John Allan, who stepped down as Tesco chair last week amid allegations of inappropriate behaviour, has hired law firm Schillings as looks to defend himself.
Allan was accused of touching the bottom of a senior Tesco staff member at the firm’s AGM last year and doing the same to another female member of staff at the CBI’s annual dinner in 2019, according to reports in The Guardian.
Allan denies the allegations and has hired media law firm Schillings as he considers suing the newspaper.
Schillings has asked the newspaper for details of the alleged touching incidents, which it has so far not supplied.
Allan told The Times: “I’m determined, as far as I possibly can, to prove my innocence. But I’m conscious that if you don’t know what it is precisely you’re being accused of, it’s very hard to disprove.” said Allan.
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The Guardian said: “We stand by our journalism and the people who continue to come forward to tell their stories despite the significant risks involved.”
Mr Allan said he was “flabbergasted” when first approached by The Guardian about the claims.
He said: “It didn’t feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been guilty here and I’ve been caught out’.”
Allan was asked to step down by Tesco and Barratts, the housebuilder that he also chaired, as the allegations risked becoming a distraction.
He said this accelerated his retirement plans by around six months but warned that it could have a “catastrophic” impact on careers of people much younger than him.
“I’m 74. If this happened to them at 54, it would be absolutely catastrophic. They would probably be unemployable,” he told The Times.
Allan wants to help create a process for individuals facing potentially false allegations to ensure that they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
