Husband of Jo Cox accused of groping

THE husband of murdered MP Jo Cox was once accused of sexually assaulting a US Government official.

Brendan Cox was reported to American police by the woman, who said the incident occurred at Harvard University in October 2015.

She accused Mr Cox of grabbing her, pulling her hair, forcing his thumb into her mouth, touching her inappropriately and “pushing her to consume alcohol”.

Mr Cox’s lawyers said he strongly denied the allegations, describing them as “spurious”. It is understood they were never investigated by police at the request of the woman involved.

The claims, reported in the Mail On Sunday, would have taken place weeks after Mr Cox left his post as a strategist for Save The Children amid separate allegations of inappropriate behaviour, which he denied.

Jo Cox was murdered in 2016, a week before the EU referendum, by Kilmarnockborn Thomas Mair, a far-right extremist.

Since her death, Mr Cox has raised the couple’s two children while helping to run the Jo Cox Foundation. In January, the widower co-founded a new group to lobby the Government on counter-terror policies and improved support for victims.

The Survivors Against Terror group was founded by survivors and relatives of victims of Islamist bombings, IRA attacks and far-right extremist murders, campaigning for more effective policies to combat terror and support victims and those bereaved.