The Charity Commission has criticised mother and son trustees for using funds from the pug rescue charity they ran to fund a spending spree for themselves, that included buying a £7,000 Rolex watch.

Kristine Lovelady and her son Declan Poole used Muffin Pug Rescue’s funds as part of “an ongoing pattern of lifestyle payments”, an investigation by the regulator has found.

This also involved using charitable funds “to live entirely rent-free in a sizable family home”.

Among “numerous instances of non-charitable expenditure made from the charity’s bank account” were “payments to clothing stores, food delivery companies, restaurants, and jewellery shops which included a Rolex watch costing £7,000”.

During the regulator’s probe Lovelady and her son “frequently referred to a ‘trustee loan account’ in relation to unexplained non charitable/personal expenditure with little clear information or evidence to enable the loans to be verified”

Lovelady claimed “she made loans to the charity over several years, and the non-charitable expenditure was to offset the loans that she had made”

But the regulator “was unable to identify any substantive loan agreement or terms and conditions”.

In addition, Poole was found to have received payments of £23,360 from the charity as a “development loan” for developing dog feed.

“However, yet again, there was no formal loan agreement in place, and, to date, the charity has not yet received any repayments either from Declan Poole or his company,” found the regulator.

The Commission’s investigation found that “the charity’s financial records were in disarray and poorly managed”. It also emerged that the charity was subject to “significant debts and county court judgements incurred since 2018”.

The regulator found there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement by Lovelady and Poole.

Lovelady was one of four founding trustees appointed in 2015. But the remaining three stopped sitting on the charity’s board between 2017 and 2019. After her son became a trustee in 2018, he and her mother were the only board members.

The pair were removed as trustees last year and are now disqualified from holding senior roles within any charity.

Four new trustees to the pug rescue charity have now been appointed and the charity has since changed its name to Pug Life Rescue, “to mitigate the reputational damage suffered to the charity” through Lovelady and Poole’s conduct.

It is now up today with its accounting information and “robust financial controls and policies have been put in place”, the Commission found.

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