Experienced charity professional Mr Gilbert was appointed to take over as chief executive from Mrs Ingram-Moore and ran the charity for five months before it was mothballed due to the charity commission investigation.
He told News: “When I came in, I must admit, I was gobsmacked.
I was shocked at the number of systems that just did not accord with best practice.
One of my first exercises was, of course, to get trusted charity status for the foundation, which meant going through a whole range of different hurdles.
And the fact was that although we had done many of them, there were lots of key practices that simply were not in place.”
Mr Gilbert said when he was setting up management accounts in the correct format of a charity, which had not been done prior to his arrival, he said he discovered an invoice to Virgin Media, which had been cancelled.
The Charity Commission found Mrs Ingram-Moore was paid £18,000 for an appearance at the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards.
She said the appearance was in a personal capacity and in her own time, but the commission disagreed, saying there was no evidence to support this, and the charity received just £2,000.
“If you’re a chief executive for a charity and you are representing that charity, it is very unusual, unheard of, for the charity not to benefit from activities you’ve done during your working day,” Mr Gilbert said.
He said in his view it was “deeply unethical” for a charity chief executive to benefit personally at the expense of charity activities.
Mr Gilbert said he became “quite suspicious” and reported this payment and other things he found by going through the accounts to the chair, who then reported it to the board.
He said in his view there was a “level of self-interest”.
