Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) has said it will keep £530,000 it collected in donations from the disgraced Presidents Club Charitable Trust.
The children’s charity had said it would return the money after a Financial Times investigation exposed alleged sexual harassment by senior figures in business and politics at a men-only charity dinner hosted by the charity at the Dorchester hotel in central London.
After pressure from other Gosh donors, the charity’s board of trustees decided at a meeting on Tuesday to keep the money they had received between 2009 and 2016.
The annual Presidents Club said it would close in January after an undercover reporter employed as one of the 130 hostesses at the event revealed allegations of repeated groping, diners asking female staff to join them in their bedrooms at the hotel, and some men putting their hands up skirts.
After the exposé, a Gosh spokesperson said: “We are shocked to hear of the behaviour reported at the Presidents Club charitable trust fundraising dinner.
“We would never knowingly accept donations raised in this way. We have had no involvement in the organisation of this event, nor did we attend and we were never due to receive any money from it.”
A number of other charities, including Evelina children’s hospital and Clatterbridge cancer charity, also said they would return thousands to the Presidents Club. But on Tuesday, Gosh reversed its decision.
A spokesperson for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity said: “Our thinking is always guided by our aim to maximise the support we give to the hospital and the families it cares for.
“Following feedback from our supporters, guidance from the Charity Commission and taking into account the impending closure of the Presidents Club Charitable Trust, the trustees have decided to retain the funds donated by the trust.
“We would like to thank all of our donors for their support, it is only through their generosity that we can make a difference for seriously ill children cared for at the hospital.”
