Great Ormond Street may keep Presidents Club donation

Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) is reconsidering whether to return £530,000 it collected in donations from the controversial Presidents Club after allegations of groping and sexual harassment at a men-only fundraising gala.

The London children’s hospital, which had vowed to return the money it received from Presidents Club events, said on Monday it was reconsidering the decision to ensure it had the maximum funds to support the hospital and its patients.

Gosh’s charity said it was in discussions with the Charity Commission about keeping the donations and said its trustees would make a formal decision next month.

“Guiding all our thinking is our aim to maximise the support to the hospital and the families it cares for,” a spokesperson said. “We can confirm that we are in discussions with the Charity Commission and are scheduled to meet them later this week.

“Following this meeting and taking into account the latest developments with the Presidents Club charitable trust and feedback from our supporters, we will consider our position at our March trustee meeting.”

Gosh did not receive donations directly from the controversial dinner at the Dorchester hotel in London on 18 January, but received more than £500,000 from previous Presidents Club events between 2009-2016.

In the days after the scandal, the hospital said it would return all the funds “due to the wholly unacceptable nature of the event”.

However, some of the hospital’s other donors were said to be angry about that decision and were understood to have threatened to halt their donations if Gosh did not reconsider keeping the Presidents Club funds.

The Gosh charity’s board of trustees, chaired by City businessman John Connolly, will discuss overruling the decision to return the funds at a meeting on 27 March.

A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “We can confirm that Gosh’s charity have asked the commission for advice and guidance on returning previous donations and that we are in discussion with the trustees about their decision. It is up to a charity’s trustees to make the difficult decision as to whether they want to return a donation.

“If they wish to do so, they should seek advice from the commission about whether our authorisation is required in their specific case.”

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, which is fundraising to improve cancer services in Liverpool, is also considering keeping £15,000 of Presidents Club funds that it had pledged to hand back. “This will be discussed by the board of trustees in due course and it would therefore be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time,” a spokesperson said.

Only one of the four charities which had vowed to return Presidents Club donations has so far formally applied to the Charity Commission to do so. The commission has called on anyone present at the Dorchester black-tie dinner last month to give evidence to the regulator’s investigation.

As well as Gosh and the Clatterbridge, the Evelina London children’s hospital and the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) said they would return all donations.

RAM has requested permission to return £10,000 of funds. and a spokesperson for the Evelina London children’s hospital said: “We have written to the Charity Commission about our proposed course of action and are currently in dialogue with them about our next steps.”