Somerset man 'furious' after woman spends NHS charity money

Andy Stallard said the badges seemed like a great idea to raise money for the hospital and the NHS

A man who helped sell badges to raise money for NHS charities said he is "furious" after the woman running the campaign spent all the money they made.

Andy Stallard, from Somerset, said NHS Hero badges were sold at Weston General Hospital at the start of the pandemic.

He offered to help and raised £6,000, which he paid to the Somerset woman who set up the campaign. He said she has not paid it forward to the charity.

The woman has admitted to spending the money due to financial hardship.

She is not being named for legal reasons and told the BBC she will pay the money back when she can.

Mr Stallard, a gas engineer, said he had tried Action Fraud, the UK's central reporting service for reports of fraud and cyber crime, but "they are not going to take it any further".

Action Fraud said new evidence is needed for the case to be reopened

Action Fraud said cases are "assessed based on the vulnerability of the victim" and not all of them can be passed for further investigation.

The badges also used a design taken from Yorkshire artist, Rachel List, initially without her permission.

Ms List said when the campaign organiser asked for her permission later "she told me all profits were going to the NHS".

Ms List explained: "During lockdown I said a lot of people could use the design as long as it raised funds for the NHS.

"I thought, what a great way to support our local NHS."

Ms List painted Banksy-inspired murals in Pontefract, Yorkshire, writing "stay safe" and "we're all in this together"

Ms List said although she was asked to produce more badge designs "because the badges had sold so well", she is "glad" she did not "as they would not have gone to the right place".

The artist said she personally knows nurses who were buying the badges and wearing them "with pride" at work.

"They worked 12 hours every day. It's a slap in the face of people like that."

There were 850,000 crimes reported to Action Fraud in 2021 with 6,500 of them moved to prosecution.