The interim manager appointed to asylum charity Astonbrook Housing Association, which is in liquidation following a £1.8m fraud by two former trustees, has preserved over £19.5m of its contracts.

The Charity Commission has today released the report of its statutory inquiry into the charity, which it has been investigating since May 2007 after being alerted to concerns about the organisation and its management.

The investigation culminated in September last year when the two trustees and four other charity members were imprisoned, after pleading guilty to fraud of £1.8m.

And the Commission has now revealed in its statutory inquiry that since it froze Astonbrook Housing Association’s bank accounts and appointed Baker Tilly as interim manager in 2007, the firm has managed to secure the continuation of over £19.5m of its contracts. The charity’s existing beneficiaries have been also rehoused safely.

The liquidator has also recovered £252,000 of misappropriated funds: £134,513 held in the bankruptcy of Mohammed Hassan Arwo, one of the trustees, and a tax refund of £117,930 which was received from HMRC for overpayments of PAYE and National Insurance contributions for fake “ghost employees”.

John Ariel and Geoffrey Carton-Kelly, of Baker Tilly Restructuring and Recovery, acted jointly as interim manager for a cost of just over £2m, including VAT.

Astonbrook Housing Association provided housing and support to around 3,500 refugees and asylum-seekers in the West Midlands, Wales and the South West of England.

It was registered with the Charity Commission in September 2002 and entered liquidation in 2009. It is currently in the process of winding up.