HR fiasco at Presidents Club dinner sparks resignation

David Meller, one of the organisers of a men-only charity dinner where hostesses were allegedly groped, has quit the Department for Education board.

The Presidents Club Charity Dinner, hosted last Thursday at the Dorchester Hotel in London, featured women working as hostesses who had to wear skimpy outfits. Some were allegedly groped by the guests.

Madison Marriage, the Financial Times reporter who worked at the event, said she was asked to sign a five-page non-disclosure agreement about the event upon arrival, and experienced “hands up skirts, hands on bums but also hands on hips, hands on stomachs, arms going round your waist unexpectedly.”

Education Minister Anne Milton told the Commons: “David Meller is stepping down as non-executive member for the Department for Education, and the apprenticeship delivery board and I know that [the Education Secretary] is clear that this is the right thing to do.”