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Cancer charity boss who spent donations on dragon project ordered to redistribute cash

29 Sep 2022 2 minute read
Plans previously submitted for the dragon statue. Picture by Waking the Dragon (CC BY 2.0).

A cancer charity boss who ploughed public donations into building a giant Welsh dragon statue has been ordered to pay more than £100,000 to local good causes.

Simon Wingett’s foundation, Frank Wingett Cancer Relief, ran a shop in Wrexham Maelor Hospital, North Wales, but had not made a single charitable donation in seven years by the time of its closure in 2018.

Instead, his accounts showed he had invested £410,000 of the charity’s earnings during the same period in a project to create a 210ft dragon sculpture near the A5 in Chirk, Wrexham.

Mr Wingett has long claimed the huge bronze dragon, which had planning permission to be erected on a former colliery site, would become a tourist attraction to rival well-known landmarks such as the Angel of the North.

The dragon has not been built.

Plans previously submitted for the dragon statue. Picture: Wrexham Council.

The charity was set up by his father to buy equipment and resources for cancer patients in Wrexham and the surrounding area after he was diagnosed with throat cancer in the 1980s.

Its last payment in 2011 to Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board was for £4,500.

Banned

Following an investigation by the Charity Commission which began in 2017, Mr Wingett was banned from acting as a trustee of any charity for 10 years.

He has now been ordered by the High Court of Justice to pay more than £117,000, which will be distributed to local charities supporting the relief of cancer patients treated in Wrexham.

The charity regulator said on Thursday that the dragon statue project “has no connection to advancing the charity’s aims and, to date, no statue has been built”.

Tracy Howarth, the commission’s assistant director of casework, said: “Charity trustees hold important positions of trust.

“We – and the public – expect trustees to ensure financial decisions are taken in the best interests of the charity and those it serves to benefit.

“Mr Wingett’s significant misuse of funds was an abuse of the trust placed in him by the many donors to the charity.

“This ruling will ensure the charitable proceeds raised are now directed to the benefit of those in the local community they were intended for.”


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Frank
Frank
2 years ago

The only charitable donations I do, if possible, is directly to the people that need it. There is too much temptation to fraud with go-between organisations. I was once told that up to 90% of contributions goes on administration and very high salaried management. Some top management have high end cars sometimes chauffeur driven. Sad really.

Cathy Jones
Cathy Jones
2 years ago

What a dirty pig!… What a truly regrettable, slimy and undutiful child, its one thing to bring shame on yourself but to do so and mar the good deeds of an ancestor is the sort of thing that only a truly revolting and selfish little worm would do.. ..

Windy
Windy
2 years ago

So many charities a lot of them seem to be supporting the same thing but each with administrators to pay before the charity benefits ,is the organisation overseeing the ways these charities are founded and developed doing a good job and do they have sufficient powers to punish those who abuse the trust of doners

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