Cox accused of being a ‘bully’ over denial of US sex assault
FRIENDS of a senior US Government official who told police she was sexually assaulted by Brendan Cox have accused him of acting like a ‘bully’ by denying the claims.
A source close to the woman, who alleged she was assaulted by Mr Cox a month after he left Save The Children over a similar incident, said the victim stood fully by her version of events.
‘She is truthful, genuine and reliable,’ said the source.
‘He clearly hasn’t learned anything. Bullies will be bullies. She has had a tough time.’
The source was responding to Mr Cox’s comments after The Mail on Sunday’s disclosure two weeks ago of his alleged attack of a woman he met at Harvard University late in 2015.
Mr Cox said the allegations were a ‘massive exaggeration’. He is also understood to have called the woman ‘disturbed’ and suggested she was ‘pressured’ into complaining by her husband.
This newspaper is aware of the woman’s identity. She is in her 30s and we have spoken to her since the incident happened but agreed to hide her identity. She now works at a high level in the US administration and held a similar post at the time Mr Cox is said to have groped and abused her.
When Mr Cox resigned last week from two charities set up in the name of his late MP wife Jo Cox, he apologised for harassing women at Save The Children, where he worked until he left in disgrace in September 2015. But he denied the separate US allegation.
The woman was so outraged by his alleged behaviour in 2015, she complained to police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to Harvard.
Under the heading ‘offender’, the police report records the complaint as ‘assault and battery’. It says the woman went to a restaurant with Mr Cox and ‘while there and on the walk back, he touched her “ass”, grabbed her by the hips several times, pulled her hair and forced his thumb into her mouth in a sexual way’.
He ‘pulled her towards him and touched her stomach’ even though she had ‘made it clear’ she wanted no sexual contact. ‘She received a text later from Cox that read, “Are you touching yourself?”’ He allegedly plied her with drink and kept saying, “Let’s go to your place” or “Let’s go to my place” after she had told him she wanted no physical contact. ‘Unwanted touching’ took place between ‘midnight and 1.30am’ and she felt ‘extremely uncomfortable’. The