A Cambridge University professor has launched a complaint with the press regulator over reports he claimed three leading British scientists may have been assassinated.
Professor Peter Wadhams, an expert in polar ocean physics, was quoted by The Times last week as saying that he feared the deaths of colleagues in his field within just months of each other were suspicious.
Since the Times published the article, Professor Wadhams has said he did not make the comments attributed to him.
He has launched a formal complaint with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), alleging that the article was inaccurate, has damaged his scientific reputation and broken a promise of confidentiality.
Professor Wadhams works at Cambridge University
Professor Wadhams had been asked for his opinion on the deaths of Seymour Laxon of University College London, Katharine Giles, a climate change scientist who worked with Professor Laxon, and Tim Boyd of the Scottish Association for Marine Science.
They died in unrelated accidents across the UK within months of each other in 2013, when Professor Wadhams said an unmarked lorry also tried to run him off the road as he drove down the M25.
Professor Wadhams told The Independent that there were some fears in the scientific community that the tragedies, coming so close together in such unusual circumstances, were not a coincidence.
“For a brief time I entertained that possibility,” he added. “But it quickly became clear that it was purely accidental.”
The scientist wrote in his Ipso complaint that the Times reporter originally told him the interview was regarding changing volumes of sea ice in the Arctic but asked for more information on the deaths later in the conversation.
Professor Wadhams wrote: “I asked that this be completely off the record because of (a) the sensibilities of relatives of the deceased (Prof Laxon’s partner was particularly upset by the subsequent publication), (b) my own scientific reputation (I did not want to be made out to be a crazy person), (c) the fact that these deaths were investigated and were very clearly simply an extraordinary coincidence.
Professor Wadhams is an expert on Arctic sea ice
“He raised the question of whether they were murdered. I agreed that for a short time I thought that they were, since I had had the experience of being run off the road at the same time by a lorry, but that it was very clear afterwards that the three deaths were individually explainable accidents. I did not make any of the statements enclosed in quotation marks by the reporter.”
Professor Wadhams further alleged that he was told the conversation was in confidence and was not informed that the remarks would be published.
The Independent and several other newspapers reported on the comments that Professor Wadhams contests and the Telegraph conducted a separate interview on the subject.
A spokesperson for The Times said: “We have a recording of Professor Wadhams making these statements. Another newspaper [the Telegraph] subsequently reported that he had made similar comments to their journalist. We stand by the story.”
Ipso said the complaint was being investigated and its judgement will be made public in due course.
