Charity watchdogs shut down dream home raffle duo’s bike recycling scheme

A COUPLE who promised to raffle off their dream home before cancelling the competition previously ran a charity that was struck off.

Entrants in the prize draw to win Dullatur House are furious after Shamus Fitzsimons and his wife Angie changed the rules just before the winning ticket was to be drawn in March.

Instead of handing over the seven-bedroom mansion near Cumbernauld in Lanarkshire, the Fitzsimons said they would award a cash prize because they had not sold enough £5 tickets to cover the house’s value.

Today, we can reveal the Fitzsimons were previously involved in a recycling charity that was removed from the charity register for failing to hand over accounts.

Cumbernauld-based I Am Bikes, which recycled old bikes to sell on, was set up by Shamus, 47, and Angie, 50, in 2012.

Shamus quit his role as secretary soon afterwards.

Within a year I Am Bikes applied for a number of grants, and subsequently received £242,300 from the Scottish Government to help in the fight against climate change.

Its last instalment from the Climate Change Fund – which was administered by the quango Keep Scotland Beautiful – came in March 2015.

But by then the organisation had already fallen behind in supplying the charity regulator, OSCR, with its accounts, which is a legal requirement.

OSCR say it contacted the charity six times to ask for the accounts before removing it from the register in November 2016.

An OSCR spokesperson said: “Prior to their removal from the Scottish Charity Register, we had been trying to engage with I Am Bikes as they were not submitting required documentation to OSCR.”

The cycling charity only ever sent one set of accounts to OSCR.

The couple bought Dullatur House for £500,000 in 2014, while Angie headed up I Am Bikes.

Shamus has previously said that losing a job recently had meant they had to sell the rural family home.

When it failed to get a good price on the open market he decided to raffle it instead.

The raffle was held earlier this month.

But the couple have never said how much the prize amounts to, or who won it.

The U-turn angered those who entered the original raffle.

The couple also own another six-bedroom home nearby in Cumbernauld, worth around £470,000, which they bought in 2006 and where they now live.

When we called at the Fitzsimons’ house they denied any wrongdoing at either I Am Bikes or running the house competition.

Angie refused to discuss problems at I Am Bikes and said the house prize draw was done fairly.

She said that they would not disclose who had won the raffle as they wanted to respect the winner’s privacy.

She added: “There was absolutely nothing wrong with the competition or how it was run. We’ve been slagged off by a lot of people who aren’t happy but the fact is the winners got their prizes and are happy with what they got.

“They asked for privacy and didn’t want named so there is nothing we can do about that and have to respect their wishes.

“The only money we made from it was from administration and everything else was won by the people who were successful. I regret ever holding the competition because of what has happened now.”

Entrants in the prize draw said they were angry at the way the couple had handled the competition.

Building merchant Gordon Cook, 52, from Falkirk, said: “It was poorly organised from the start. It doesn’t surprise me they were previously involved in a charity that failed to hand over paperwork – they were unable to supply me with basic information when I repeatedly asked them.”

The couple are now renting out Dullatur House – which also comes with a sauna, six bathrooms, and a billiards room – as a holiday home for £260 a night.

A spokeswoman for Keep Scotland Beautiful said: “I Am Bikes met all the required criteria and provided all required evidence, progress reports and details of expenditure for the duration of the funding period 2013 – 2015.”