First published February 11, 2022.
James Anderson is a plumber from Burnley, Lancashire, who became widely known for fixing boilers, heating and pipes for elderly and disabled people at little or no cost. In 2017 he set up a community interest company called Depher, short for Disabled and Elderly Plumbing and Heating Emergency Response, and by early 2021 he was telling reporters it had helped more than 10,000 families. Years later the story took a different turn: in September 2025 the Fundraising Regulator found that Depher had used misleading fundraising material and had broken several parts of the fundraising code. Both halves belong in any honest account of the story.
Who James Anderson is and why he started Depher
Anderson grew up in Liverpool and settled in Burnley, where he worked as a heating engineer. In a 2019 interview with CNN he traced the idea for Depher to a job that shocked him: an elderly man had been taken advantage of by another tradesman. In later retellings the figure attached to that job was a £5,500 quote for a new boiler. Anderson said he wanted to help people who would rather go cold than ask for help or pay for a repair they could not afford.
He launched Depher in March 2017. The model was simple. Donations paid for parts and fuel, and where money ran short he said he still offered discounts rather than full prices. One of his jobs, for a 91-year-old woman with leukaemia, went viral after her daughter posted the receipt on Facebook. The total was £0.
Anderson has put his motivation in plain terms: "As long as I have enough money to fill up the tank in my car, I will be there."
How the numbers grew in the press
The figures attached to Depher changed quickly, and it helps to read them with their dates. In September 2019 CNN reported that the service had helped 2,389 people since 2017. It also noted that Anderson had built up personal debts of about £8,000, which he was repaying at £100 a month, and that Depher had received a £2,000 grant from the Duchy of Lancaster Benevolent Fund.
By January 2021 the Daily Mail was reporting that more than 10,000 families had been helped and that Anderson had spent £57,000 (around $77,500 at the time) during the pandemic. These numbers came from Anderson himself. They were widely repeated, but no independent audit of beneficiaries was published alongside them.
Some versions of the story that circulated online also claimed he worked 70 hours every day. That cannot be true, since a day has 24 hours, and it is best read as a garbled version of a long working week.
Food parcels and pandemic work
During the Covid-19 pandemic Depher widened its work beyond plumbing. Anderson described delivering food parcels and supplies to care homes, nursing homes and ambulance crews, as well as to people outside his usual area. He said the team had seen so many people struggling that it felt wrong to stick to boilers alone.
He also spoke about a sense of shared duty, telling reporters: "We've all got a social responsibility to each other." For many readers in 2021, that message was the heart of the story: a tradesman using his skills for neighbours who could not pay.
A father of six, Anderson became a familiar face on social media, where Depher posted appeals, photographs and stories about the people it helped. Those online appeals are exactly what the regulator later examined.
What the Fundraising Regulator found in 2025
The Fundraising Regulator, the independent body that oversees charitable fundraising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, received several complaints about Depher in December 2023 and January 2024, mostly about misleading appeals and complaint handling. A journalist raised concerns too. The regulator first met the director and gave advice. When the changes it recommended were not made, it opened a formal investigation and published the result in September 2025.
It found breaches of the Code of Fundraising Practice in several areas:
- Misleading images. The same undated photographs were reused in appeals with different stories, sometimes showing the same people with a different account of their situation.
- Unsupported claims. On several occasions Depher could not provide evidence for statements made in its fundraising.
- Risky messaging. Appeals often referred to possible deaths, including death by suicide, with no sign that the risks of that kind of messaging had been weighed.
- Confusing appeals. So many fundraising pages existed that donors were likely to be unsure what their money was for, and one page described donations as both restricted and for general use.
- Case-study consent. People featured in appeals could not properly consent to how their stories were shared, and there was no process for considering vulnerability or capacity to consent.
- Complaints. Depher could not show that it learned from complaints.
What the regulator did not find, and where Depher stands now
The report is careful about its limits. It found no breach on several other standards, including lottery permissions, which Depher could show it held. Some people complained that donations had been used to buy a house; the regulator said decisions of that kind were outside what it could consider. So the report does not settle every allegation made about Depher online, and it does not accuse anyone of a crime.
The report also stated that Depher's director had changed during the investigation and that Depher was no longer an operational organisation. The current director runs another community interest company, Community Elderly and Disabled Support CIC, which aims to carry out similar work from the same address, and the regulator said it had been working with that company on compliance. Depher had not responded to the report when it was published, and the findings were shared with the Regulator of Community Interest Companies.
For anyone who read the original feel-good coverage, the honest summary is this: the free repairs were real enough to generate grateful testimonials, but the way money was raised around them fell short of the standards donors are entitled to expect. The fundraising pages that once linked from articles like this one should not be treated as a current way to give.
How to check a small community fundraiser before you give
Stories like Depher's spread fast because they are moving. A few quick checks help kind people give with confidence:
- Know the legal form. A community interest company is not a registered charity. In the UK it is overseen by the Regulator of Community Interest Companies, not the Charity Commission, and donations to it do not qualify for Gift Aid.
- Look for one clear appeal. Several overlapping crowdfunding pages are a warning sign. You should be able to tell what your money is for.
- Ask for evidence. Numbers such as "10,000 families helped" should be backed by accounts, annual reports or independent coverage.
- Watch how people are portrayed. Appeals that lean on the distress of named, vulnerable individuals raise consent questions.
- Check the regulator. The Fundraising Regulator publishes investigation reports, and the Charity Commission and Companies House registers are free to search.
If you want to help older or disabled neighbours with heating problems in the UK, local councils, energy suppliers' priority services registers and established charities such as Age UK can point people towards grants and safe tradespeople.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
Sources: Fundraising Regulator: Depher investigation, September 2025; CNN, September 2019; Daily Mail, January 2021; Positive Outlooks.
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