds seized from the trustee. The Commission has since distributed these funds to two registered charities operating in Syria.
The inquiry found the trustee:
Michelle Russell, Director of Investigations, Monitoring and Enforcement at the Commission, said:
The trustee was disqualified from acting as a trustee of a charity, or from holding any office or employment with senior management functions in a charity, for a period of 7 years from the 26 July 2019.