A Conservative councillor who defended the disgraced Presidents Club and accused the Financial Times of exaggerating the behaviour of its guests at a men-only dinner is being forced to stand down from a senior role.

Tina Knight’s comments on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme, in which she dismissed reports of widespread groping at the event and said that the “real harassment” took place at women-only functions, prompted a furious online reaction and a protest over the weekend.

Vine interviewed Knight, the chair of the standards committee at Uttlesford council in Essex, and Madison Marriage, the FT reporter who went undercover as a hostess and reported allegations of sexual harassment that left some hostesses in tears.

Knight said any hostess at the event would have to be a “real airhead” not to expect “ribald” behaviour of the kind she knew from her rugby club in Saffron Walden. She said to Marriage: “You’re obviously a reporter because you are exaggerating ... If she’s upset that’s one thing; she should not be speaking for others.

“If you want to know real harassment then you go to a women-only function and you see real behaviour that would absolutely make men look like saints ... This belittles real sexual harassment ... rape and that sort of thing ... when somebody can’t deal with a drunken man.”

She said the £2m raised for charity at the event was “astounding”, and claimed men were more generous and competitive when “imbibed with lots of liquor”.

On Saturday, a group of 70 people, many carrying placards saying “Not in our name”, protested against Knight outside Uttlesford council’s offices in Saffron Walden.

So Tina Knight in interview on @theJeremyVine says she thinks the #PresidentsClub sexual assault allegations are ‘hilarious’? Many of her constituents strongly disagree - protesters today @UttlesfordDC with more action planned this week. @miss_marriage @timoncheese pic.twitter.com/KGWjUYQPlE — Kate Matthews (@Gillmo) January 27, 2018

The council had distanced itself from Knight’s comments, claiming she was speaking as a businesswoman not as councillor.

After protesters argued that Knight’s comments breached the council’s code of conduct, which she was responsible for upholding as chair of the standards committee, she was asked to stand down on Monday night.



Howard Rolfe, the leader of the council, said: “The comments on the Jeremy Vine Show were inconsistent with being chairman of the standards committee. These were inappropriate comments and she should stand down as chairman of the standards committee.”

He added: “It is something we have collectively agreed should be the right approach.”

Knight, a former vice-president of the Small Business Bureau and founder of Knighhawks Electronics, said she was forced to resign.

“I have not stood down, I was told to resign. I told the leader to sack me. He sent me two statements he had written, one was offering my resignation and the other was if I didn’t resign by 4.30pm, he would send out the other where I will have to face the wrath of the council and be dismissed.”

Knight said she had been subjected to a witch hunt over comments about an article that she still believes was “deliberately salacious”.



“They [the hostesses] could have walked away at any stage of the evening. Sadly the children at Great Ormond Street can’t.”

In an email, she said: “I am not one of the ‘wimmin’ who talk the talk, I am actually a trailblazer who has walked the walk. I feel if I resigned this would be letting down all the women I have helped to be strong and rubbished all I had stood and worked for.”