A trustee resignation letter at the centre of a dispute between Prince Harry and a charity he co-founded has been published for the first time.
This week, the Times published the resignation letter from Sentebale’s five former trustees, who stepped down in March last year after expressing concerns about chair Sophie Chandauka’s behaviour.
The letter alleges that with their resignation, Chandauka had “forcibly taken over control” of the charity, formed in 2006 to support young people in southern Africa, and “created irreparable damage”.
Harry and fellow co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho quit as patrons of Sentebale last year in solidarity with the former trustees, saying their relationship breakdown with Chandauka had created “an untenable situation”.
The Charity Commission opened a compliance case into the charity, which concluded with the regulator criticising “all parties to the dispute for allowing it to play out publicly” last year.
However, on Friday, Sentebale announced that it had brought legal proceedings against Harry and its former trustee Mark Dyer “following a coordinated adverse media campaign”.
A spokesperson for the commission told Civil Society that it is aware of the charity’s plans to take legal action and has been engaging with its trustees “to understand how this action furthers their charity’s purposes”.
Blocked board meeting alleged
In their letter, the former trustees including Dyer said they had resigned after calling on Chandauka to step down due to concerns about her conduct since she became chair in July 2023.
The letter says there had been a breakdown in her relationship with other trustees, staff and funders and that she had attempted to manipulate board minutes.
“In response to that request [to step down], you further diminished the trust by levelling vague and deeply troubling allegations to threaten and intimidate the board, its patrons and a donor,” it reads.
“As a result of your refusal, we called a board meeting to vote on the issue, in accordance with the articles and applicable law.”
According to the letter, Chandauka sought a High Court injunction to prevent the meeting from going ahead, which the trustees described as “damning evidence of your failure to act as a leader capable of putting the charity's best interests first”.
The trustees said the “extreme measures” Chandauka took to stay on as chair led them to feel that they had “no alternative but to resign from the board”.
“Although we continue to believe that it’d be in the best interests of the charity for you to step down, we’ve come to the difficult decision that if you’re unwilling to do so, then we must step down in order to avoid a protracted dispute and significant expense which the charity can ill afford,” their letter reads.
In response, a spokesperson for Sentebale said: “This matter is subject to active legal proceedings. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment on any aspect or share documents that are not in the public domain.
“We can confirm that Sentebale is acting in accordance with its legal and regulatory duties, including proper governance and oversight. The charity has been in full dialogue with the Charity Commission for months, including in advance of filing this claim.”
