Naomi Campbell has had a Charity Commission order banning her from being a trustee for five years overturned.
The supermodel was disqualified from trusteeship for five years in September 2024, after a Charity Commission inquiry found the charity she founded spent less than 9 per cent of its total expenditure on charitable grants.
Fashion for Relief, which was set up by Campbell to provide poverty relief and advance health and education through grantmaking, was removed from the charities register and three of its former trustees – including Campbell – were disqualified from trusteeship.
Campbell last year launched an appeal against the banning order, claiming that she was the victim of “systemic fraud” by a fellow trustee who set up a fake email account to impersonate her.
The supermodel said at the time that during her own investigations, carried out by lawyers and specialist investigators, documents submitted to the commission gave a “false impression” of her involvement in running the charity.
This allegedly includes evidence of a fake email account that was used by one of the charity’s other trustees at the time to impersonate Campbell in communications with lawyers.
She alleged that Bianka Hellmich, one of Fashion for Relief’s former trustees, “perpetrated a systemic fraud” against Campbell through various means.
Hellmich, who was banned from trusteeship for a period of nine years by the commission, said at the time there was no truth to Campbell’s claims.
A charity tribunal ruling, published yesterday, agreed with the regulator’s finding that there was serious misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of Fashion for Relief.
“The tribunal has found, however, that its most serious features, including unauthorised payments to Ms Campbell’s co-trustee, Bianka Hellmich, failures in the management of the charity’s finances and the misuse of its funds, resulted from Ms Hellmich’s conduct and were concealed from Ms Campbell,” the judgment says.
“Ms Hellmich deceived Ms Campbell, used forged documents and a false email address purporting to belong to her, and also deceived professional advisers and the commission.
“Ms Campbell was not involved in, and did not know of, that conduct.”
The tribunal concluded that Campbell had “no reasonable basis to suspect Ms Hellmich’s dishonesty before regulatory concerns emerged” and, when they did, she took reasonable steps in response.
“We do not find that Ms Campbell’s conduct was reckless, contrary to professional advice or was deliberate in failing to keep minutes or file the charity’s annual accounts on time,” the judgment also says.
“Adopting a broad, evaluative stance we do not conclude that she is unfit to be a charity trustee or a trustee of a charity.”
A Charity Commission spokesperson said the regulator was reflecting on the court’s decision and considering any wider implications for its work.
“There is, rightly, a high bar for disqualifying trustees,” the spokesperson said.
“Based on strong evidence of mismanagement of the charity, during our inquiry we disqualified three trustees for differing lengths of time.
“We made the disqualification order for Ms Campbell based on the evidence available to us at the time.
“The court recognised that Ms Campbell, the commission and the law firm concerned were subject to sophisticated deception by one of the other trustees.
“This was referred to the Metropolitan Police when we became aware.”