Watchdog’s five-year fight for the truth about charity

Leaving No 10 in disgrace after the Partygate scandal three years ago has not stopped Boris Johnson from getting rich ever since. He has earned millions from books and lecture tours, enough to buy a £4m Oxfordshire manor house for him, wife Carrie and their children.

- SIMON WALTERS

It was a different story when the couple were in Downing Street in January 2021 before the Partygate antics surfaced. They were in desperate need of money after Mr Johnson's expensive divorce - and what became known as the "wallpapergate" affair - left their finances in tatters. He was criticised after failing to disclose secret Tory funding for a lavish refurbishment of their Downing Street flat by interior designer Lulu Lytle.

It was at this moment that the couple received a much-needed - and timely - cash injection. Carrie Johnson, or Carrie Symonds, Mr Johnson's fiancee as she then was, was hired by the Aspinall Foundation wildlife conservation charity as director of communications on an estimated "high five-figure salary".

Just two months after chair Damian Aspinall signed Ms Johnson, hailing her as a "huge asset", she had to defend the charity when it was hit by a potential scandal. It emerged that the Charity Commission had opened a "regulatory compliance case" investigation into the Aspinall Foundation in 2020.

The matters being investigated by the watchdog pre-dated Ms Johnson's arrival at the charity and there is no suggestion she was the subject of investigation. She played down the gravity of the situation, saying such action was "commonplace during routine regulatory checks".

However, any notion that it was commonplace was blown out of the water weeks later. Then, in March 2022, the commission announced a statutory inquiry - its most serious form of investigation - into the Aspinall Foundation and its sister charity Howletts Wild Animal Trust.

It was looking into "serious concerns about the governance and financial management after reports of possible conflicts of interest and related-party transactions" of both - while adding that the announcement was not in itself a finding of wrongdoing.