Captain Tom’s daughter hits out at comments from trolls that would have left him ‘heartbroken’

Watch: Captain Tom's daughter: 'We hid family abuse from him'

Cruel comments from trolls were kept from Captain Sir Tom Moore as his heart would have been “broken”, his daughter has said.

Hannah Ingram-Moore said she could not tell her 100-year-old father “people are hating us” after his mammoth fundraising efforts for the NHS during the first coronavirus lockdown.

Sir Tom captured the hearts of the nation with his fundraising efforts last year when he walked 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden before his 100th birthday, raising more than £32m for the NHS.

The Second World War veteran died at Bedford Hospital on 2 February after testing positive for COVID.

On the trolling, Ingram-Moore told BBC Breakfast: “We really had to use our family resilience, our emotional resilience, and we never told him.

Captain Sir Tom Moore captured the hearts of the nation with his fundraising efforts during the first lockdown. (Chris Jackson via Getty Images)

“Because I don’t think he could ever have understood it. I think it would have broken his heart, honestly, if we’d said to him people are hating us.

“I couldn’t tell him, because how do you rationalise to a 100-year-old man that something so incredibly good can attract such horror? So we contained it within the four of us and we said that we won’t play to them, we’re not talking to those vile minority, we’re not, because we are talking to the massive majority of people who we just connect with.”

She said the trolling had become “pretty horrific” and “really did hurt”.

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She added: “It really is really hard to deal with but we have dealt with it and they will not win.

“They will never make this amazing thing negative, not ever. We won’t let them.”

A hearing will take place today at Lanark Sheriff Court in central Scotland after a 35-year-old man was charged in connection with an alleged offensive message posted on Twitter about Sir Tom.

Speaking about her father’s days in hospital, Ingram-Moore said he had wanted to come home to steak and chips.

Captain Sir Tom Moore, 99, poses with his walking frame while doing a lap of his garden in the village of Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, during the first lockdown. (Getty) (JUSTIN TALLIS via Getty Images)

She said: “He was really excited about coming out for steak and chips and getting his frame back outside and his walker.

“The last real conversation was positive and about carrying on, and that’s a lovely place to be.”

Ingram-Moore said the pride in his lasting legacy “oozed out of him” and that he told her: “I’m coming back out, there’s more fundraising in me yet, I’m coming back out to walk.”

Read more: What you can and can't do under current lockdown rules

Amid her family’s sadness and the “deafening silence” they have to live with, she said she understands that members of the public are also grieving the loss of Sir Tom.

“It’s really, really hard, but the legacy is hope and joy,” she said.

Before he died, the centenarian got to tick a holiday in the Caribbean off his bucket list when the family travelled to Barbados just before Christmas.

Captain Sir Tom Moore and his daughter Hannah celebrate his 100th birthday with an RAF flypast provided by a Spitfire and a Hurricane over his home on 30 April, 2020. (Getty) (Handout via Getty Images)

“It was just amazing,” Ingram-Moore said.

“He sat in 29 degrees outside, he read two novels, he read the newspapers every day, and we sat and we talked as a family, we went to restaurants (because we could there) and he ate fish on the beach, and what a wonderful thing to do.

“I think we were all so pleased we managed to give him that.”

Watch: What you can and can't do during England's third national lockdown