A fierce battle between the founder of Big Technologies and its board has gathered pace after one of the directors was voted out by shareholders.

Founder Sara Murray, who was herself ousted from the board last year following accusations of fraud and forged documents, had voted to remove all four directors who were up for re-election at the company’s AGM in the City on Tuesday.

Despite the efforts of Murray and a number of vocal supporters at the AGM, three in four directors were re-elected with around 60 per cent shareholder approval, the company confirmed on Tuesday. But one non-executive director, Camilla Macun, was voted down with a majority of 55 per cent, a result which Murray told City AM was “great news.”

“The huge disquiet of shareholders, shown in the results, makes clear it is time for the board to bring an end to this irrational strategy or to be replaced,” Murray said.

In an unprecedented move in defiance of Murray’s campaign to topple the board, the company has published a separate set of AGM voting results which showed what the votes would have been had Murray not participated.

The separate results showed a 72 per cent majority in favour of re-election for Macun, while all other resolutions would have passed with a more than 90 per cent majority without Murray’s votes, which the board said “demonstrates the underlying support from other shareholders”.

Murray has hit back at the move. “I do not understand the pointless and irrelevant presentation of results excluding my votes as I am the founder and own 25 per cent of the company and the board needs to start dealing with this reality,” Murray said.

“It is time to return this business to being the brilliant company I founded and built.”

‘Some of us are on McDonald’s wages’

The voting results follow a dramatic AGM which saw heated exchanges between Murray, Big’s board and a number of shareholders over the actions of the company since Murray was removed last year.

Murray interrogated the board’s growth strategy and accused it of wasting £2m per month on legal fees over its decision to remove her, a move which culminated in a £39m settlement to former shareholders of the company.

Big’s chair, Sangita Shah, rejected Murray’s characterisation of the firm’s spending on legal fees.

“Some of us are on McDonald’s wages, which is what we are to reduce the legal cost because we want to reduce it,” she said.

“We do not want to take action – the only action we are taking…is to try to preserve the position of the company for all its shareholders.”

This story is developing – more to follow