Poppy seller Olive Cooke, 92, was bombarded by more than 460 requests for cash in a year by 70 charities who bought and shared her details

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Grandmother Olive Cooke had been bombarded by more than 460 requests a year for money by 70 charities who bought and shared her details, a report has found.

Mrs Cooke, 92, from Fishponds in Bristol, who had been a poppy seller since she was just 16, killed herself in May after a long battle with depression and insomnia.

Before she died, the former postmistress had received thousands of phone calls and letters from charities asking her for money, and her death sparked hundreds of complaints about 'hounding' by charities, with particular concerns around those that shared donors' contact details.

Tragic poppy seller Olive Cooke (pictured) had been bombarded by more than 460 requests in just one  year for money by 70 charities who had bought and sold her details, a report has found. It is not known if the charities whose letters are pictured above had swapped her contact details

Now a draft report into her case by the Fundraising Standards Board has revealed 70 charities obtained Mrs Cooke's details by either sharing the information with each other or buying it from professional data companies.

Of these, 29 charities 'sourced' her details from a list 'procured' from a fellow charity, 14 by exchanging contact data with fellow charities, and 26 from a list broker.  

The investigation by the regulator also revealed between 2000 and 2014 the number of requests she received for donations had tripled to more than 460-a-year at its peak last year.

Mrs Cooke, who became Britain's oldest poppy seller, began raising money for the Royal British Legion in 1938 when she was just 16 after her father served in Gallipoli during WWI

Charities struggling to raise money increasingly use outside agencies, including list brokers, which they sell either to charities or to companies.

Andrew Hind, the chair of the FRSB who wrote in the report, said: 'Mrs Cooke's experiences demonstrate the inevitable consequences of a fundraising regime where charities have been able to exchange, and in some cases sell, the personal details of donors to each other.

'[There is] a situation where a donor to a small number of charities can find themselves, after a period of time, receiving mail packs and phone calls from an ever-growing and uncontrollable number of fundraising charities.'

Mrs Cooke began raising money for the Royal British Legion in 1938 when she was just 16 after her father served in Gallipoli during WWI. She is pictured in 1944, collecting her first husband Leslie Hussey-Yeo's posthumously awarded medal at Buckingham Palace

Mrs Cooke, who became Britain's oldest poppy seller, began raising money for the Royal British Legion in 1938 when she was just 16 after her father served in Gallipoli during the First World War.

She also lost her first husband, Leslie Hussey-Yeo who served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War.

The great-grandmother, who would often sell the memorial flowers outside Bristol Cathedral raised thousands of pounds, selling an estimated 30,000 poppies in 76 years. 

She died at Avon Gorge, Bristol, just two days before the 70th anniversary of VE Day, after suffering with years of low mood, depression and sleepless nights, as well as fearing she would lose her independence.

While her family said they do not blame the charities for her death, they did criticise them for bombarding her with cold calls and hundreds of letters and appeals every month.

After Mrs Cooke's death, the Government commissioned a report into UK fundraising by Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.

He recommended the self-regulatory FRSB should be replaced by a new independent watchdog.

The FRSB published an interim report in June, setting out recommendations including tightening up data-sharing rules, and setting out clearer guidelines for dealing with vulnerable donors.

It has since carried out a more thorough investigation into charities who contacted Mrs Cooke, and the report is subject to revision as more charities respond.

The board contacted 1,724 charities and so far 99 have admitted they had Mrs Cooke's details.

Some might have come from Mrs Cooke herself, who supported 88 charities in her lifetime, it said.

Over the past five years, Mrs Cooke was contacted by more than 70 charities a year - up from just 20 in 2000, the report says.

The report added: 'Seventy charities reported that Mrs Cooke's details were secured via a third party. Of those, 29 sourced her details from a list procured from a fellow charity, 26 from a list broker and 14 by exchanging contact data with fellow charities.'

The report had been originally due this month, but is now not expected to be published until the new year.

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