The Family of former University of Cambridge professor Jason Arday have released a scathing statement hitting out at the "campaign of sustained abuse" directed at him.
The statement read: “Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse for more than three years since he accepted the role of professor at Cambridge University by those who would leave no stone unturned in their quest to undermine him.
“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.
“We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son.
“We won’t comment further at this point beyond asking the press to leave us alone now, and to stop the campaign of harassment which has been waged against Jason and his family for too long.”
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Arday, who resigned from Cambridge after a highly-publicised plagiarism row, was pronounced dead after emergency services were called to Daley Thompson Way, in Battersea, just after 3pm on Friday to reports that a man had been found unresponsive inside a property.
The Metropolitan Police said his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.
University of Cambridge professor, and director of the Autism Research Centre, Simon Baron-Cohen told the BBC he spoke to Arday on Friday morning, when the former professor reportedly said he "couldn't go on".
Baron-Cohen told Radio 4’s Today programme: “He was being subjected to relentless scrutiny, including ridicule, discrediting absolutely every detail of his life, and he wasn’t coping with the loss of his career, the loss of his reputation, and he felt he couldn’t go on.”
“He used those words in voice notes,” he added.
He added: “At the heart of all of this was a man who’d been diagnosed in childhood with disabilities that included autism and language delay and learning differences.
“He was a vulnerable child, a vulnerable teenager, and a vulnerable adult, so he needed and deserved safeguarding and support and reasonable adjustment every step of the way.”
Arday, who worked as a professor of sociology of education and became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023, quit following a series of media reports alleging he plagiarised his PhD thesis – completed at Liverpool John Moores University – and other research.
Further questions were asked in the press about the truth of other claims he made, including saying he ran 600 miles in six days and that he had raised £5.5 million for charity.
An investigation at Liverpool John Moores University cleared Arday of wrongdoing.
Baron-Cohen told the BBC that plagiarism allegations made by another academic, Nathan Cofnas – who has reportedly defined himself as a “race realist” – opened up a “media frenzy”.
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He said: “Jason was being used as almost like a lightning rod to examine this policy of DEI, and Jason was bombarded by every media outlet to paint him as a fraud.”
The cognitive neuroscientist said he had grown concerned about the mental health of Arday. He said: “In the last 10 days, I’ve witnessed his mental health getting worse and worse, as the media didn’t stop ridiculing him, humiliating him, discrediting him.
“As I said, yesterday morning, his last voice note was that he just couldn’t go on.
“We need to let the investigations proceed, we need to understand how this tragedy has happened, but there has to be accountability at lots of levels.”
In a statement on Saturday, National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede said Arday had been subjected to “a public and brutal takedown that unleashed a tirade of racism”.
He added: “I don’t believe this was ever simply about ‘professional conduct’ or ‘plagiarism’.
“There is a profound difference between scrutiny and a sustained public campaign that turns an individual into a symbol of everything the right believes is wrong with DEI.
“The effect has been chilling. It tells black people and others from underrepresented backgrounds that entering prominent public positions will make you a target.
“A target not only for criticism of your work, but for a much broader political and cultural backlash.”
Over the weekend Arday cancelled events promoting his forthcoming memoir.
Publisher Simon & Schuster previously said that the book, Great And Unfortunate Things, would be published in the UK on August 27.
In a statement on Saturday, the publisher said: “Simon & Schuster is deeply saddened by the news of Jason Arday’s tragic death, and we send our condolences to his family during this devastating time.”
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