Was I inappropriate? I thought I was flirtatious. But I overstepped the line

ASTONISHING TEARFUL CONFESSION

THE strain of the last week is etched plainly on Brendan Cox’s face. His manner is as crumpled as his casual black T-shirt and jeans; his eyes heavy and rimmed with red. This is a man in turmoil, struggling to confront some very difficult personal truths.

Today, Brendan sits in the houseboat on the River Thames in London that he shares with his two young children, and holds his head in his hands. He is plagued, he admits, with a sense of crushing guilt.

Guilt that his sexually inappropriate, often drunken behaviour led to damning complaints about him by two women, which is why, he says, he is taking part in this extraordinary and often tearful interview.

But there is clearly shame, too, that this behaviour has now forced him to step away from the work he has been carrying out in memory of his wife, the Labour MP Jo Cox. He has quit the charities the Jo Cox Foundation and More In Common as he withdraws from public life.

It is a remarkable fall from grace. Yet while Brendan is keen to apologise for any offence caused to women by his behaviour, he remains reluctant to face head-on the disturbing details of the sex abuse claims he now faces.

Brendan was, until now, a grieving widower who, in the aftermath of his wife’s shocking murder just before the 2016 Brexit vote, had been dedicating himself to campaigning on her behalf. Now, he finds himself labelled a sexual predator who is accused of trying to take advantage of other women during his marriage.

‘I know that there are instances when I was working at Save the Children that did make people feel uncomfortable and that they felt was inappropriate,’ he concedes. ‘And I think that charge is a fair one. There will be people who will put the worst possible spin on this and assume it was malicious or a deliberate act.

‘Others will think I behaved unacceptably badly. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m innately a bad person or that it’s not possible to learn from those mistakes.

‘I know I’ve never acted with malice or tried to upset people, but I’ve clearly made people feel like that.

‘The thing I want to say today, to people that I have offended and upset or to those I’ve let down, is that I am deeply sorry for doing that. I feel that very profoundly.’

The small, cosy living space on the boat, warmed today by a wood-burning stove, is filled with pictures of the family in happier times. They adorn every wall, every surface. There are photographs of a smiling Jo with their children; a photograph of the couple on The Cuillin mountain range in

We never pretended we had the perfect marriage

Skye where Jo realised she was pregnant with their eldest son; and a poignant painting of Jo and the kids on the deck of the boat, which, Brendan says, captures her gait perfectly.

YET this cosy domesticity stands in stark contrast to the damning allegations about his behaviour during their marriage. There were even rumours, which he does not deny, that he slept with other workers at the charity. Did Jo know about any of it?

‘I’m not going to talk about my relationship with Jo,’ he says, firmly. ‘We never pretended that we had the perfect relationship, or the perfect marriage.

‘We had difficult times, we had amazing times, but I’m not going to recount conversations I had with her because she’s not here.

‘This is about me, and my behaviour – not about her. I’m sure people might advise me to talk about her but it’d be a PR tool and that doesn’t feel right.’

Such declarations are to his credit. And yet Brendan maintains even now that the allegations against him are a ‘massive exaggeration’ of his actual behaviour. He is today refusing to discuss the details of any incident.

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a woman complained to police in the US over an alleged sexual assault at Harvard University in October 2015, where Mr Cox was attending a course. Her claims – categorically denied by Brendan – include that he plied her with alcohol, tried to force himself on her, and inserted a thumb in her mouth following a late-night dinner.

Brendan says he is keen not to disclose confidential details of a separate incident in July 2015 involving a colleague at Save the Children. But what he is prepared to concede is that both women saw his behaviour very differently than he did.

Hearing that he was ‘known’ as a sex pest and that women were reluctant to be on duty alone with him at the charity, appears to come as a shock. Brendan looks visibly uncomfortable and turns away, rubbing his face with his hands.

‘It’s entirely fair to say that other people felt my presence was different than I meant it to be. The sense that I was physically imposing… I don’t think I had a good account of that, and how that made people feel in some situations. At the root [of the rumours] was a sense, which is fair, that I could overstep the line.’

To his regret, he failed to acknowledge that at the time. It may seem a weak defence given the seriousness of the allegations, but Brendan insists he saw his behaviour as playful rather than predatory.

‘Maybe if I had seriously sat down and thought about it in

the cold light of day then I might have been clearer on it. Certainly, I had too much to drink at times. I probably behaved in a way I thought was sort of jokey, or flirtatious. I often wasn’t being serious, but that was perceived differently by others.

‘There was never any malice; any intention to upset or offend people. But the bigger picture is that you do have to face up to how you make people feel, not just what your intention was. I didn’t reflect on it – that’s not a defence, it’s a failing. It’s not good enough. With the #MeToo movement, I think people, including me, are reflecting not just on their behaviour but the power imbalance in some encounters. It’s a painful thing, if you’re one of those people, but ultimately it’s a healthy thing to be going through.’

The realisation may have come too late. The allegations are so serious they may end Brendan’s public life. ‘I didn’t want the charities to suffer from my mistakes,’ he says. ‘They’re important both for Jo’s legacy and for building stronger communities and that’s more important than any individual. I didn’t want to be a burden or a distraction to any of that.’

It is hard, too, not to consider what Jo would have made of it all. It is an enormous source of regret to Brendan that she is not here to support him now.

‘It would have been a very difficult conversation,’ he says. ‘But yes, I agree – I’d have drawn so much comfort from it.’

When asked if he feels he has let his late wife down, there is a long pause. When he eventually speaks, his voice is choked, his eyes wet with tears.

‘I think that I’ve let myself down,’ he says, quietly. ‘I need to take responsibility for that. It’s what I’m trying to do.

‘With everything that’s happened in my own life, and the public conversation, I am a lot more reflective than I would have been. I want to make sure that in the future I hold myself to a much higher standard, and that nothing like this can ever be said of me again.’

A legacy, perhaps, that Jo could be truly proud of.