Annex B
From Robin Lovell-Badge
I put a temporary block on the publication of
the report from our 5th and last meeting, because I had heard
directly from people involved with the bids from both UCL and
Kings that Colin had told them it was a straight fight between
the two of them. He had not mentioned any comparison with Mill
Hill. The following is the e-mail that I sent to the Task Force,
which explains why I felt this was wrong.
28 June 2004
Dear All
It was my clear impression at the meeting, that
we would only ensure the best bids from Kings and UCL for a move
into central London if the option of staying at Mill Hill was
still on the table. Colin has seemingly lost all bargaining power
by telling both UCL and Kings that the Institute will definitely
move to one or other of them. By ruling out the possibility of
the Institute staying at Mill Hill, which he also stated in his
conversation with John Skehel on Friday and very clearly on my
answering machine today, neither UCL nor Kings will feel the need
to match what the MRC already has, let alone what is possible
to do here. This is a big mistake and I feel that the only way
it can now be rectified is by spelling out in the report that
the Mill Hill option is still a possibility. I would have gone
along with the report as it was if I felt confident that the spirit
of our agreement would hold, but Colin appears to be following
a different agenda. This is why I am now being difficult over
it.
Robin
Colin was very aggressive late that night over
the telephone. He did not attempt to understand what I was saying.
Towards the end of the call he practically shouted something along
the lines of "Robin, I don't know how you dare to challenge
me, you work for the MRC and are therefore my employee".
Because he had already said something similar to me at the end
of February, I was a less shocked than I had been at that time,
so I asked him if this was a threat? He did not deny this, but
continued: "If you don't sign the report then MRC Council
will just close down the Institute". I responded by saying
that this sounded like another threat, at which point Colin hung
up the telephone. Needless to say, I thought both his comments
to be very inappropriate, and to be threatening, especially as
I was acting as a member of the Task Force. The fact that I was
an MRC employee should have been irrelevant.
With respect to Colin' s response to my statements
at the Select Committee hearing on 1 December, it is true that
I had called Colin at about 11.30 pm that night from my home telephone,
but this just after he had tried to call me on my mobile and I
had failed to answer it in time. (It does not work well at home,
which is why I used by home telephone.) This was after many previous
attempts from him to call me at work or on my mobile (I had been
very busy that day and had missed all of these calls.) I decided
to return the last call partly out of desperation as a way to
stop any further call, but also because I wished for the situation
to be resolved.
I believe some pressure was brought to bear
on Colin from other TF members and the next afternoon I had a
telephone call from Colin to apologise for losing his temper on
the phone (he obviously remembered ending the conversation by
hanging up on me) and saying that he had spoken again with UCL
and Kings to make sure they realised their bids had to be in comparison
with Mill Hill. I had confirmation of this (including an email
from Simon Howell at Kings: "the script has changed"),
so with the understanding that Mill Hill was at least an unstated
option, I agreed to sign the report. I now regret not sticking
out for a clear statement in this report that Mill Hill was a
formal option. I did not do so at the time, believing that it
would have to be by the time we had gathered more evidence and
produced our final report to Council.
I have had many telephone calls from Colin over
the period the Task Force was active, and while this was one of
the worst, it was by no means the only one where he was trying
to put undue pressure on me. I do not know how he treated the
other TF members, but I understand that such telephone calls,
often late at night and at weekends, were not uncommon.
I reported what I considered to be threats to
my line manager, the Director, on the following day, as I had
done on the previous occasion after the Third Task Force meeting.
On the first occasion (which was linked to the revelation that
Colin Blakemore' s vision was for a smaller Institute focused
on infections and immunity) I considered resigning from the Task
Force, but this would have been very bad for morale at NIMR and
not very constructive. I have already submitted as supporting
evidence the e-mail exchanges between Colin and myself that occurred
around this time to the Select Committee. These make it clear
that there had been an unpleasant telephone conversation. I had
also specifically mentioned that I had received threats from Colin
in my e-mail that was marked non-confidential that was distributed
to the Task Force after the final report had been submitted to
Council. (This e-mail had also been submitted to the Select Committee.)
So all the Task Force was aware of this including Colin, so it
is not correct of him to say that I had kept the threats secret
until now. The threats were also referred to in a verbal exchange
between Colin and myself in front of the Heads of Divisions committee,
Steve Tomlinson and Andrew McMichael at NIMR in October. On this
occasion, as before, Colin did not deny them, but merely said
that he had lost his temper.
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