Captain Tom Moore would have been heartbroken over online abuse, daughter says

‘How do you rationalise to a 100-year-old man that something so incredibly good can attract such horror?’ Hannah Ingram-Moore says

Captain Sir Tom Moore’s heart would have been “broken” if he had known about the online abuse the family have received, 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.

She has spoken about her father’s days in hospital and their final family holiday to the Caribbean.

He died aged 100 at Bedford Hospital on 2 February after testing positive for Covid-19.

Sir Tom walked 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden before his 100th birthday during the first lockdown, raising more than £32m for the NHS and becoming nationally revered in the process.

On the trolling, Ms Ingram-Moore told BBC One’s Breakfast programme: “I couldn't tell him.

“I think it would have broken his heart, honestly, if we’d said to him people are hating us.

“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 we wouldn’t play to ... that vile minority, we wouldn’t play to them, we’re not, because we are talking to the massive majority of people who we connect with.”

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

Ms Ingram-Moore said her father had wanted to come home to steak and chips after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

She said: “I said to him in the last few days: ‘So, what do you want to eat when you come home?’ And we decided it was steak and chips.

“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.”

Ms Ingram-Moore said that when the Second World War veteran went into hospital, the family “really all believed he’d come back out”.

“We thought the oxygen would help, that he would be robust enough, [but] the truth is he just wasn't. He was old and he just couldn't fight it,” she added.

Before he died, the centenarian and his family travelled to the Caribbean for a holiday in Barbados just before Christmas.

“It was just amazing,” Ms 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.”