the times | Saturday December 18 2021 5
News
Jacqui Goddard Miami
Martin Thomas said he had sent the WhatsApp picture, left, to the wrong personSean O’Neill
The new head of the charity watchdog
quit yesterday before officially taking
up his post after The Times uncovered
how “inappropriate behaviour” led to
his resignation from an aid agency.
Martin Thomas, 58, a friend of Boris
Johnson, was confirmed as chairman of
the Charity Commission last week by
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary.
He was due to start work on Decem-
ber 27 but stepped down after questions
about his appointment in the wake of
his role in a bullying investigation this
year when he was chairman of Women
For Women International UK.
Thomas faced
three formal mis-
conduct com-
plaints during his
five years at the
charity, including
an incident in 2018
when he mistak-
enly sent a picture
of himself taken in
a Victoria’s Secret
store to a junior fe-
male employee. In
May he resigned as
chairman of
Women For
Women just as the
charity was about to
ask him to step
down after an in-
vestigation into
alleged bullying
concluded he had
behaved inappropri-
ately towards a dif-
ferent employee.
Women For Women filed a “serious in-
cident report” on the case, identifying
its chairman as the subject of the
allegations, to the charity commission.
The situation is embarrassing for
Dorries and the Department for Cul-
ture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and
raises questions over what due dili-
gence was performed and whether
Thomas’s links with the prime minister
influenced the appointment process.
No one from the DCMS contacted
Women For Women for a reference and
MPs on the culture select committee,
who approved Thomas’s appointment,
Charity watchdog chief
quits after past revealed
were unaware of the history of disci-
plinary issues. In a statement last night
Thomas blamed “an error of judgment
on a technical omission during the ap-
plication process” and said he “did not
wilfully mislead anyone at any time”.
The situation raises questions about
the appointment process for the regula-
tor, which already faces a High Court
challenge over claims of political bias.
While chairing Women For Women,
which helps women in war zones re-
build their lives, Thomas was the sub-
ject of formal complaints in 2019 and- The Victoria’s Secret picture was
taken in October 2018 at a time when
the charity was debating whether to
accept a donation from the lingerie
brand. Thomas
captioned it: “Two
sides to the argu-
ment”. He told The
Times he had sent
the picture to the
wrong person in
error and added:
“I apologised im-
mediately and the
apology was ac-
cepted.” The
charity’s trustees
investigated the
complaint but
ruled that
Thomas had not
breached its
code of conduct.
The same
year saw
another com-
plaint about his
conduct to-
wards a differ-
ent employee and
again he was cleared of wrongdoing.
The third complaint was lodged in
March about an aggressive way in
which he dealt with an employee dur-
ing a telephone call. The charity’s board
called in an external investigator.
Women For Women said: “The in-
vestigation concluded that the chair’s
actions were not deliberate bullying but
that the complaint was partly upheld
insofar as aspects of the chair’s conduct
were judged to have been inappropri-
ate. In view of this, the board concluded
that it would be appropriate to ask that
he step down.” However, Thomas
resigned before they could do so.
Women For Women added: “In rela-
tion to two other alleged incidents we
carefully examined whether these could
have constituted any breach of our trus-
tee code of conduct and concluded that
they did not.” A spokesman for the
DCMS said: “Martin has acknowledged
his error of judgment during the appli-
cation process and we acknowledge that
he entered the process in good faith,
without looking to mislead.”c
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T b c y a p c went
i hexclusive
Sir Rod Stewart has been spared a crim-
inal conviction for punching a hotel
security guard at a New Year’s Eve
party two years ago after agreeing a
plea deal with prosecutors
The singer, 76, pleaded guilty to
simple battery nearly two years
after the altercation, which oc-
curred after Stewart and his
son tried to get into a private
party at The Breakers, a lux-
ury hotel in Palm Beach,
Florida. “Sir Rod Stewart de-
cided to enter a plea to avoid
the inconvenience and un-
necessary burden on the
court and the public that a
high-profile proceeding
would cause,” his lawyer, Guy
Fronstin said.
“In resolving the case. Sir Rod
Rod Stewart is spared
conviction over punch
Stewart was not convicted, nor sen-
tenced to jail, or placed on probation.”
Stewart’s group “began to get loud
and cause a scene” and refused to fol-
low instructions to leave the scene,
according to a police affidavit.
The father and son were the
“primary aggressors,” it noted.
Both Stewart and his son Sean,
41, pleaded guilty to a misde-
meanour charge of simple
battery and the judge with-
held adjudication, a measure
that acknowledges that an
offence was committed but
does not count as a criminal
conviction.
Stewart apologised for his
behaviour after the incident,
police noted at the time.Rod Stewart’s party refused
to move along, police said