The Charity Commission has launched an investigation into Welwyn based charity, The Cat Survival Trust after it failed to submit legally required accounts for more than a decade.

The inquiry will examine the four trustees’ compliance with their legal duties relating to the governance and management of the charity including the extent to which they have complied with their charitable objects.

The trustee information held publically by the Charity Commission is limited, including only the names of the founder, Dr Terry Moore, and Judith Eleanor Moore, Robert Martin and Abigail Watkiss, but no dates of appointments are included.

The Cat Survival Trust was established in 1976 by Dr Moore, a snow leopard expert, and is based in Hertfordshire where he runs a wild cat sanctuary on a 12-acre site which houses rescued cats, including a selection of lynxes and snow leopards.

The website is barely working but it does still include the registered charity number and is asking for donations to fund the construction of more housing for cats on the site although the PayPal link is not working.

The charity is now under investigation as it has not filed accounts since 2011, at which time it reported income of £29,000.

Despite repeated calls from the regulator, the charity ignored all demands to file any financial information.

The regulator took steps to establish if the charity was still operating and repeatedly sent filing reminders but after being continually ignored, a regulatory compliance case was opened in 2019.

Through powers under the Charities Act, an order was then made for the trustees to submit all outstanding accounting information.

This request was ignored and the failure to file, now totalling 11 consecutive years, has led the regulator to escalate proceedings with the opening of an inquiry.

The inquiry will examine the administration, governance and management of the charity, in particular the extent to which the trustees have:

• failed to comply with their statutory reporting duties including the submission of the charity’s annual reports and accounts to the Commission;
• acted in accordance with their legal duties and have been responsible for misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration and management of the charity; and
• furthered the charity’s objects for the public benefit.

The Commission may extend the scope of the inquiry if additional regulatory issues emerge.