Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family hid online abuse from him as it ‘would have broken his heart’

Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter has revealed she hid the trolling, that the family received online, from her father.

Hannah Ingram-Moore said: “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.”

It comes after police said a 35-year-old man had been charged over an alleged offensive tweet about the Second World War veteran.

Capt Sir Tom, who captured the hearts of the nation with his fundraising efforts during the first coronavirus lockdown, died aged 100 in Bedford Hospital two weeks ago, after contracting COVID-19.

Last spring, he raised more than £32m for the NHS after walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday – and in July, he was knighted by the Queen for his efforts.

Ms Ingram-Moore also spoke about her last conversation with her father.

She explained to BBC Breakfast: “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 the family “really all believed he’d come back out” following his admission to hospital.

“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 the centenarian died, he ticked a Caribbean holiday off his bucket list when the family travelled to 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.”

(c) Sky News 2021: Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family hid online abuse from him as it ‘would have broken his heart’