The new chairman of the charity watchdog has resigned just a week after being appointed to the role by the government.
Martin Thomas stepped down after it emerged that he was the subject of three formal misconduct complaints at the charity Women for Women International UK, which included an incident in 2018 when he sent a picture of himself in a Victoria’s Secret store to a female employee.
He resigned as chairman in May following an investigation into alleged bullying concluded that he had behaved inappropriately towards a different employee, according to the Times.
Women for Women filed a “serious incident report” on the case to the Charity Commission identifying its chairman as the subject of the allegations.
It is believed that MPs on the culture select committee, who approved Thomas’s appointment, were unaware of the previous disciplinary issues.
A Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson said: “We accept the resignation of Martin Thomas as chair of the Charity Commission. Martin has acknowledged his error of judgment during the application process and we acknowledge that he entered the process in good faith, without looking to mislead.”
Thomas, whose three-year tenure at the Charity Commission was due to start on 27 December, has more than 20 years’ experience in the insurance and financial services sectors. The role was for two and a half days a week with an annual salary of £62,500.
In a statement, he blamed “an error of judgment on a technical omission during the application process” and insisted he “did not wilfully mislead anyone at any time”.
Thomas said: “Regretfully I have decided to step aside from the role as chair of the Charity Commission.
“I have never deliberately set out to offend anyone and my passion to improve the sector is born out of a desire to do public good.”
Women for Women said: “The investigation concluded that the chair’s actions were not deliberate bullying but that the complaint was partly upheld insofar as aspects of the chair’s conduct were judged to have been inappropriate. In view of this, the board concluded that it would be appropriate to ask that he step down as chair with immediate effect.”
In response to the allegations about sending a picture from a Victoria’s Secret store to a female employee, Thomas said, in 2018, the charity he chaired, which helped female survivors of war and conflict, was offered a donation from the lingerie firm Victoria’s Secret.
The statement added: “I was not sure whether a company that advertised using sexual content should be partnered with a charity which helped women escape sexual violence.
“[I] took a photo of an item for sale in a Victoria’s Secret store which I felt was appropriate to illustrate my point. Instead of sending it to the charity CEO who was in agreement with me, I sent it in error to another colleague. I apologised immediately and my apology was accepted.
“Months later a complaint was made and investigated under the charity’s code of conduct. The complaint was not upheld.”
The third misconduct complaint was also not upheld.
The appointment process for the charity regulator faces a high court challenge over claims of political bias. Thomas is said to know the prime minister through family links and the two men studied classics at Oxford at the same time in the 1980s.
Jolyon Maugham, of the Good Law Project, which launched a legal challenge to the process, said: “This is not how public appointments should happen. And, one might think, it’s not how public appointments do happen for those who lack friends in high places.
“We have written asking the secretary of state to concede that the process that led to Martin Thomas’s appointment was flawed.”
