Image shows wild flowers by Bury St Edmunds Employment Tribunal
The closing submissions take place on Friday 26 June at 1.00pm via the CVP link. This will complete the hearing.
The three-person panel will then retire to consider the evidence.
The panel consists of an Employment Judge who is a legally qualified lawyer or barrister who chairs the hearing. The judge is assisted by two Lay Members. They are non-legally qualified individuals chosen for their real-world experience and understanding of workplace dynamics. One is an employee or worker representative, usually drawn from a background like trade unions. The other is an employer or management representative, usually drawn from a background like Human Resources or business operations.
A decision is not expected from the panel until later in the year.
UPDATE: All comments that were temporarily held back are now released.
37 Comments
Gadfly · 25 June 2026 at 10:39
I only got to watch a few bits of this hearing but wish I had seen the whole thing from the start. Am curious to know how it all appeared to professionals familiar with standard HR best practice or a trade union background. I mean, is this “normal”? I really don’t know how that guy got to run a department or why HR thought it was ok to drag out countergrievances or even accept them at all.
Surely that cannot be how they treat everyone it can’t always be as loopy as the bits I saw.
TheResearcher · 25 June 2026 at 11:31
Final push! Best of luck to you and your lawyers, Wyn. Regardless the outcome of the panel, you already got the respect from many people in Cambridge and outside. The University will never take that from one regardless of their bizarre counter narratives or “counter complaints.”
21percent.org · 25 June 2026 at 13:10
Some comments are being held back for legal compliance. They will all be released at the end of the tribunal closing submissions.
TheResearcher · 25 June 2026 at 14:32
Sure. I actually meant above, “The University will never take that from *YOU* regardless of their bizarre counter narratives or “counter complaints.”” Sorry for the typo…
heiwajima · 25 June 2026 at 14:10
Thank you for keeping the blog going while the tribunal has been underway. It must take a toll. Comments can indeed wait and there should be an abundance of caution. Nothing should stand in the way of achieving justice in your case. Of course emotions run high as so many of us may never achieve justice for our experience of bullying and harassment in Cambridge University.
Anon · 25 June 2026 at 17:17
Congratulations Professor Evans for your courage. Not only those you stood up for, but many future scholars and researchers depend on your tenacity for bringing these practices out into the open daylight and for making it possible to draw a line in the sand under the acts of recent years. Your story has been the story of too many people, and it never had to be like this.
SPARTACUS · 26 June 2026 at 17:33
Wyn Evans is our liberator! The American Queen regime is finished!
Sandeep · 25 June 2026 at 22:05
I only just learned about this. I am so happy someone is finally standing up for justice instead of letting them get away with it again.
SeeyouatFH · 26 June 2026 at 06:21
Good luck, Professor.
Open Justice · 26 June 2026 at 16:28
Congratulations to Professor Evans for fighting the good fight! Truth and reconciliation begin here.
This will be a long-overdue relief for us all: and the start of the university’s restoration as an open and professional educational centre of excellence.
One day the university itself will honour Wyn for his contribution – just as we honour all those who fought for justice in the past, no matter the personal struggle involved.
GB · 26 June 2026 at 17:57
Brittenden’s words really hit me hard with that bit at the end. He simply called them out when he stated how their whole legal strategy was in itself proof of their contempt for Wyn. They didn’t have to question his honesty or integrity. But they did. They didn’t have to cross examined so cruelly and aggressively. But they did. All those were choices they made – the same as the choices they made to drag out counter grievances and ignore the injustices done to him. We saw it for ourselves who they are because they showed us themselves through their actions. Well said good sir – we all see it now.
21percent.org · 26 June 2026 at 18:33
Yes, it was truly brilliant from a truly brilliant barrister
The University argued there was no bias against Prof Evans, yet the closing statement was full of the most wicked & contemptuous falsehoods (fake emotion, crocodile tears)
Brittenden had anticipated this, laid the depth charges in his own closing statement and then just blew the University up.
TheResearcher · 26 June 2026 at 19:05
It was very distressing to see Wyn having to put up with these attacks largely alone, not only during the cross examination but even today. The behaviour of the University was a complete embarrassment for all the current and past members who do not support this retaliatory culture and inability to assume fault. The individuals responsible for all this mess and for damaging so many people, Wyn and many others, will be remembered for the worse possible reasons for generations and they cannot escape that. The Judge expects “reconciliation” but if the University does not assume faults, and they virtually assumed NONE in this case, it is impossible to expect a reconciliation. When wrongdoers do not assume fault they will most likely repeat the same issues with others and victims cannot let that happen.
I would like to thank Wyn again for deciding to expose himself to all this and I would like to reassure him that it was not in vain. In the next coming days and weeks, members of Cambridge University will be faced with difficult decisions. If we want a change, we need to step forward because it is clear that we no longer can rely on the senior leadership at this stage. The time for a change is now.
Eileen Nugent · 1 July 2026 at 04:06
I don’t know how Professor Evans kept going for 4 days of that type of cross examination but fortunately there are those in Cambridge with the mental resilience, grit and determination to stand up to the University in this way. I found it difficult to sit through as an observer. I had to stop going in person after 2 days.
“They didn’t have to cross examined so cruelly and aggressively. But they did.”
I don’t think the university has really thought through its cross examination approach in this type of case. If a person has a mental health breakdown in an employment tribunal during one of these month long employment cases I don’t see why a person could not exit the employment tribunal process on health and safety grounds & put the case with the health and safety regulator.
Anon · 26 June 2026 at 23:00
For me it was that part about how not one single person asked how he was, offered support, how the entire culture of the university is to let your colleagues suffer and simply look the other way. That is so true of Cambridge. There is no collegiality or culture of care whatsoever.
Anonymous · 27 June 2026 at 04:04
If there is no culture of care or “collegiality” at a university, then what on earth is the point in espousing these values publicly?
Oubliette · 27 June 2026 at 05:59
As a junior faculty at Cambridge I went through entire faculty meetings in tears and no-one ever paused or thought it worth noticing. Ever. No one asked me afterwards how I was doing or if something was wrong. Ever. Pain is normalised. Tears from staff are just like the rain on the windows. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they had a suicide in Astronomy and simply kept going with business as usual.
Eileen Nugent · 3 July 2026 at 03:32
“If there is no culture of care or “collegiality” at a university, then what on earth is the point in espousing these values publicly?”
There is a 1980s fairytale movie called Field of Dreams where a person builds a baseball stadium in a remote place on the premise : “if you build it, he will come”. In this case a person builds the baseball stadium and people come thinking a baseball stadium has already been built to discover a baseball stadium has been built and there is no need to do any baseball stadium building.
The culture of care and “collegiality” in Cambridge seems to operate on a different premise : if the university builds it, people will come thinking it has already been built only to discover that it is still in the process of being built – as unlike building a baseball stadium where there is an end to building it, there is no end to building a culture of care and “collegiality – at which point people might have a legal obligation to do some culture of care and “collegiality” building.
TheResearcher · 26 June 2026 at 19:27
Some fresh news folks!
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/university-cambridge-bullying-accuser-denies-vendetta
Questioner · 27 June 2026 at 06:34
Incredible that this case was not settled beforehand, this has been such a massive PR disaster. Most ETs are settled, it’s usually cheaper and better for all. Usually the University only fights the cases it is supremely confident of winning. i really don’t think this case falls into that category.
So who in the University decided to fight this? And why?
Xerxes · 27 June 2026 at 06:40
Clearly not the VC,. She seemed to be under someone else’s control..
Diogenes · 27 June 2026 at 07:22
It seems the university is very poorly advised on legal affairs. How else can you explain spending far more money to fight a case at court, than simply settle and move on? Something there simply doesn’t add up and one must ask why that is.
aquarius · 27 June 2026 at 08:21
Given the huge damage sustained by the Institute of Astronomy, it is a very relevant question for it to ask. Why did the University not settle? Why did this get to an Employment Tribunal? Why was it not sorted out?
Anon · 27 June 2026 at 08:33
I wonder what the outcome will be for the IoA. Do you think there’s a possibility it gets split up between the Cavendish and DAMTP?
supernova · 27 June 2026 at 08:41
Probably. Looks like it’s come to the end of the road as an independent department. I mean, the University could blame HR or blame the IoA. We know what they will chose.
Raven · 27 June 2026 at 10:36
“I mean, the University could blame HR or blame the IoA. We know what they will chose.”
Who are the University?
Should this not read “HR could blame HR or blame the academics in the IoA”?
Jay · 27 June 2026 at 10:54
Absence of Hudson tells its own story. If you can see it’s a huge clusterfuck, it’s best not to be present. There’s always a useful idiot who can take your place.
Anon · 27 June 2026 at 07:15
There was a term introduced yesterday – “groupthink” – which I think might be a helpful way of understanding how organisations get themselves in to such a mess. Having seen these processes from the inside at the university, what I can attest is with decisions made by a small, closed-off group of individuals, who make no effort to gather information and only reinforce each other’s narrative, they convince themselves of decisions which to any objective observer would seem as utter madness.
So I genuinely think they believed that they were going to go in to this case and convince the world that whistleblowers were simply paranoid and vindictive: because that is what they have been telling each other again and again. As we saw at cross examination – notably of the VC herself – no-one really bothers to look at the evidence. No one bothers to speak with victims to understand their experiences and point of view.
The same is true in public life of course, and that is when governments take disastrously bad decisions.
Anonymous · 27 June 2026 at 19:04
It’s a very good thing that the concept of “group think” was specifically raised at the Tribunal and here too (when the time comes to write the book, as proposed in earlier postings on this blog, this topic should feature very prominently indeed).
There are a few things to keep in mind with groupthink though.
Most people have likely encountered it, and it is usually quite benign. For example, you have a room full of people and a very charismatic person declares all sorts of rubbish, but it is said with such confidence and gusto that everyone in the room goes along with it. They know its rubbish but something inside them stops them from speaking out, or worse, they become convinced themselves that the rubbish, which is obviously rubbish, is actually true.
It’s like a spell. As experimentation has shown though, this spell can easily be broken if just one person in the room simply speaks out and calls out the rubbish for what it is. Then everyone snaps out of the spell (for the physicists in the room, it’s a bit like the wave function collapsing
when Shrodinger’s box is opened 🙂 ).
On @Anon’s point, indeed, there is a real toxic psychological phenomenon at play here, which I would say has its roots in groupthink but becomes something else very quickly. That is, what starts out as a simple issue to fix, quickly becomes escalated out of all control and irreversible, due to someone in management or HR taking issue with it, decides that the victim or whistleblower is to be persecuted or purged, and ensures that every subsequent panel knows that their invented narrative is to be adopted and acted on accordingly.
In my opinion, in a genuine case of groupthink, the victim/whistleblower should be able break that spell by simply stating the actual reality with evidence.
But we know that doesn’t happen. The victim/whistleblower can rip the lid of that Shrodinger’s box and scream “look, you can clearly see that the cat is dead ffs!” But it won’t matter. The decision has been made, and the perpetrators are no longer under any kind of spell but are now all acting willingly, or at least knowingly, in perpetuating the mistreatment of the victim.
This is no longer group think, but outright corruption and abuse, and in some cases serious fraud.
In other words, care must be taken not to offer groupthink as an excuse for this kind of behaviour.
21percent.org · 28 June 2026 at 08:11
The book remains a great idea. We will be pursuing it.
TheResearcher · 28 June 2026 at 09:59
I can now contribute with so many chapters… the fact they expect that we simply accept their misconduct and carry on is genuinely disturbing, but they got it wrong this time. Every single abuse they make against me and others that I know just gives me more drive to speak ever louder.
Euler · 27 June 2026 at 09:06
“Usually the University only fights the cases it is supremely confident of winning”
That used to be the case. Then 4 years ago, something changed. They started letting cases go to tribunal out of the belief they could win. David Robert Kingdon Parsons FYI became permanent director of Legal in 2022, though had been filling in for a while before that, and Sam Gardner also came in around then.
They had a few lucky wins, though any of those (e.g. the Graham or Fulda cases) could easily have gone against them. Like any gambler playing double or quits, it was really only a question of time before they started rolling snake eyes. But the question for the university is really, who empowered them to take such risks in the first place?
21percent.org · 27 June 2026 at 09:15
Agreed — the Graham case was only lost 2 to 1. He could have won on appeal, but lacked funds to continue.
Both the Connolly and Fulda cases did damage to the University. The Connolly case also ended badly for the plagiarist whose name was printed in the press.
It obviously needs Council to take a good look at what is happening.
FJ · 27 June 2026 at 09:37
There’s that — but also the fact that at around this time they also decided to take a significantly more aggressive approach to comms by hitting the media with regular threat letters. That has backfired completely. After all the relationship with the press is just that — a relationship — and like any relationship, it depends on trust and mutual support. By undermining such trust, the media now has a target on the university’s back. That is obvious from how fast stories on this case began to break as well as all the other stories this year that they could not block.
Lessons Learnt · 27 June 2026 at 10:54
While this tribunal was on-going, there were reports about training provided by HR for colleagues in leadership positions
1. If there is dissent, contact HR, even at informal stage
2. Do not write email, leave no trace
3. Do not refer to the parties by name, to disable future DSAR searches
4. Letters will be composed on Sharepoint, so there is no draft history.
5. Do not worry about Employment Tribunals, HR will sort that for you.
These are the lessons learnt from this case, delivered in training by HR case managers who care about nothing other than embedding a culture of harm, suppression of evidence and cover up, and the disabling of future legal action.
nc · 27 June 2026 at 11:33
Don’t forget an important point leaked by Harper (I think) about GDPR requests, which was stating that most of the communications are made on Microsoft Teams. Be sure to always request not only emails but Teams messages as well.
Anonymous · 27 June 2026 at 13:04
Was it Harper or Peake who said that? I thought Peake but could be wrong