The Charity Commission has appointed an interim manager to run a Muslim charity after it was issued an official warning.
The regulator opened a statutory inquiry into the Islamic Centre of England last year amid serious governance concerns, the commission said.
“Due to the trustees’ failure to comply with their legal duties and responsibilities and their failure to protect the charity’s assets, the commission appointed an interim manager to the charity on 4 May,” the regulator said in a statement today.
The commission has appointed Emma Moody of the law firm Womble Bond Dickinson as the charity’s interim manager, to the exclusion of its trustees.
Moody will conduct a review of the charity’s governance and administration and make recommendations to the commission based on her findings, the regulator said.
The Islamic Centre of England, which has charitable purposes including advancing the religion of Islam and promoting education and welfare among the Muslim community, runs an Islamic centre in Maida Vale, north-west London. It had an income of £486,000 in 2021.
In March, the charity was labelled a “vile threat” by Tom Tugendhat, the security minister.
The commission said last year its decision to open an inquiry followed “extensive engagement with the charity over recent years”.
That included an official warning after two events held at the charity’s premises in 2020 that honoured Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was subject to UK sanctions.
A follow-up case in 2021 concluded that the charity was only partially compliant with the actions in the official warning and identified further regulatory concerns.
These included the content of the charity’s website and the trustees’ management of conflicts of interest, leading to an action plan from the commission.
The regulator said in October it was assessing a speech made by Seyed Moosavi, one of the charity’s trustees, in which he described protesters in Iran as “soldiers of Satan”.
Orlando Fraser, chair of the Charity Commission, said: “We need to act robustly where serious concerns about a charity exist, so that the public, and the charity sector itself, can have confidence in what it means to have charitable status.
“The investigators leading this inquiry are assessing all information thoroughly. The appointment of an interim manager will help the commission ensure the charity’s governance is restored and is improved to a better standard.”