The director of the Hay Festival has quit after the literary event’s board upheld a finding that he had bullied staff.
Peter Florence, who helped his parents 33 years ago to found the festival — described by Bill Clinton as the “Woodstock of the mind” — was on sick leave after being suspended in October.
The board said in a statement yesterday that he had resigned “with immediate effect” after they “unanimously endorsed the findings of an independent investigation and panel review that upheld an internal complaint”.
The decision to suspend Florence was said to relate to grievance proceedings, which were understood to have resulted in a formal complaint of bullying being upheld against him.
It was alleged that Florence had been involved in that incident in February last year. The decision to suspend Florence in October, however, was said to relate to separate grievance proceedings, which were understood to have resulted in a formal complaint of bullying being upheld against him.
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The festival’s board revealed yesterday that members had unanimously backed the findings of an internal complaint, supported “by more than half the Welsh festival team”.
The board said that Florence’s actions “amounted to gross misconduct” as set out in the festival’s disciplinary procedures for bullying and harassment. The statement added that the decision was reached after “a thorough and extensive process”.
The Hay board confirmed that it had begun the hunt to replace Florence after Tania Hudson, the finance director, had been leading the charity since his suspension.
Florence and his parents, Norman and Rhoda, founded the festival on the Welsh border from their kitchen table in 1988, allegedly fundinsg the first gathering from poker winnings.
Florence became known as the King of Hay and was appointed CBE in 2018 for services to arts and culture.
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He has a history of courting controversy. In 2019, as chairman of the Booker prize jury, he split the literary award between two authors.
It was reported last year that several employees at Hay had raised concerns about Florence’s behaviour.
At the same time as his suspension, Caitlin McNamara, a festival curator, waived her right to anonymity to allege that she had suffered a serious sexual assault earlier that year by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak al-Nahyan, the UAE’s minister of tolerance.
It was alleged that Florence had sent McNamara, 33, to the Gulf state to launch the festival in Abu Dhabi. Nahyan, 70, denied any wrongdoing.
It was reported that McNamara contacted Florence on the night of the alleged attack and he urged her to leave Abu Dhabi for her own safety.
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She was interviewed by detectives from Scotland Yard on her return to the UK. The festival went ahead, however. Florence flew to the UAE and shared a platform with Nahyan.
In a statement seen by The Observer, Florence said that his role had become “untenable due to the conduct of the board and its insistence on holding a disciplinary hearing in my absence whilst I was off sick after a breakdown”.
He added that “to protect my wellbeing I had no other choice but to resign”. He said: “I was not afforded the opportunity to fully address or counter the internal issues raised and the board sought to entirely isolate me from the process.” Florence said that he was taking legal advice.
This article was amended on 4 August 2021.
