Naomi Campbell banned as charity trustee for five years

Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee after a watchdog investigation uncovered widespread evidence of financial misconduct at the poverty relief charity she founded.

- Patrick Butler

The supermodel was disqualified for five years after a Charity Commission inquiry found that Fashion for Relief had passed on only a small fraction of the millions of pounds it had raised from star-studded celebrity fashion events to good causes.

The charity inappropriately spent tens of thousands of pounds on luxury hotel rooms, flights, spa treatments, personal security and cigarettes for Campbell, while unauthorised consultancy payments running into hundreds of thousands of pounds were made to one of her fellow trustees, the commission said.

It found that over a five-year period from 2016, Fashion for Relief had raised just under £4.8m from a series of fashion shows but paid out only £389,000 in grants to partner charities once the cost of events and other expenses were accounted for.