A tribunal has overturned Naomi Campbell's five-year ban as a charity trustee, finding a fellow trustee deceived her. Should trustees be responsible for failings hidden from them?

What happened

On 1 October a tribunal panel overturned Naomi Campbell's five-year disqualification as a charity trustee in England and Wales, NBC News reported. The Charity Commission had imposed the ban after finding Fashion for Relief, the charity she founded, was "poorly governed" with "inadequate financial management", and that only 8.5% of its spending over six years went on charitable grants. The tribunal agreed there had been "serious misconduct and mismanagement", but found the failures stemmed from a fellow trustee's actions, which were "concealed" from Campbell, and that she had been "deceived".

Why people disagree

One view is that the ruling settles it: a trustee who was lied to is a victim of the wrongdoing, and banning her punishes the wrong person. Campbell told the tribunal in June that she assumed her fellow trustee was "acting within the law". The other view is that trustees exist to oversee how a charity's money is spent, so a well-known founder who lends her name to a cause should check what is done in it. Campbell acknowledged she "did not do a check" on her colleague.

What's still unclear

The reports do not say whether the Charity Commission will appeal or how it has responded to the ruling. How much oversight the law expects of trustees who rely on colleagues is a wider question the case leaves open.