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Professor's refusal to obey instruction led to his sacking, tribunal rules. Paul Jump reports
A former Queen Mary University of London academic was unfairly dismissed but contributed "100 per cent" to his demise because he disobeyed a direct management instruction to teach a course, an employment tribunal has ruled.
John Allen, formerly professor of biochemistry at Queen Mary, was sacked in May 2014 after a turbulent two years that began with his co-authorship of a letter to medical journal The Lancet. The letter lambasted a metrics-driven restructuring plan at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and alleged that the head of school and Professor Allen's line manager, Matthew Evans, failed to meet one of the criteria he had imposed as a condition of continuing employment in the school.
Both letter writers were charged with misconduct. Fanis Missirlis, who was then a lecturer...