Naomi Campbell wins appeal against five-year charity trustee ban

Naomi Campbell won an appeal on Thursday, 1 October, against her five-year ban from serving as a charity trustee in England and Wales. A First-tier Tribunal found that the most serious misconduct at Fashion for Relief, the charity she founded, had been concealed from her by fellow trustee Bianka Hellmich, according to reports by the BBC and The Independent. The decision overturns the disqualification imposed after a Charity Commission inquiry, while leaving the tribunal's findings of serious misconduct at the charity intact.

The three-person panel said Campbell was neither involved in nor aware of the conduct it attributed to Hellmich, the BBC reported. It also found that Campbell had no reasonable basis to suspect dishonesty before regulatory concerns emerged and took reasonable steps when they did. The distinction mattered to the appeal: the tribunal accepted that the charity's administration had gone seriously wrong, but rejected the basis for barring Campbell from trusteeship.

Why the tribunal overturned Campbell's ban

According to the BBC's account of the ruling, the tribunal identified unauthorised payments to Hellmich, failures in managing the charity's finances and misuse of its funds as the most serious features of the case. It found that those matters resulted from Hellmich's conduct and were concealed from Campbell. The Independent also reported the panel's finding that Campbell had been deceived by her fellow trustee.

The BBC reported that the panel accepted Campbell's evidence and conduct during the charity's operation as entirely honest. It said documentary evidence corroborated her account that she had been deceived. Those findings went beyond accepting that Campbell had not personally authorised particular expenses: the panel found she did not know about the conduct it identified as central to the charity's most serious failures.

What the tribunal still found about Fashion for Relief

Overturning Campbell's ban did not undo the finding that Fashion for Relief suffered serious misconduct and mismanagement. The tribunal expressly acknowledged those problems, according to both reports. It also held that Campbell bore some responsibility for failures to keep minutes and file accounts on time. The BBC reported that the panel considered those failures insufficient to disqualify her as a charity trustee.

The Charity Commission had opposed Campbell's challenge and argued that the five-year ban should stand, the BBC reported. Its earlier inquiry had found that Fashion for Relief funds were spent on a luxury hotel stay, spa treatments, room service and cigarettes during a trip to the south of France. The tribunal's reported decision separates those spending findings from the question of whether Campbell knew the charity was paying the bills.

The BBC reported the panel's finding that Campbell did not know €4,386 in hotel charges from the 2018 trip had been charged to the charity. That total included €1,298 for dinner room service, €1,163 for spa treatments and €112 for cigarettes. The figures describe expenditure examined in the case; the panel said Campbell was not responsible for inappropriate use of the charity's resources or unjustified expenditure.

How the charity case reached an appeal

Campbell established Fashion for Relief in 2005 to help victims of Hurricane Katrina and later fronted campaigns linked to other disasters and causes, according to the BBC. The charity was shut in 2023. After its inquiry, the Charity Commission disqualified Campbell and two other trustees in 2024, saying there had been serious mismanagement or misconduct and that less of the money raised had been passed on than it should have been.

Campbell challenged her disqualification. At a June tribunal hearing, she said Hellmich had forged her signature and impersonated her through a false email address to divert money intended for the charity, the BBC reported. Hellmich denied those allegations. The tribunal subsequently found that forged documents and a false email address had been used and that professional advisers and the Commission had also been deceived, according to the BBC's account of its ruling.

The BBC said the Commission inquiry found more than £290,000 in unauthorised payments to Hellmich for apparent consultancy fees. The tribunal treated those payments as one of the serious features concealed from Campbell. Its decision therefore changes Campbell's status under the five-year ban, while preserving its account of serious failures in the charity's administration.

What remains unclear after the ruling

Neither the BBC nor The Independent's reviewed reports establishes whether any party plans a further appeal or another procedural step. The full tribunal judgment was not directly reviewed for this account, so its detailed reasoning is attributed to the published reports. The reported outcome is the reversal of Campbell's five-year trustee disqualification; those reports do not provide a complete account of any separate restrictions or obligations that might affect her.