Essex is accused of bullying a female director from the club after Jo Farragher received ’emails and texts from chairman Sir Stephen O’Brien telling her to stop’
- Essex is accused of bullying a female director from the club
- Mail Sport understands that Jo Faragher has received emails instructing him to quit
- She was also not allowed to represent Essex at the T20 Blast Finals Day
Essex is accused of bullying a female director by excluding her from board meetings, banning her from attending away games and ordering her to resign.
Mail Sport has learned that Jo Faragher, who was elected to Essex’s board of directors in a vote of the members last November, was unable to represent the county at Twenty20 Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday and has sent several emails and text messages. has received messages from the president of the club, Sir Stephen O’Brien instructing her to stop.
Faragher attended board meetings and was fully involved in the running of the club for five months after being elected until he received an email from O’Brien in early May asking her to resign voluntarily.
In addition, other provinces have been asked not to host Faragher in their boardrooms, a ban she only found out about by talking to officials from other clubs. She has also been denied access to administrative papers, despite being told Essex is still seeking legal advice on her position.
A director from another county told Mail Sport: ‘We were told in no uncertain terms that Joanne was not welcome due to an internal problem at Essex.
Essex has been accused of bullying a female director by excluding her from meetings and ordering her to resign
“From what I was told, she has been effectively barred from all board business for the past two months. They clearly want her gone and it amounts to bullying. I understand that the situation has affected her quite a bit and that members of the family are concerned about her health.’
O’Brien’s justification for trying to eliminate Faragher is a perceived conflict of interest, as her father, John Faragher, was previously chairman of Essex until he was asked to resign over the alleged use of a historic racist phrase two years ago. That issue will be addressed in Katharine Newton KC’s highly anticipated report on the culture of the club due soon.
O’Brien told Mail Sport that Faragher had simply been asked to stay away from board meetings and denied access to papers related to her father.
Mail Sport understands that Jo Faragher received emails telling her to quit and that she was unable to represent Essex on finals day
However, Jo Faragher already withdrew from all board meetings related to her father and allegedly sought legal advice stating that there was no conflict of interest. Mail Sport has been told that some members of the Essex board of directors have already seen the full version of the Newton report and have suggested that O’Brien’s actions are motivated by a desire to keep its contents hidden from Faragher .
Mail Sport published excerpts from its interim report last month, which was highly critical of the ECB’s handling of allegations of racism in Essex, with Newton concluding that the governing body had broken its own governance rules by ordering Essex to sack John Faragher in November 2021 .
The Newton report was commissioned by Essex later that month and was completed by March, but it has yet to be published 15 months later.
Several sources at Essex have expressed concern that the full report will never be made public.