“The university can no longer tolerate your behaviour and the disruption that you cause.”
“(a) TB’s misuse for his research purposes of a network primarily set up for teaching and thus extending his research project in a way which was not agreed by his supervisors. (b) The hours kept by TB preventing him interacting properly with his supervisors (he works irregular hours). (c) Refusal by TB to sign papers relating to a change of supervisory arrangements for his PHD.”
“4. At our second meeting it emerged that you had not been presenting to your supervisor batches of material that will comprise your MPhil-PhD transfer report. You stated that you need a large network to verify your protocols, but you have persistently failed to specify precisely your requirements to your supervisors. The project as originally specified by Dr Peng involved simulations only. While this now extended to include some experimental verification it was never envisaged that more than a few computers would be necessary and Dr Peng’s own advice is you [do] not want to compromise on anything. I have to say here that any research project must operate within a realistic level of resource and you appear to want to exceed those bounds. 5. Nevertheless you have been attempting to use a large teaching network set up for teaching purposes, thus extending your project in a way that is not agreed with your supervisors. Apparently you have on occasions interfered with the teaching network by reformatting and installing your own operating system, destroying data and the operating systems previously set up for teaching purposes, without getting prior permission from the staff members in charge. 6. ... 7. Your attendance pattern at the University is most unsatisfactory especially in view of the poor progress of your research. You appear never to arrive until the afternoon. On several occasions when I have visited your laboratories to try to contact you, the other occupants said that you usually come in between about 3.00-4.00 pm. These hours severely limit the time available for interaction with your research supervisors. 8. ... 9. Since Dr. Peng left, as stated earlier, you have been supervised by Dr Pervez and Professor Alford to the extent that has been possible under the conditions engendered by you as described above, however the change have not yet been submitted to the Research Degrees Committee. At our recent meeting it was agreed that Dr. Perry Xiao would be added to the team as second supervisor. Apparently you have now refused to sign formal papers on change in supervision arrangements to be submitted to the Research Degree Committee. 10. In justification of the refusal you imply that these staff are unwilling to supervise you even though they have signed the forms. It is true that they all find you very difficult to reason with as described earlier. However, the School has a professional obligation to provide the supervision, and your supervisors recognize that. They have in my opinion been patient with you well beyond the call of duty. On order for any future progress to be made there needs to be a radical change of attitude on your part including a willingness to accept advice from those having more experience than you. 11. You also imply that the staff nominated to supervise you may not meet EPSRC and University regulations regarding PhD supervision. All three have a PhD i.e. a training in research methods. Your research is being carried out in the Telecommunications Research Group and Dr Pervez, your proposed Director of Studies is the Head of the Telecommunications Division, DR Xiao is also in this division and both have extensive experience of networks. Professor Alford has supervised numerous successful PhD’s. No matter how specialised and unique you believe you work to be, this team is more than competent to offer guidance on whether your work is logically structured and follows the scientific method, and whether you are managing your time properly. They are also able to judge whether you have carried out a fully referenced literature search to establish the originality of your ideas. The word of any researcher will be beyond the knowledge of their supervisor to some extent, otherwise it would not be a new piece of work. If, however this ever becomes a problem additional advice can be sought from sources outside the School. However this does not excuse your refusal to accept the most appropriate supervisory team that the School is able to offer. 12. The advice from external sources to date is not very promising. The referee for your 10 monthly report implies that the literature search and the placement of your work in context was clearly unsatisfactory in merely being a list of some 15 references. You did not explore all the alternative research approaches to yours in dealing with the problem of latency, which is the heart of your project. 13. A second source of advice is even less promising. Professor Ian Marshall, Head of Internet Engineering at British Telecom is registered as an external collaborator. He surely is able to judge your work, no matter how specialised it may be. Therefore he did add substantially to the strength of the supervisory team. However he is no longer prepared to work with you until a number of issues have been resolved. He acknowledges that you are highly creative but that you have not learnt to adhere to the objective standards expected of a scientist. He finds your grasp of the scientific method and mores to be very weak.”
“I state that the meetings have so far not been helpful and it seems it is leading to a dispute. I ask for the code of practice regarding PhD students supervision to be looked at to help find a way forward.”
“that it would be most unhelpful to either side if you were at present to take on this supervision with these outstanding disputes”
“I feel that it would be unfair and unproductive of either myself and Bryan Bridge to coerce you into doing something which you do not feel willing or able to do. The situation at present is that although it is possible that you will take up the supervision, it has not been agreed or formalised, and in my view it would be unlikely due to university regulations.”
“As you have been my acting supervisor (formal or informal) since [Dr Peng] left I feel that if true that this would constitute a serious breach of trust with me and a serious breach of your duties and responsibilities with the University.”
“I will certainly not be willing to discuss or to have discussed ‘assessment’, as assessment is not the role of a supervisor.”
“There were a number of procedural items which were not resolved at the previous meeting. I did explain that this would need to be decided before the meeting actually began, and I thought that there was general agreement on this. In the interest of expediency I hope we can all agree on the following so that we can move onto the actual items of the agenda. Minutes: We have agreed that minutes will be taken. We were not able, however, to agree on what would constitute ‘minutes’. As we spent a considerable amount of time discussing what would constitute ‘minutes’ I would like to resolve this in advance. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: Minutes: “the official record of the proceedings of a meeting”
“the official record of the proceedings of a meeting”
“A research progress meeting was called by the research supervisory team on1 August 2001 at 10:00am. Dr Pervez opened the meeting by stating that the purpose of the meeting was to ensure Mr Bangert’s transfer form MPhil to PhD, and as Mr Bangert ahs been studying for almost two years now, the transfer should not be delayed any further. Dr Pervez asked Mr Bangert to present his written material for discussion (Mr Bangert was asked to bring such material in the invitation memo (attached). Mr Bangert refused to take part in any such discussions on the following grounds. 1. The invitation memo does not have the word ‘Agenda’, and therefore he does not accept the three items in the memo to be the agenda of this meeting. 2. The words ‘assessment of his progress’ are unacceptable to him. The job of supervisors, in his opinion, is not to assess but to advise. 3. He was not asked in advance to include his own agenda items. 4. He emailed Dr Pervez his list of issues (also attached) for discussion which have not been included as agenda items. 5. He then declared that Dr Pervez as the Chair of the meeting was unacceptable to him on the grounds that Mr Bangert did not accept the supervisory team by not signing the ‘supervisor transfer’ form and, as a result, Dr Pervez was not his Director of Studies. 6. He then said that Prof. Alford being the most senior person present would be acceptable to him as the Chair. Despite the fact that this was an inappropriate behaviour of Mr Bangert, and there was every justification to terminate the meeting, Dr Pervez requested Prof Alford to take the Chair in the hope that some progress might be made. While Prof. Alford Chairing [sic] the meeting, Mr Bangert was repeatedly asked by Prof. Alford, Dr Pervez and Dr Xiao to direct his attention to MPhil transfer process Mr Bangert was unwilling to do this as the items he wished to discuss were not on the agenda. Consequently the meeting was closed at 11:00am with the outcomes: 1. The next meeting is to be held on 8 August at 11:00am. 2. The word ‘agenda’ will appear on the memo. 3. The word ‘assess’ will not be used in the memo. 4. The three items proposed for this meeting will be discussed first in the next meeting. 5. His list of issues will be put as agenda items to be discussed but only after the three items proposed by the supervisory team have been thoroughly discussed.”
“A research progress meeting was called by the research supervisory team on8 August 2001 at 11:00am. The meeting was Chaired by Prof. Alford as the proposed supervisory team has not been accepted by Mr Bangert. He, however, agreed for Prof. Alford to Chair the meeting. The supervisory team waited for around 15 minutes for Mr Bangert to arrive. On arrival, he immediately objected to Dr Xiao’s presence. Mr Bangert had sent an email to Dr Xiao (copied to Prof Alford and Dr Pervez) on the previous evening stating that he does not wish Dr Xiao to be involved in the supervisory team. Prof Alford insisted that he as the Chair wishes Dr Xiao to stay. Mr Bangert’s reply was that if Dr Xiao stayed then Mr Bangert would not take part in the meeting and would consider the meeting terminated. At this point, Prof. Alford, most reluctantly, asked Dr Xiao to leave, primarily to prevent the termination of the meeting. However, Prof. Alford did warn Mr Bangert that this behaviour of his would have a negative effect on his future progress. Dr Xiao left the meeting at around 11:35. Mr Bangert then started his discussion by explaining to the Chair, how the minutes are taken in a meeting. Prof Alford eventually stopped him by saying that he knows very well how the minutes are taken. After arguing for a further few minutes, it was finally agreed that the Chair would have the right to record whatever was necessary. The next item of contention was the length of MPhil transfer report. Prof. Alford advised Mr Bangert that he should write the transfer report with PhD in mind so that the underlying original work is clearly identified. Furthermore, he should not worry too much about the length of the report. Mr Bangert did not seem very happy with this advice and insisted that Prof. Alford should give him a guarantee that the length of the report would not result in any penalty. Prof. Alford then said that he was trying to give Mr Bangert a friendly advice. At this point Mr Bangert stated that he did not want friendly advice from Prof. Alford, he wanted his assurance that exceeding the length would not incur a penalty. The meeting ended with the following outcomes: 1. Mr Bangert does not want Dr Xiao to be involved in the supervisory team. 2. The content pages for the MPhil transfer report were received by the Chair. 3. Other information received includes: i) 10 month report ii) A report on source routing for WAN iii) Some material on Switched IP protocol iv) Some general information is available on the Web site used for a presentation. 4. Prof. Alford advised Mr Bangert that should that should the length of the transfer report exceed the recommended 6000 words, no penalty would result. 5. Prof Alford agreed to review the ‘Introduction’ given on pages 1-6 of the 10 month report, and make comments. 6. The next meeting will be held on16 August 2001 , at 10:00am in Prof. Alford’s office.”
“The third research progress meeting was called by the research supervisory team on16 August 2001 at 10:00am. The meeting was Chaired by Prof. Alford. Mr Bangert arrived at 10:08. He wished the team to review minutes of the previous meeting as he disagreed with the wording of the minutes. For example: ‘Mr Bangert does not want Dr Xiao to be involved in the supervisory team’ (the original text of the minutes). Mr Bangert wanted it to be changed to ‘Mr Bangert felt that Dr Xiao’s presence was inappropriate’. (Please see the attached two versions of the minutes). It took around half an hour to reword the minutes. The next item that he wished to be discussed was to review the feedback from Prof. Alford on page 1-6 of his 10 month report. He read Prof. Alford’s comments (sent to him previously) and said that he was thankful to the Prof for reading the pages, however, he found the comments made to be very ‘pedestrian’. The supervisory team felt that remark was unhelpful and displayed an ignorance of what was required in the introduction to a PhD thesis. Prof I Marshall, BT Internet research has also commented on similarly unhelpful remarks. Mr Bangert then asked Dr Pervez to review the same 1-6 pages of his 10 month report and yet in the first meeting Mr Bangert refused to accept Dr Pervez as the Chair (and hence the Director of study) on the grounds that Mr Bangert did not sign the supervisor transfer form and therefore Dr Pervez could not be his Director of study and also, according to Mr Bangert, there was a dispute between him and Dr Pervez (this is an agenda item provided by Mr Bangert that he wishes to be discussed in research progress meetings). Dr Pervez pointed out that this was not the time to review the 10 month report which was completed over a year ago. The supervisory team would like to see his progress since the 10 month report as the purpose of these meetings is to advise Mr Bangert on MPhil transfer. In his opinion, Dr Pervez said, after a period of almost two years a MPhil/PhD student is expected to present a comprehensive report giving he essence of his/her PhD work. Mr Bangert did not respond to this observation. The meeting ended at 11.04 with the following outcomes. 1. Mr Bangert is going on holidays the date for the next meeting will be agreed on his return.”
“The meeting confirmed my view that Mr Bangert does not seem able to focus on bringing the PhD to completion. He will not reason with his supervisors at all and his approach is always highly confrontational. He has refused to sign the SBU change of supervisor form (after Dr Peng’s departure) as he feels that the supervisory team is not capable of supervising his work. This is not the case. There appears to be no progress beyond the 10-month report. Finally, when I was asked to become a member of the supervisory team I accepted, fully believing that my experience as a PhD supervisor and as a PhD examiner would be of help. I am now convinced that Mr Bangert is not capable of receiving criticism about his work and is unwilling to take steps to make progress. I can see no evidence of work on the PhD since his 10 month report, despite the fact that the supervisory team has requested evidence that progress towards the transfer course report be presented.”
“Concerning your recent, memorandum of September on this matter I am writing to state that I am not prepared to enter into any more correspondence on the matter. Your supervisory team fully meet the criteria of the Research Degrees Committee. As for your request for an External Supervisor to be appointed I would point out that there is already an external member of your supervisory team who has been approved by the Research Degrees Committee. He is Professor Ian Marshall, Head of Internet Research at BT research Laboratories, Martelsham. You had regular meetings with him and he has complained to me (as you knew from previous correspondence) about your rudeness and lack of progress. I see no reason why I should expose any other external person to you unacceptable behaviour.”
“Prof. Bryan Bridge states that ‘Professor’ Ian Marshall ‘Head of Internet Research’ at BT labs is already a member of my supervisory team. Ian Marshall has not been proposed by Professor Bridge as an external supervisor: his name does not appear on the transfer of supervision document. Ian Marshall has never had any involvement in the supervision of my PhD research and neither has there been any proposal to include Ian Marshall in the supervision of my PhD research. I do have a very limited personal relationship with Ian Marshall: I have visited the BT labs once, he has visited me very briefly on one occasion here at the University and we have had personal correspondence via email. I would never discuss my research work with Ian Marshall (he made it quite clear to me that my area of research was not related to his work and that he did not have any interest in it) and my research work was not one of the topics of our personal email correspondence. I have had no meeting with Ian Marshall at all, there are no records of any such meetings, and I have had no contact with Ian Marshall of any kind for more than one year.”
“I have known Mr Bangert for about one and a half years in my capacity as Telecoms Group Leader as well as his teaching mentor. I found him an intelligent and conscientious person, however he has two serious problems, a) he is completely unable to interact with other people, and b) does not take much notice in general, of advice given to him. This inability of his often results in a great deal of bitterness and misunderstanding between himself and others that he is interacting with.”
“His interaction with the technical staff in Telecommunications laboratories has been particularly very unpleasant. There is an ongoing quarrel between himself and the laboratory technicians. This is a problem that we are currently trying to resolve by limiting his access to all teaching laboratories.”
“In all these meetings Mr Bangert kept going in circles without giving any constructive or informative output. It has been very difficult for me as well as Prof. N. Alford to get any meaningful information from Mr Bangert over the past few months.”
“Unfortunately after a number of meetings between Mr Thomas, Dr Peng and Prof. Marshall, it became clear to Prof Marshall that the discussion meeting with Mr Thomas was a complete waste of his time and he, with regret, withdrew from any more meetings with Mr Bangert.”
“I have known PhD student Thomas Bangert for about two years, but I don’t have a lot of contact with him. Since last summer, he has been using the computer facilities in room T517, which are meant to be the teaching facilities, for his PhD study purpose. Because of his way of computer settings, the lab sessions (also run in T517 using the same computer facilities) for my two units, “Internet Technologies” and “Internet Protocols and Technologies”, have been severely affected. Therefore I would very much like to keep the computer facilities in room T517 for teaching purpose only, or at least teaching should have the first priority.”
“He moves teaching equipment around in the lab and has recently gone overboard with one of the computers by re formatting and installing his own operating system, destroying data in the operating systems previously set up for teaching purposes without seeking prior permission from any staff. The laboratory area he uses is left in a mess and he constantly breaks Health and Safety regulations by eating and drinking near electrical computer equipment even though there are signs posted in the lab to indicate the prohibition of this.”
“I must also point out that my research work has already been delayed by 2 months because Mr. Nigrin ignored repeated requests to return this equipment (my own equipment which I lent out for educational use). Now I must spend valuable time (which I should be spending on my research work) to prove that I have been a victim of a crude street corner con trick. I have made this clear on several occasions that only a small fraction of my equipment had been returned (as well as my own equipment being passed off as LRC equipment and a number of other simple tricks), yet no steps have been taken by my management. This is not a complex issue. It concerns equipment which indisputably belongs to me and which indisputably should be returned to me. What has happened is clearly a disciplinary issue; and with disciplinary issues it is extremely important that management take immediate action. If disciplinary steps are not taken this then legitimises the behaviour; acting as tacit approval of the behaviour. University regulations in these matters are quite clear: management has the duty (once informed) to investigate the issue and to take disciplinary measures if wrongdoing is found. This has not happened in my case. As a consequence (and inline with the theory), the amount of wrongdoing has increased to such a degree as to make progress in my PhD research practically impossible.”
“There is strong evidence that Kate made this complaint as a retaliation against me on the basis of the grievance against Dave. Retaliation is strictly prohibited and is a serious disciplinary offence under the grievance procedures.”
“The timing of events on the 19th July seems to be significant to Mr Bangert. Just to clarify that I made my written complaint to you much earlier that day. In fact I had written it several days before, but decided to handed to you and the 19th was the first day on which you were available to see me. …”
“After first meeting Thomas we had a protracted exchange of e-mail, during which I was attempting to get him to explain and focus his ideas. His proposal at the time was to demonstrate some form of learning algorithm he claimed to have invented. His discourse was confused, rambling, contradictory, aggressive and at times very insulting. I tolerated this in order to get to the bottom of his claims. Eventually I concluded that there were no new practical ideas – the ideas had either been implemented before (e.g. by Steve Grossberg), or involved attempting to do non-Turing computation on a von-neumann machine (an obvious impossibility once the work was phrased in these terms). Thomas must have realised this too as shortly afterwards he radically revised the topic of his Phd. At this stage it was clear that Thomas’ grasp of scientific method and mores was very weak. In addition, training him to do anything that would be respected by other academic scientists would be extremely hard. In particular Thomas displayed an inability to accurately interpret written material or dialogue, and an overwhelming urge to make 2 + 2 = 5. I have never met anyone who can so reliably get hold of the wrong end of the stick. I have to say the intelluctual structures he builds on his misconceptions are often very creative, but having built them he does not want to be told his assumptions are erroneous, and he will consistently ignore contrary data in order to defend them. As a result one has to tell him things somewhat obliquely and hope for the best. His unique approach is likely a result of his unusual background, and could potentially be turned to advantage, but unfortunately this is likely to be a very time consuming and disruptive process. His inability to listen is clearly a major barrier. Thomas wrote a paper for the PGnet conference describing his new approach – experts in the audience told him that his work was built on wrong thinking, he claimed he knew better, and the audience (included some top UK experts) formed unfavourable opinions of both Thomas and his supervision. (they are unlikely to accept further work by Thomas, or even read it). At my next (and thus far, final) meeting with Thomas we discussed this work. I attempted to point out the points where his argument was flawed in some detail (more than could be achieved at the conference by my colleagues). The meeting however did not help – Thomas had one (unreviewed) article written by sales staff for an equipment vendor that apparently supported his view, and justified in his mind the rejection of advice from any other source. Quoting reviewed papers, standards and expert consensus apparently counted for nothing other than proving you knew less than Thomas, who had found the one true source. My conclusion is that Thomas is a highly creative (but poorly socialised) individual, who has no chance whatsoever of learning and adhering to the objective standards expected of a scientist. He would be best advised to follow an alternative career path – perhaps creative arts would suit him well.”
“1. Communication with Mr Bangert of any sort, or any forms which he would have had sight of, setting out the details of his supervisory team including the external adviser, Professor Ian Marshall. I would appreciate having copies of anything which would make it clear to Mr Bangert who the team was both before and after the departure of Dr Peng. 2. Communication with Mr Bangert over the extent of the Schools arrangement with him to develop “The Teaching Network” for the School. Exactly what was he asked to do, what was the remit of his responsibility? Was any agreement reached about whether he would be separately remunerated for this, or was some other arrangement reached?”
“a relevant piece of research student training, given that his PhD project is about network protocols.”
“Dr Pervez then states that Mr Bangert took his involvement in the network to excess, well beyond the teaching requirements, so causing gross disruption.”
“But through his behaviour Mr Bangert has made no progress and while this behaviour continues he is incapable of satisfying the requirements of a PhD. This behaviour includes unacceptable rudeness to School Staff especially Dr Pervez and, gross time wasting. There is no more that the School can do for him.”
“There is no suggestion that further equipment will be purchased or required for Mr Bangert’s project. It was therefore reasonable to assume that the project was submitted to the research committee for approval on the basis that the equipment specified in the 10-month report was adequate for Mr Bangert’s research. The existing laboratory computing resource has always been available and is still available to Mr Bangert. In fact the group has significantly modernised its computing facility over the past year or so. Mr Bangert has had access to equipment which is much more up to date compared with that specified in his 10-month report.”
“I agree that [the claimant] would be allowed to use the facility for his research but only when there were no teaching activities in progress. I strongly emphasise that teaching activities would always have the first priority. This was the basis of our collaboration. Thus, his involvement was purely on the basis of learning, gaining experience, and improving his chance of success for the PhD.”
“… Mr Bangert extended Network Development well beyond out teaching requirements and tailored it to suit his research. We allowed this to happen only in the spirit of supporting his PhD. As a result, the teaching staff (Dr P Xiao and Y Bao) had to develop a parallel experimental facility for teaching. We even duplicated the hard drives (incurring an extra cost) to ensure that Mr Bangert’s Network is unaffected by the teaching experiments. I believe we have given Mr Bangert every possible support but he seems to have no intention to progress with his PhD work..”
“I have been using a large teaching network for my research, without the agreement of my supervisors”
“I have extended my project in a way which was not agreed with my supervisors”
“Last year I was asked by the Director of the area, Anjum Pervez to set up a teaching network so, I mean, there is a lot of documentary evidence for that.”
“And I made a formal agreement with the Head of school that, if I did this work, that, number one I would be paid for this work for, teaching work… because for some reason the school couldn’t pay consulting….you know I did a lot of work for, this, four months’ work.”
“And the other thing is that I specifically asked and clarified that this teaching network could also be available for research use. Not just for me but for any researcher in the area. So, and the agreement was that when, when the network is not available, when the network is not used for teaching purposes, that is available for research use.”
“RF is of the opinion that it cannot be said that TB does not have a supervisor. Even if TB were entitled to refuse accept DR Xiao, there are two other members of his supervisory team whom he could have asked for permission to extend his research as indicated by his use of the teaching network.”
“What I have meant by the term ‘supervision’, ‘supervisor’ and specifically by the phrase ‘I do not have a supervisor’ is ‘primary supervisor’. At SBU secondary and third supervisors generally do not have any involvement in the practical and guiding work of advising a PHD student in his research. Dr Farwell misrepresents my use of the word supervisor in her report by making the assumption that I was making the claim of having neither primary, secondary nor third supervision. My written statement could give the impression that I did not have any supervision at all, which while true in practice due to the fact that at SBU second and third supervisors were generally assigned on paper as a matter of course, neglected what I had technically agreed to in the application. The fact that Dr. Pervez and Prof. Alford were second and third supervisor and that they were currently attempting to resolve the issue of supervision was made clear during the interview and accepted by Dr Farwell, but was not recorded in the minutes and was later ignored by Dr Farwell. Dr Farwell also ignores the fact that Dr Pervez, Prof. Alford, and Dr Xiao had refused to supervise me.”
“- my attendance is unsatisfactory (I appear to come in to the office only in the afternoon) no evidence of attendance, merely personal anecdotes Prof. Bridge has never come to see me as a student, therefore even personal anecdotes would not be valid No reference to attendance requirements for research students is given I am here almost every day, including holidays & weekends. [refer to security log for holiday and weekend attendance] Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issued before. - my attendance limits research supervision I do not at present have a supervisor. The University has failed to appoint a supervisor for my research work for almost a year. Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issue before. - There has been poor progress in my research Untrue [documentary evidence available, statements from leading academics available on request] Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issue before.” no evidence of attendance, merely personal anecdotes Prof. Bridge has never come to see me as a student, therefore even personal anecdotes would not be valid No reference to attendance requirements for research students is given I am here almost every day, including holidays & weekends. [refer to security log for holiday and weekend attendance] Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issued before. I do not at present have a supervisor. The University has failed to appoint a supervisor for my research work for almost a year. Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issue before. Untrue [documentary evidence available, statements from leading academics available on request] Neither Prof. Bridge nor my previous supervisor has raised this issue before.”
“TB: No. I’m saying, my point is that if the research student say doesn’t show up or doesn’t do his work then it is up to the supervisor to query that and first tell the student informally that “you are not doing, you should be attending more, you should be doing more work” and if the student then doesn’t do that then it’s up to the supervisor to raise that formally. But in this case there was no supervisor to raise this formally. So, I’m querying why this is an issue. RF: So what you are basically saying is that you have never been challenged on it before. TB: I’ve never been challenged on it before and / RF: maybe because there wasn’t anybody to challenge you. TB: No, my previous supervisor never challenged this… I would like to cover attendance in more detail. Not just on supervision. RF: I’m happy with what you have written down here. TB: I would like to add something. RF: Can I ask you to be brief. TB: Yep. What I would like to add, again, is that this allegation is again so ridiculous and untrue … so untrue and ridiculous that its only basis can be malicious intent. RF: Can I / TB If you can let me finish my point. …. So …its true that I might have come in at 4 o’clock occasionally but it is also true that if I come in at 4 o’clock that I might stay till 12 o’clock at night. So, if you look at … the primarily point here is that if you look at my output … my output is so high, and so much higher than other PhD students, both on the academic and work side, that … and all this documentation is available, you know there is tons of work related material that I have put on the web site, in addition to all the academic work that I have done, papers that I have written / RF: Can I just say … I don’t think there is any, certainly to my mind anyway, any concern or doubt about your output or work. The issue which I think we actually teased out is to do with your hours of attendance [that] limit your interaction with your supervisor. I think what you have told me is that “you don’t have a supervisor” in your eyes. So I mean as I say its not an issue about how many hours you put in, its when you are in, and whether that potentially might limit your scope to interact with your supervisors. So I think you have actually addressed that. …. Can I also say something about your general statement about … which gets back to yor general introduction that some of these things are so ridiculous that they could only be prompted by malice. … we may have that as a statement up front which is on the record and I am willing to accept that you think that some of these paragraphs ar more ridiculous than others in that context. If you could just say, you don’t have to rehearse the whole thing again, when we get to a paragraph you think is particularly ridiculous just flag it for us, ok. TB: I think this one is particularly ridiculous. RF: That is noted. TB: But with respect to other members of staff I would just like to add that … most, I would say most of the other members of staff, particularly Anjum Pervez, keeps pretty much the same hours as I do. The technician that I work with, Alan Nigrin, and Anjum Pervez the director of the area and who presumably was my second supervisor previously both keep reasonably similar hours than what I have been reported to keep. And it is my view that these are reasonable hours for an academic. …And as a PhD student I am not required to keep 9 to 5 hours, and as an academic member of staff I’m not required to keep 9 to 5 hours as well. And I should add that I have never missed any of my classes or never missed any meetings. So my punctuality is unblemished.”
“It is a matter of opinion whether or not the hours that TB have worked have prevented him from interacting properly with his supervisors and thereby obstructed research. TB explanation includes once again that he has no supervisor. Presumably, the implications being that if he has supervisor, he has no one to interact with and therefore that it does not matter what hours he works. For the reasons set out above [paragraph 5.4.6] RF does not believe that this argument can be sustained.”
“that it is my suspicion and strong view that Anjum Pervez clearly does not meet the requirements for primary supervision.”
“TB has refused to cooperate with the addition of Dr Xiao to his supervisory team. This has resulted in gross disruption to the work of the School and to the work of those involved, in particular the supervisory team and the Head of School. The extent of the disruption is also evident in TB’s own work. He has not made any progress on his research since his ten month report (signed off by the faculty on24 August 2000 ). No progress has been made by TB despite attempts by the staff in the school to support TB and to advise him how to move forward with his research. This is evident in notes of the research progress meetings and through recent meetings with Professor Bob Imhof, Research Degrees Coordinator in the School. The EPSRC had also accepted that time is being lost by TB in so far as his PHD research is concerned and as a result offered to put his studentship in abeyance. They stated in a letter dated27 September 2001 from Mrs GS Stephens, Student Awards Manager that “it is clear from correspondence from Thomas, and conversations with Professor Neil Alford that the situation is taking up a considerable amount of time for all parties involved.”” “it is clear from correspondence from Thomas, and conversations with Professor Neil Alford that the situation is taking up a considerable amount of time for all parties involved.””
“ that TB’s behaviour and attitude towards his supervisory team amounts to his being deliberately obstructive.”
“telecomms.sbu.ac.uk/~tb/opinion/Terrorist.html. The letters “sbu.ac.uk” identifies the South Bank University. “Telecomms” refers to the research group headed by Dr Pervez. The claimant had been appointed the administrator or had assumed the role. To help me understand the claimant’s role, Mr Hyams drew my attention to the following exchange during a meeting on 19 June with Professor Alford and Dr Pervez when a number of “problems” being raised by the claimant were discussed (claimant’s bundle 226): “Problem: (Thomas) I have been doing (informally) the job of system administrator and academic responsible for the lab internet. This work involves fixing daily problems that occur, advising students on the use of the network and upgrading and/or maintaining software. This work has been extremely difficult due to a significant amount of obstruction by Alan Nigrin. If I am to continue in this role I need to have this role made more formal and to establish a protocol so as to avoid conflict of responsibilities with Alan Nigrin. Response: (Anjim) We can remove you from this responsibility straight away.”
“I am writing to inform you that it has been brought to my attention that you have been using the South Bank University to publish material expressing your own opinion on a matter outside the normal business of South Bank University. I refer specifically to the webpage with addresses: [address supplied]. The publication of this material is a breach of the University’s Code of Practice for Web Authors and also the legal requirements for web authors. I have instructed the head of Computer Services Department to suspend your access to all computer services until further notice and also to delete your website with address: [address supplied] Your failure to observe the University’s Code of Practice for Web Authors is a further breach of the Student Discipline Procedure, which we will discuss at your interview under the Procedure which has already been set for Friday 4 October.”
“I am writing further to my letter to you of 28 September. In particular, I am writing to detail allegations against you under the Student Discipline Procedure. The allegations set out below are in addition to those in my letter of14 August 2001 . The further allegations against you are that the publications of the material on the web page (address supplied) has contravened a number of rules (se Legal Requirements for Web Authors and the Code of Practice for Web Authors, attached):- i. The use of the website was not for bona fide educational use. No authorisation had been given for other use and therefore you did not have requisite permission to publish the piece. ii. The piece contained political and religious views outside of normal South Bank University business. You had therefore misused and made unauthorised use of University computers and networks, which is a breach of the Student Discipline Procedure (see paragraph 1.4 of that Procedure). The piece is also potentially offensive and therefore likely to be detrimental to the University’s relationship with the community (see also paragraphs 1.8 and 1.13 of the Procedure). In setting out these allegations, I would also wish to state that South Bank University respects your right to your own political opinions and your right to express those opinions. The University could not and would not seek to restrict your right to express your opinions outside the normal South Bank University environment. However, the University needs to balance your right of self-expression against the need to ensure that staff and other students are not offended or distressed, and the need to ensue that teaching and learning are not disrupted in any way. Expression of your political opinions is not a necessary part of your work at the University. The University does not, therefore, consent to its property being used as a forum for you to advance and publish these opinions. The reason for this is not because the University objects to those opinions, but the University takes the view that it is reasonable foreseeable that students and staff will be distressed and upset by your views and this will lead to unnecessary disruption of teaching, learning and administration.”
“i. Scholarly criticism of statements commonly found in the media re. WTC incident ii. Individuals who planned & executed WTC incident are educated and intelligent – established fact iii. Individuals who planned & executed WTC are of a sound mind – proof provided. iv. Religion is at best a minor factor – evidence provided. v. Motivational factors. Historical factors. Established statements of fact. vi. Heroism: Heroes or Villains – it depends? vii. Misguided Heroes? viii. Respect for national self determination –one of the objectives of the UN ix. Examples of American & European abuse of power. Factual Cases (indisputed). x. What to do? a. Self-Criticism – well established as a good thing. b. Objective & representative global institutions – one of the stated objective of UN” a. Self-Criticism – well established as a good thing. b. Objective & representative global institutions – one of the stated objective of UN”
“TB’s lack of judgment about whether the piece was offensive was evident in his interview with RF on 12 October. See the attached notes.”
“has engaged in gross misconduct by: a) repeatedly obstructing the business of the university; b) publishing the opinion piece on the web; c) misusing his EPSRC studentship and spending his time on other matters as opposed to legitimate research.”
“A student complaint about the behaviour of Bryan Bridge was not investigated, even though it had been submitted to the Dean. It was completely ignored with no reply of any kind. This is a breach of University Policy and Procedure. A Memorandum produced by Bryan Bridge [dated 27.07.2001] was produced within a week of a complaint I raised about the behaviour of Bryan Bridge in a meeting on 23.07.2001. Given point 3, it follows necessarily that the allegations made by Bryan Bridge were made in retaliation to complaints raised about his behaviour. As the Memorandum makes direct reference to the complaints raised, it may be seen as a reply to the complaint. As such it is in breach of University Policy, being specifically prohibited. Failing to investigate complaints and retaliating on the basis of complaints made is also a breach of natural justice.”
“I have verbal reports from witnesses and evidence in the transcripts of research progress meetings that state Bryan Bridge asked members of staff in the School to present incriminating evidence on me in the week of 23.07.2001.”
“… he called members of staff to solicit allegations of breaches.”
“As part of my employment as a lecturer I was put under pressure to ‘fix grades’. I refused and the matter eventually led to a formal complaint under University bullying procedures. The complaint was initially heard by Prof. Bridge, who to my astonishment threatened me in a crude and direct way with termination and expulsion as a research student if I pursued the complaint. On this basis I made a further complaint against Prof. Bridge both as a student and staff complaint. Immediately after I raised this further complaint, I was informed informally that Prof. Bridge had contacted any member of staff who I had worked with to request ‘dirt’: any information that could be used to criticise my work.”
“In my view it is at least arguable that these allegations [grade fixing] ought to have been investigated as part of the disciplinary proceedings against the claimant. If there was any force in them it could, as Dr Farwell appears to recognise, have affected her investigations. The fact that she was aware of the allegations is not the same as knowing whether or not they were justified. Accordingly in my judgment there is some force in this ground; it is at least arguable.”
“Further, or alternatively, the defendant acted irrationally in failing to investigate the claimant’s allegations that Professor Bridge had been so wrongly motivated, before determining whether the complaints against the claimant as a PHD student were well founded.”
“It seems to be at least arguable that fairness dictated that if, as Dr Farwell accepted, the claimant had not seen her before she should have made it quite clear to him that she was going to consider them and that before doing so he should, if he desired, take the opportunity of making a response to the contents of those minutes. I think it is arguable that by simply telling him generally that he had the right to submit further representations without making specific reference to these minutes, that was not sufficient to draw his attention to the importance which he might subsequently attach to those minutes.”
“The defendant acted unfairly when Dr Farwell… failed to indicate in clear terms to the claimant that she was proposing to rely upon the “minutes” produced following meetings between the claimant and 1) Professor Alford and 2) Dr Pervez and 3) Dr Xiao on1 August 2001 ,8 August 2001 and16 August 2001 and accordingly failed to give him a proper opportunity to respond to the allegations made in those minutes.”
“The minutes refer to meetings held between Prof. Neil Alford, Dr. Anjum Pervez and myself. These meetings did take place, and their purpose was to discuss supervision of my research work. It was agreed by all parties that the meetings would be official meetings and that they should be formal in nature, and therefore would be minuted. Minutes are a true record of a meeting, to which all parties must agree. Outside of an official meeting, no reference may be made to proceedings that do not form part of the true record. This specific point was made, and was agreed to by all parties. Minutes of all but the last of the meetings were actually taken, produced, and sent to all parties. The minutes were taken and produced by Dr. Pervez (although Dr. Pervez has failed to produce the minutes for the last meeting, even after repeated requests for him to distribute them). These minutes are available as part of the record, and it must be noted that the work ‘minutes’ is used as the title. Copies of the minutes were sent to me, and I did have the opportunity to correct them. Copies of the false minutes were not sent to me, and I was not informed of their existence by any of the parties. These false minutes also do not accurately reflect the proceedings of the meetings. There are deliberate falsifications, fabrications and deliberate omissions.”
“Copies of the false minutes were not sent to me, and I was not informed of their existence by any of the parties.”
“I have also recently been made aware of a transcript of the actual meetings. The transcripts provide conclusive evidence that the false minutes are a deliberate falsification of the proceedings. These transcripts are not a part of the official record, but copies may be provided on request.”
“I have also recently been made aware of a transcript of the actual meetings”, I do not know. The letter goes on: “These false minutes were not available to me at the time of the disciplinary interview. If they had been available at the time of the disciplinary interview, I would have had the opportunity to show that they were false and improper, and that this clearly would have demonstrably affected the outcome of the disciplinary interview. The basis of the case against me is that I have disrupted the functioning of the University by not accepting the supervisors nominated by the University. These minutes show that the members of staff nominated to supervise me held meetings with me not to discuss the supervision of my research work but rather to gather incriminating evidence for the purpose of supporting a recommendation for disciplinary measures. When these members of staff failed to find anything incriminating in the content of the actual meeting, they simply invented it.”
“These false minutes were not available to me at the time of the disciplinary interview.”
“Workplace Harassment on MscPrep Introduction to Programming Unit”
“On 27.11.2000 you sent me the following email: ‘If you are unwilling to do this then please say so immediately- you need not ATTEND [my emphasis] any further classes and another member of staff will teach the remainder of the unit.’ I must insist that we pay close attention to the word “Attend”
“However the lecturer decided to follow his own assessment profile of two mini tests and six assignments. This as can be expected put considerable strain on the students who were far from happy making their feelings felt to me as Unit Co-Coordinator, the Course Director and ultimately the Head of Department. As a result of this horrendous over assessment it was decided to take the best mini test mark and the best assignment mark and combine them with the mini test weighted at 40% and the assignment weighted at 60%. This assessment profile resulted in 14 out of the 17 students passing and 3 failing. These three students failed to completed the course. All work, both assignment and mini test was submitted by email and is proving difficult to obtain copies from the lecturer concerned.”
“I sent an email to Dave Protheroe on Wednesday November 29 2000 – 1.02am and cc’d to you regarding work placement. As we have had a number of meetings both formal and informal prior to this and that I have made my position reasonably clear on a number of occasions I felt at the time that we had exhausted stage 1 of the grievance procedures. This email should have been taken as stage 2 in the grievance procedure. As I had no response to this email, by definition the matter remains unresolved, and consequently both stages 1 and 2 of the grievance procedure have been exhausted. I sent an email to you directly (Friday January 26 2001 – 12.10pm) as required by stage 3 of the grievance procedure. I noted that I have no response to this email (as of 9.07.2001). As the grievance procedure makes no allowance for this I am forced to reiterate my position that I wish to formally invoke the grievance procedure (policy and procedure for dealing with complaints of bullying) at stage 3.”
“Your email below was sent while I was away for one week on business. I do not regard communication by email as constituting a proper written part of activities under the Grievance Procedure. I would count it as informal discussion and there have been many informal oral discussions between myself, yourself and other staff members. There has also been one formal written memorandum to you from myself concerning assessment procedures. Therefore I believe that we are at the end of stage 1, but no further, and if you wish to proceed to stage 2 please request in writing (a hard copy not please formally addressed to me and not an email) a personal interview with myself as Head of School.”
“Your allegations of harassment are unfounded. They are unfounded to such a degree that I consider the allegations to be vexatious and suggest to the employment relations officer to whom this report is copied that the University procedure should be reviewed. There is also, in my view, a prima facie case that you have been harassing a number of staff by sending them large volumes of unnecessary emails, although these staff have not alleged harassment officially. As a part-time lecturer you have consistently acted in a way contrary to School/University policy in a number of areas. As such you have ignored the reasonable instructions of the Head of the School. If you had still been working to a part-time teacher contract at this time I would have invoked the Staff Disciplinary Procedure. It is my recommendation to the Dean that you should not be permitted to teach again in SBU and that your email account should be immediately suspended.”
“The basis of your case is that Dr Protheroe had no right to intervene in your teaching activities because your teaching was good. Therefore his intervention constituted harassment. However Dr Protheroe had every right to intervene regardless of your teaching if, in good faith, he believed it was causing problems with students. I am in no doubt that he acted at all times in good faith and in a courteous manner, both orally and in writing. I include the statement “courteous manner” even though you have not actually questioned his manner but simply his right to intervene at all. The reason he had the right to intervene in good faith is because he is the Tutor of the course on which you taught. In that capacity by delegated authority from myself he had supervisory responsibilities towards you as a part-time hourly paid lecturer. If, however, I had accepted your premise that good teaching does not warrant intervention on any account your allegations of harassment would still have been unfounded. They would have been unfounded because there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that your teaching was very poor. There is also overwhelming evidence that your behaviour as a part-time lecturer was unprofessional in contrary to School/University policy in a number of areas. This provided another ground for Dr Protheroe (and other staff) to intervene.”
“At the hearing it was clear that none of your witnesses were aware that they were there to support case against Dr Protheroe. They appeared to believed they were there to defend your teaching per se.”
“Your allegation of harassment has also to be seen in the context that you have persistently ignored the advice of several other staff, not just Dr Protheroe, all of them in positions of much greater teaching experience than yourself. They had been in positions of supervisory responsibility over you in accordance with the School management structure, as laid out in chapter 4 of the School handbook. So here you have completely ignored a School policy and procedures. I take a particularly serious view of you changing the time of evening lectures, including arranging sessions up to 10pm, lecturing in the vacation and ignoring week 13. This is contrary to School/University procedures. Part time students, especially, have to coordinate their domestic and employment arrangements with their teaching timetable and need to plan this in advance. Ad hoc timetable changes are bound to cause severe difficulties for some students.”
“The conclusion is that the appeal is dismissed. Prof. Bridge’s report of Stage 2 displays a thorough investigation of the case and its conclusions are supported by the evidence specified above. In reaching this conclusion I note the following points 1. Mr. Bangert’s employment as a HPL is terminated. 2. There is evidence of Mr. Bangert’s harassment of other members of staff in both the tone and volume of the plethora of emails sent. 3. Prof. Bridge’s comments on the possibility of his taking disciplinary action against Mr. Bangert were he still to be employed are appropriate given the fact that Mr. Bangert did not follow School and University policies, in particular the lack of adherence to the unit guide. 4. The investigation of the grievance brought to light Mr. Bangert’s non-adherence to the School and University policies which is why those issues have now been raised. 5. Dr. Protheroe had every right to intervene and ask Mr Bangert to adhere to the unit guide. It is the duty of a Course Director to act on student complaints. 6. There is no evidence in the documentation provided of Dr. Protheroe being discourteous, harrying or bullying in his approaches to Mr. Bangert. 7. There is evidence that Mr Bangert’s quality of teaching was poor in that the material and amount of assessment was not appropriate to the target audience. Transcripts of the Stage 2 hearings and the Scheme Board minutes of 22/2/01 support this conclusion. The statements provided by the US academics are not relevant because a) they had not refereed Mr. Banger’s performance and b) they do not appear to be set in the context of the special needs of the MSc prep course students. 8. There is evidence that Dr. Protheroe and other senior academics from the School were willing to offer support and advice to Mr. Bangert but that this was rejected. 9. Dr. Protheroe had every right to remove the non-university approved Windows 2000 from the lab computers as it was interfering with other software. There is evidence that Mr. Bangert was informed of this. 10. The Stage 2 hearing was to investigate evidence of bullying by Dr. Protheroe. Two hours was ample time for this and evidence from the first three witnesses could throw no light on the case under investigation. There is no reason to suggest that any further witnesses would have been able to comment on Dr Protheroe’s alleged harassment. In conclusion, I find sympathy with the view that the allegations are vexatious and would support a call for the revision of university procedures. An enormous amount of documentation was submitted, none of which appeared to support the case and much of which indicates that Dr. Protheroe acted in a proper and reasonable manner.”
“I hear what you’ve said, and obviously the substance of what you are saying is a very serious allegation against a member of staff. And so, … which I know is partly being dealt with elsewhere, but it certainly would go on record because clearly if what you are saying is substantiated and all I have is your version of events, but if it were to be substantiated it would clearly have very serious impacts on what is happening today.”
“As part of my employment as a lecturer I was put under pressure to ‘fix grades’. I refused and the matter eventually led to a formal complaint under University bullying procedures.”
“The main reason I am using this scheme is that in my experience students often do one experiment in the lab and then they copy the results from the other experiments from other students. Perhaps lecturers have turned a blind eye to this in the past but I am not willing to do this…..I have designed my grading scheme to avoid any problems like this.”
“There is a long and outstanding grievance raised by me as a member of staff. I am a research student and an hourly paid lecturer, this is still ongoing. I had a meeting with BB to discuss the grievance. One of the outcomes of that was that BB threatened me to drop the grievance ‘or else I am going to do this, this and this’. I was rather intimidated by this and wrote down these threats. In the meeting I said this was wrong and wrote telling BB what the threats were and asking him to discuss them, but I did not get an invitation to discuss them. I then took a stage 1 grievance against BB. His reply was the memo dated the 27th July (item above) I heard from other staff that when I sent him the letters asking him to respond to the perceived threats he ‘hit the roof’ and asked members of staff to submit anything compromising on me. I have no direct evidence of this but would be able to prove it in a more formal context. It is my view and my interpretation of the bullying procedures that this action [of BB] is in retaliation.”
“I feel that a number of issues have arisen on the basis of the informal meeting which you called at 14:30, (23.07.01) {the segment of the meeting that dealt with the bullying complaint}. I feel that some of these issues are sufficiently serious that they might lead to a further complaint on the same procedure. I do not wish to make such a point needlessly or without proper grounds and I fully accept that my own feelings and memory regarding the events leading up to the meeting and the meeting itself are subjective and therefore it is possible that I misinterpreted what you have said. As you have indicated that you will be available tomorrow at 14:00 I feel that it would be useful for us to have a meeting at that time to go over the items of concern (outlined below). I would like specifically to be reassured that I will not be victimized, suffer detriment or fail to be protected from intimidation or bullying resulting from making a complaint. I must make clear, however, that this meeting should be specifically on this issue.”
‘if you are not careful, if you go on in this you are going to have ... your funding withdrawn as well’ ‘I will inform the EPSRC’ ‘will you now please get on with your PhD studies which you are paid from EPSRC funds to do’ ‘we are at stage 2 and it will stop at stage 2’ 3. You stated directly that I was wasting your time and the time of other members of staff with this issue. Some comments I recall which you made: ‘I am not wasting any more time on this’ ‘Thomas, do you enjoy wasting people’s time ... you are the one who is wasting it’ 4. You stated that if I continued with this procedure that a number of other members of staff would be taking out grievances against me. 5. You stated directly that you had reviewed the material and you had already made the decision, in advance of having the hearing. A hearing means that I must have the opportunity to make my case. Some comments I recall which you made: ‘I have already told you ... I do not find in your favour’ 6. A number of comments appear to be simply derogatory. In my view having no relevance to the issue at hand but intended to humiliate, intimidate, undermine or demean. Some comments I recall which you made: ‘you are a very very difficult person to get hold of ... you keep unreasonable hours, and in the future I will insist that you attend this university during more reasonable hours’ ‘I got all of your email correspondence ... and if you keep sending vast quantities of email like that I think I might well at some stage ask that your email provision be withdrawn ... it has been not useful ... everyone is complaining about the long emails that you send’ ‘you haven’t even written me a proper formal letter ... just a scruffy email with a signature on it ... so you haven’t formally requested a meeting’ ‘I am not replying to any more emails ...’ 7. You insisted that you would apply the academic grievance procedure (1992), when in fact I had quite clearly and precisely specified in my grievance request of the 9.7.01 that I was invoking the “Policy and Procedure for Dealing with Complaints of Acts of Bullying”. You insisted repeatedly on this even after I informed you that I had been informed by HR that the procedure I had invoked was indeed the correct procedure in this case. You then called Luise Oppenberg (who had dealt with the issue) and proceeded to order her to change her view and to inform me that I had been wrongly informed, and to inform me of that fact. Luise did in fact acquiesce to this and I received a very odd and inconsistent note on the following day. 8. You stated categorically on several occasions that I would no longer be employed by SBU. As the meeting was specifically on the grievance I had raised, I see no other explanation for raising this issue other than retaliation. You offered no explanation as to why I would no longer be employed other than in relation to the grievance. In fact you made the link between the grievance and your decision regarding my employment a number of times. This is particularly important as you are investigating the issue and retaliation is strictly prohibited by SBU’s own policies. It is also unlawful. Some comments I recall which you made: ‘you are not going to be offered any more work … that is over … that is finished’ ‘I thought at first you might bring some fresh ideas … but your results have been just disastrous’ 9. You have in the course of the meeting portrayed me several times as a ‘troublemaker’; that this grievance was causing trouble for most if not all of the other members of staff. You went over a number of examples, each of which portrayed a harmonious working environment into which I had injected ‘trouble’
“In an email to me you have written an account of a meeting between you with which I totally disagree. This gives me first hand evidence about the way you distort what other staff have said to you in other meetings. In our last meeting I raised two matters separately. One concerned your conduct as a part-time teaching staff member, as documented above. The second matter was the progress in your research and for this part Professor Alford and Dr Pervez joined the meeting. Here, also as documented above the position is that it is very difficult for them, at present, to assess your research progress because of the totally insufficient information that you give them, especially on the transfer report. However the external reports mentioned above are extremely unpromising and there is a possibility that your work might, at best be recommended for writing up as an MPhil at best. If that were to be the case the EPSRC funding would terminate after two years.”
“In an email to me you have written an account of a meeting between you with which I totally disagree. This gives me first hand evidence about the way you distort what other staff have said to you in other meetings.”
“Facts which indicate that Professor Bridge’s motivation was inappropriate and which show that a failure to investigate the allegations by the claimant of bad faith was either unfair or irrational.”