University of Cambridge whistleblower who reported alleged bullying wins employment tribunal

A University of Cambridge whistleblower who alleged bullying of female staff inside the university’s Institute of Astronomy has won a tribunal against his employer.

Prof Wyn Evans told a tribunal hearing in June that the institute suffered from “a bad history of misogyny”. He claimed that one woman in the department had been “hounded out of a job”, another was “left a frightened woman”, and a third had faced “aggressive professors” at the institute.

The tribunal found that after raising concerns, Evans was “subjected to a prolonged nearly two-year investigation by the university”, even though the allegations against him “contained scant particularisation, and no evidence to support them”.

The tribunal said its job was not to “conduct a public inquiry into alleged bullying or misogyny within the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge” but concluded it was “satisfied that the claimant genuinely believed that there was a problem within the institute about the way female administrators were being treated”.

It found that Cambridge “did not even want to consider” Evans’s complaints under its whistleblowing policy, and described “an institutional mindset” that viewed the professor of astrophysics as “a source of difficulty and continuing reputational risk due to his protected disclosures which might damage the institute and the university”.

The judgment comes at a torrid time for senior leaders at Cambridge, where academics are calling for an independent inquiry into the processes and circumstances that led to Jason Arday being appointed as the university’s youngest professor. Arday, who was appointed in 2023, stepped down earlier this month amid allegations of plagiarism and embellishing his CV.

After the tribunal in Bury St Edmunds, Employment Judge Graham found serious failures in the university’s handling of complaints by Evans, with 11 of 14 alleged detriments upheld against the university or individual respondents including the vice-chancellor.

The investigation into Evans was found to be “contrary to natural justice”. The tribunal ruled it was “baseless (as nothing had been provided to support it) and it had been filed in retaliation … and was therefore likely malicious and vexatious”.

“By contrast, a number of the claimant’s detailed concerns or complaints were dismissed out of hand without a proper process,” it said.

The tribunal also concluded that senior figures at Cambridge relied on correspondence and processes prepared for them by HR or administrators.

The vice-chancellor attended the tribunal in person in June and claimed that she had drafted a response to Evans “with the assistance of” the then university registrary, Emma Rampton. The tribunal rejected Prof Deborah Prentice’s evidence. “We find that it was written solely by Ms Rampton and then presented to the vice-chancellor as a fait accompli. Professor Prentice had very little to do with it, save for putting her name to it.”

“Ghostwriting was a consistent and a concerning theme throughout this matter,” the tribunal concluded. “In one example the person being complained about drafted the response to the claimant rejecting his complaints against them.”

Evans, who last year stood to be the University of Cambridge’s chancellor on an anti-bullying manifesto, has said the tribunal judgment raised questions about the vice-chancellor’s fitness for office.

“Never rains but it pours for Cambridge,” he said. “Cambridge University has lost the whistleblowing tribunal, with vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice among the respondents found to have retaliated against a whistleblower. That comes on top of serious concerns about her leadership during the Jason Arday crisis. Taken together, these events raise a fundamental question: is Deborah Prentice actually in control of the university she is supposed to lead?”

During the hearing, Akua Reindorf KC, for the University of Cambridge, had suggested Evans’s emotional testimony in court about the suicide of a former colleague amounted to “crocodile tears”. The tribunal found “we were not persuaded that the claimant’s expressed emotion in the hearing was false or dramatised for our benefit”.

In a statement the University of Cambridge said: “We acknowledge the employment tribunal’s judgment of 10 August 2026 and are carefully reviewing it. We will now take time to reflect on the findings in detail.”

Damages in the case are due to be decided at a further hearing in January.

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.