APPENDIX 127
Supplementary evidence from Professor
Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive, Medical Research Council
INQUIRY INTO
THE FUTURE
OF NIMR
Not least because of the serious allegations
against me made by Sir John Skehel, Dr Robin Lovell-Badge and
Dr Steven Gamblin, in both their written and their oral evidence
to the Committee, I wish to submit further evidence that I hope
the Committee will consider as it forms its judgement.
I appreciate that the staff of NIMR, led by
their Director, continue to oppose the Council of the MRC, as
it works to try to implement the vision developed by the Task
Force, which was unanimously endorsed by the Council. Although
their tactics have been vigorous, I am appalled that they have
chosen to make damaging accusations against me, presumably in
the hope of influencing the S&T Committee's views about the
validity of the Task Force recommendations.
I had seen Sir John's evidence to the Committee
a few days before the hearing, but he refused to send to the MRC
copies of Robin Lovell-Badge's and Steve Gamblin's submissions.
I therefore had no warning of their content and I saw them only
after the hearing. I have replied to Sir John's submission in
Annex 1, attached, and I am working on responses to the submissions
from Drs Lovell-Badge and Gamblin, (Annexes 2 and 3).
Two very serious allegations have been made:
(1) I am accused of "coercing"
members of the Task Force to sign up to statements that did not
represent their opinions or the spirit of discussion at the meetings
of the Task Force. The particular example that was cited is a
confidential email that I sent to Professor Steve Tomlinson, Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Wales College of Medicine, on 10 July 2004.
I understand that Dr Lovell-Badge and/or Dr Gamblin have supplied
to the Committee a copy of that email. However, when it is viewed
in the context of the preceding message from Professor Tomlinson
and his replies, and all his previous and following contributions
to the discussion, it is clear that my message was not coercive.
I merely encouraged him to stick to his firmly-stated position
on the question of whether the Mill Hill site should be considered
as a "fall-back" or "equal" option in the
appraisal of possible sites for the future of the institute. I
understand that Professor Tomlinson (and other Task Force members)
submitted evidence to the Committee before the hearings. I hope
that the Committee will examine those statements for any indication
of coercion. (You will recall that Dr Gamblin said that he had
not been coerced when asked during the hearings).
I have arranged for the entire exchange
of email between members of the Task Force, including all those
marked "Confidential" to be forwarded to the Committee
(on the understanding that confidential messages will not be put
in the public domain without the permission of their authors).
It will take a little time to collate the hundreds of messages,
but, in the meantime, I have appended a full and annotated set
of exchanges during the period when the incidents that form the
basis of allegations against me are supposed to have occurred.
The correspondence starts immediately
after the important 5th meeting of the Task Force, where the bids
from London Colleges and from Mill Hill were considered and the
Task Force came to its conclusions, and includes the final, beyond-last-minute
attempt by Dr Gamblin and Dr Lovell-Badge to introduce substantive
changes into the full Report of the Task Force, against the resistance
of all other Task Force members who were in contact.
I use this opportunity to tell the
Committee that I did, at several times during the work of the
Task Force, feel excessively pressurised by Sir John Skehel. I
had a number of conversations with him during the period of work
of the Task Force and was shouted at, laughed at and derided by
Sir John on almost every occasion. I had the distinct impression
that Sir John felt no sense of duty towards the MRC, and he told
me and others explicitly that he would fight to oppose any decision
of Council with which he disagreed.
(2) Dr Lovell-Badge alleged during the oral
presentation that I had telephoned him on a number of occasions
late at night and on a Sunday afternoon, and had specifically
threatened him with dismissal. I deny this categorically. The
events in question were supposed to have taken place 5 months
ago, yet, to my knowledge, this is the first time that Dr Lovell-Badge
has made this accusation, at least publicly. You will notice that,
surprisingly, the allegation was not mentioned by Dr Lovell-Badge
in his written evidence.
I am, of course, well aware of employment
law, and of the strict formal procedures that have to be gone
through before any employee can be dismissed. I would expect any
MRC employee who is faced with a threat of constructive or vindictive
dismissal immediately to lodge a grievance, and to complain to
his or her union, to the MRC Director of Human Resources or to
the Chairman of Council. As far as I am aware, Dr Lovell-Badge
did none of these things.
The conversation in question, which
took place on 28 June, concerned the draft "Conclusions of
the 5th meeting of the Task Force", which, after extensive
circulation and discussion, had been agreed by the other members
of the Task Force, but which Dr Lovell-Badge had recently refused
to accept without the addition of a commitment to include the
Mill Hill site as an active option in the options appraisal for
the site of the renewed NIMR. Dr Lovell-Badge asserts that I telephoned
him late at night, with the implication that I was harassing him.
In reality, Dr Lovell-Badge telephoned me, at 23:30 on 28 June,
rather than my phoning him (this is recorded in my email to the
Task Force on p 80 of the attached correspondence)! He criticised
me aggressively. I appealed to the fact he had already agreed
to the Conclusions of the 5th meeting, both in the original meeting
and during a subsequent telephone conference call, and that the
other members of the Task Force had agreed to it.
When asked by the S&T Committee
to describe the threat of dismissal, Dr Lovell-Badge alleged that
I said: "Robin, I don't know how you can disagree with me.
I am your employer". This is not a threat of dismissal, but,
in any case, I did not say it. As far as I can recall, the closest
that I came to such a statement was to express my surprise that
there should be such hostility at NIMR towards me and the MRC
when the MRC owns the institute and employs most of the staff.
December 2004
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