Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been granted permission to appeal the Charity Commission’s decision to disqualify her as a trustee.
Last year, Campbell was disqualified from trusteeship for five years after the commission found that her charity, Fashion for Relief, had been “poorly governed” and had “inadequate financial management”.
The regulator first identified governance and financial regulatory concerns at her charity in September 2020 before opening a statutory inquiry in November 2021.
Fashion for Relief closed mid-investigation, with the regulator’s final report finding “multiple instances of misconduct and/or mismanagement”.
Two other trustees, lawyer Bianka Hellmich and businesswoman Veronica Chou, were also disqualified for nine and four years respectively.
In a ruling published last month and seen by Civil Society, Upper Tribunal judge Jeremy Rintoul, sitting as a judge of the First-Tier Tribunal, allowed Campbell’s case to be heard in a tribunal on Friday.
‘Incomplete and inaccurate information’
In a statement published on social media, Campbell said she had won permission to appeal the commission’s ruling.
“Ever since the commission’s report, which was based on incomplete and inaccurate information, I’ve been fighting to uncover the facts,” she said.
“The discoveries have been so disturbing and shocking that the commission has agreed to revisit the case.
“The personal toll of this ordeal has been immense. My team and I have watched years of humanitarian work being questioned while working tirelessly to uncover the truth.”
According to BBC News, Campbell’s representatives claim that a fake email account had been used to impersonate her in communications with lawyers.
They reportedly said Campbell was unaware of the allegations made in the commission’s inquiry and did not have a chance to answer them.
“Moving forward, I’ll advocate for greater protection against online identity theft – a devastating crime that can happen to anyone,” Campbell’s Instagram statement reads.
The appeal
In his ruling, Rintoul said Campbell’s case is that “she’d been misled by Tobinska [...] who had purported to be assisting her, but had in fact perpetrated a systematic fraud against her by various means including the use of a fake email address used to correspond with previous lawyers and others, withholding information and, in effect, conducting a response to the commission’s enquiry and subsequent actions without the authority or knowledge of Campbell”.
“Campbell seeks an order against Google in order to obtain information relating to the (mis)use of email addresses by, it is alleged, Tobinska”, the ruling says.
“The commission disputes Campbell’s account and is of the view that service was properly effected on 18 April 2024.
“It also submits that there’s no proper explanation for the delay; and, seeks disclosure of material by Carter-Ruck, Campbell’s former solicitors, and JHA relating, inter alia, to the circumstances in which Campbell became aware of the decision notice and when.”
A commission spokesperson told Civil Society: “The commission notes the tribunal’s initial ruling and the judge’s comment that the case will require Campbell to prove very serious allegations of wrongdoing against a fellow trustee.
“These are significant allegations for the courts to consider, and we’ll continue to cooperate fully with the tribunal as it does so.”
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