Essex accused of bullying Jo Farragher out of the club after was sent emails instructing her to quit

Essex stand 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 the Essex Board in a vote of members last November, was prevented from representing the county at Twenty20 finals day at Edgbaston on Saturday and has received several emails and text messages from the club’s chairman Sir Stephen O’Brien instructing her to quit.

Faragher attended Board meetings and was fully involved in the running of the club for five months after being elected until receiving an email from O’Brien at the start of May, in which he asked her to voluntarily stand down. 

In addition other counties have been asked not to entertain Faragher in their Boardrooms, a ban she only found out about by talking to officials at other clubs. She has also been denied access to Board papers despite being told that Essex are still seeking legal advice over her position.

An executive at another county told Mail Sport: ‘We were told in no uncertain terms that Joanne was not welcome due to an internal issue at Essex. 

Essex have been accused of bullying a female director by excluding her from meetings and ordering her to resign

‘From what I have been told she has effectively been excluded from all Board matters for the last two months. They clearly want her out and it amounts to bullying. I gather that the situation has affected her quite badly and members of the family are concerned about her health.’

O’Brien’s justification for seeking to force out Faragher is an alleged conflict of interest as her father, John Faragher, was previously chairman of Essex until being asked to resign for the alleged use of a historic racist phrase two years ago. That matter will feature in the long-awaited report from Katharine Newton KC into the club’s culture which is due to be released imminently.

O’Brien told Mail Sport that Faragher had simply been asked to stay away from Board meetings and denied access to papers pertaining to her father.

Mail Sport understands Jo Faragher received emails instructing her to quit and was prevented from representing Essex at finals day

Jo Faragher was already recusing herself from all Board meetings relating to her father however, and is understood to have obtained legal advice stating there is no conflict of interest. Mail Sport has been told that some members of the Essex Board 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 from Faragher.

Mail Sport published extracts from the interim report last month, which was strongly critical of the ECB’s handling of allegations of racism at Essex, with Newton concluding that the governing body broke their own governance rules by ordering Essex to sack John Faragher in November 2021. 

The Newton report was commissioned by Essex later that month and had been completed by the following March, but it has yet to be published 15 months later.

Several sources at Essex have raised concerns that the full report will never be made public.