Guardian accused of covering-up sexual harassment by star columnist

Lucy Siegle tells Andy Gregory that her experience with Guardian News and Media has ‘really shaken me to the foundations’

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After more than two decades at The Observer, prize-winning journalist and author Nick Cohen resigned in November last year with a fond farewell. Editor Paul Webster publicly hailed him a “brilliant columnist” while the publisher, Guardian News and Media, thanked him for his “long service and contribution”.

But revelations this week have led to disturbing questions for GNM – and its approach to dealing with Mr Cohen after multiple claims emerged of sexual misconduct towards female colleagues.

Allegations first began to surface in October 2021, at which point freelance journalist and BBC One Show presenter Lucy Siegle accused him on Twitter of having groped her in the office 20 years prior, when she had been a newly-recruited admin assistant at the paper.