Husband and wife trustees have received bans amid a raft of financial concerns at the two rehabilitation charities they ran.

Their bans has been revealed in a Charity Commission report following its investigation into two linked charities that were removed from the register last November.

These are New Wineskins Charitable Trust (NWCT), which was set up more than 30 years ago to support homeless people with a history of addiction problems, and U-Turn Move on Homes (UTMH), that was set up seven years ago to support the housing needs of those recovering from addiction but stopped operating in 2023.

Both charities shared the same premises in London, staff and trustees, some of whom were related.

The Charity Commission found that Mark Doherty, who was a trustee at both charities, and his wife Jane Doherty, who was chief executive of NWCT and a trustee of UTMH, were responsible for financial problems at the two organisations.

Charity funds used for gambling

This includes 150 payments totalling £3,956 made from UTMH’s bank account to gambling websites.

Mr and Mrs Doherty said this was caused by an unauthorised person gaining access to the charity’s computer but did not report the matter to the police.

The regulator said that Mr and Mrs Doherty were “either responsible or should have been aware of it or failed to take reasonable steps to investigate it or report it appropriately”, in finding that they had both “failed to manage the charity’s finances responsibly and protect the charity’s finances from risk of harm”.

Further concerns were raised around payments of £44,400 made by NWCT to Mrs Doherty, and payments of £20,900 in rent made to another trustee, Mrs Doherty’s mother, for the charity’s use of her properties.

Unexplained payments of £13,000 were also made to another trustee and £7,900 to Mr Doherty.

“There was no evidence provided of any written agreements in place regarding these arrangements or minutes of meetings to demonstrate how the trustees had properly managed the conflicts of interest,” said the Charity Commission.

Financial failures at UTMH are also detailed in the regulator’s report into the two charities.

It’s analysis of its bank accounts identified debts totalling £34,217 made to Mr and Mrs Doherty, who could only provide supporting evident for £1,349 of these payments.

The couple claimed some of the other money was used to repay loans they had made by the couple to the charity when its “bank account was low” and to pay Mrs Doherty’s wages as chief executive of NWCT.

The regulator also found that Mr and Mrs Doherty failed to take the necessary steps to dissolve UTMH two years ago.

Banned from charity boards

Mr and Mrs Doherty were suspended as trustees in 2024 and Mrs Doherty has since been disqualified from acting as a trustee. Her husband has been banned from charity boards for 10 years.

“The Commission concluded that there was serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charities due to the poor financial management and governance by its trustees”, principally Mr and Mrs Doherty.

“Together, they bear the primary responsibility for the various failures identified at the charities”, the Commission said, adding that the couple “failed to discharge their legal duties as trustees, including failing to manage the charity’s resources responsibly, and to keep the charities’ funds secure”.

The regulator said that: “They also failed to fully cooperate with the Commission during the class inquiry and failed to comply with the Commission’s orders which are enforceable as an Order of the High Court.”

It added that it “found that charitable funds had been misappropriated from the UTMH charity due to the conduct and failures by Mr and Mrs Doherty and that it has “taken robust action to address its regulatory concerns and exercised its powers to hold those responsible to account”.

The inquiry into NWCT launched three years ago after it failed to submit its accounts for the year’s ending March 2020 and 2021.

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