Supermodel Naomi Campbell has won a legal challenge to overturn a five-year ban on being a charity trustee.
In 2024, the 56-year-old was disqualified from being a charity trustee for five years after the Charity Commission – which regulates charities in England and Wales – found serious mismanagement of funds at Fashion for Relief, which she founded.
This included using charity funds to pay for her stay at a five-star hotel in Cannes, France, as well as spa treatments, room service and cigarettes.
Earlier this year, Campbell brought a case to the First Tier Tribunal to overturn the ban.
In a judgment on Thursday, the three-person tribunal ruled in the supermodel’s favour, finding she had been “deceived” by fellow trustee Bianka Hellmich.
Judges Joe Neville and James Armstrong-Holmes, sitting with a third member, said: “There was serious misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the charity she founded, Fashion for Relief.
“The tribunal has found, however, that its most serious features, including unauthorised payments to Ms Campbell’s co-trustee, Bianka Hellmich, failures in the management of the charity’s finances and the misuse of its funds, resulted from Ms Hellmich’s conduct and were concealed from Ms Campbell.”
Campbell was one of three of the charity’s trustees to be disqualified as a result of the investigation, with Ms Hellmich disqualified for nine years, and Veronica Chou for four years.
The judges continued that Ms Hellmich “used forged documents” and also deceived professional advisers and the Charity Commission.
They added: “Ms Campbell was not involved in, and did not know of, that conduct.”
The judges also said that while Campbell shared responsibility for the charity failing to file its accounts on time, this did not mean she was unfit to be a charity trustee in the circumstances of the case “including the sustained deception” she had faced.
It is understood to be only the second time a court has overturned a trustee disqualification order made by the commission.
During a four-day hearing in June, Campbell said her “only mistake” was trusting Ms Hellmich, whom she alleged forged her signature and lied about her credentials as a charity lawyer.
“I don’t look at it as a failure, I look at it as me trusting someone that I knew, someone that was a lawyer,” Campbell said, telling the central London tribunal that she and the Charity Commission had been deceived.
The commission had opposed Campbell’s challenge and said the five-year ban should be upheld.
The tribunal judges rejected criticisms made by lawyers for the commission about Campbell’s evidence, including that the supermodel was focused on “controlling the media narrative”.
They said: “In our assessment none of Ms Campbell’s answers were capable of being taken as doing any such thing,” adding that her evidence and conduct while the charity operated “was entirely honest”.
A probe into Fashion for Relief was opened by the commission in 2021, with the charity dissolved and removed from the register of charities in 2024.
It had been set up with the aim of uniting the fashion industry to relieve poverty and advance health and education by making grants to other organisations and giving resources towards global disasters.
It hosted fundraising events to generate income, including in Cannes and London.
A Charity Commission spokesperson said its intervention had ensured £250,000 of funds raised for charities including Save the Children and The Mayor’s Fund for London was passed on to the organisations.
They added: “We made the disqualification order for Ms Campbell based on the evidence available to us at the time.
“The court recognised that Ms Campbell, the commission and the law firm concerned were subject to sophisticated deception by one of the other trustees. This was referred to the Metropolitan Police when we became aware.
“We acknowledge and will reflect on the court’s decision and are considering any wider implications for our work.”
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