The former director-general of business giant the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) says his reputation has been “totally destroyed” after being sacked by the powerful lobby group on April 11 over complaints of his behaviour.

In an interview with the BBC, Tony Danker, 51, took responsibility for having made some staff feel “very uncomfortable”, adding: “I apologise for that.”

Danker, who is Jewish, said he has been wrongly associated with separate claims, including rape, that allegedly occurred at CBI before he joined in November 2020. The former boss also claimed to be the “fall guy” for a larger, wide-ranging crisis engulfing the employers’ organisation.

According to Danker, his termination letter had cited four reasons for his dismissal: Sending non-work-related messages to staff on work messaging platforms; Viewing the Instagram accounts of CBI staff and asking employees to share pictures of their babies and dogs; Organising a private karaoke party for 15 people after a Christmas work event; Inviting junior staff to breakfasts, lunches or one-on-one meetings.

In a statement announcing his dismissal, CBI said Danker’s conduct had “fallen short of that expected of the director general.”

CBI president Brian McBride characterised Danker’s description of his termination letter as “selective”, and said the decision had been taken unanimously by the board on “very firm” legal ground.

“There’s more in that letter than we just talked about,” McBride said on BBC’s Today programme, but stopped short of sharing the report that led to the sacking, saying it was “a private legal matter”.

McBride added: “The board has lost its trust and confidence in his ability to lead the organisation and represent the CBI in public. If any employee of any company in the UK feels they’ve been unfairly dismissed, they can go to an employment tribunal or they can take you to High Court.”

Asked to comment on the allegations made against him, which included sending unwanted messages featuring sexually suggestive language, Danker said: “I have never used sexually suggestive language with people at the CBI. You know, there was an incident somebody raised a complaint about unwanted contact, which was verbal contact.

“There was never any physical contact. I’ve never had any physical contact. I’ve never used any sexual language. I’ve never propositioned anybody,”

Danker did admit to looking at the Instagram profiles and stories of “a very small number of CBI staff, men and women”.

He added: “The CBI already knew that some people thought that that was intrusive, and I get that,

“I get that people felt that it was wrong, that I was looking at their admittedly completely public Instagram stories.”

I recognise the intense publicity the CBI has suffered following the revelations of awful events that occurred before my time in office. I was appalled to learn about them for the first time last week...

— Tony Danker (@tonydanker) April 11, 2023

According to Danker, he had been fired for reasons that only a few weeks ago did not merit any disciplinary action.

“It’s so clear, I’ve been made the fall guy,” Danker said. “Not only did they throw me under the bus, they reversed the bus back over me.

“I want to apologise to anyone at the CBI that I made uncomfortable – that’s on me. But it was not misconduct, it was not all the terrible things that have since emerged.”

One woman told the Financial Times that she received unwanted attention from Danker while employed at the CBI, and was “extremely disappointed” by his remarks.

“He’s claiming to be the victim of CBI HR (human resources) processes that actually let down the women on the receiving end of his unwanted attention, not him.

“To pit his behaviour against the atrocious behaviour of others in order to shield himself is brazen cowardice.”

Another female former CBI employee alleged that the organisation’s culture is “toxic”, and described Danker’s decision to go public as selfish.

Three other CBI staffers have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into misconduct allegations, which includes rape at a 2019 staff party.

In the wake of the sexual misconduct scandal, CBI, which claims to represent 190,000 businesses in the UK, is at risk of being frozen out of meetings with senior politicians.

Danker has been succeeded by Rain Newton-Smith, former Chief Economist at CBI.

Danker was chair of the Union of Jewish Students from 1993 to 1994 and worked for the former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks in the mid 1990s.