The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into an animal charity that has failed to file its accounts for five years.
Muffin Pug Rescue is a breed-specific charity that rescues pug and pug-cross breed dogs across the UK. Currently, its charity reporting is 1,580 days overdue.
The charity was established in late 2015, and its latest accounts are for the financial year ending April 2016. For that year, the charity had an income of £8,950 and a total expenditure of £7,850.
The regulator issued the trustees with advice and guidance several times before escalating its involvement to a statutory inquiry as the trustees repeatedly failed to submit the charity's accounts.
Potential misapplication of funds
The regulator has analysed the charity's bank statements and identified concerns that some funds may not have been spent on furthering the charity's purposes.
Therefore, the Commission's inquiry will investigate the possible misapplication of funds, as well as the trustees' compliance with their legal obligation to file accounts.
According to the regulator's register, the charity has four trustees in total. Kristine Lovelady appears to be Muffin Pug Rescue's founding trustee.
Declan William Poole joined the charity in 2018, and Victoria Louise Conway and Jacqueline Anne Fullerton joined as trustees in February this year. They have no other trusteeships on record.
Muffin Pug Rescue refused to comment.
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