I don’t. Firstly she describes him as a young man. He wasn’t. He was 41. That is not young. Most people hit the pinnacle of their careers in their 40s. People who want to remove personal responsibility from him call him young. He was a fully adult man and had been for a considerable time.
Furthermore Ardey was not a passive recipient of other people’s actions. He was an active player. Others did not thrust him into the limelight. He was actively doing that himself through the media profile and backstory he created for himself, and through the public engagements he sought and created. He was preparing to thrust himself more into the spotlight by going on a tour to promote his autobiography.
He was also, through his academic work, an active proponent of the identity politics that helped him to become a professor at Cambridge. Which makes claims he was a victim of identity politics harder to make.
Ardey was not a vulnerable man before his lies were brought to light. He had done exceptionally well out of them, becoming Professor at one of the world’s best universities, having a fairly successful media personality and public engagements career and an autobiographical book deal, launched in USA and UK. He was a huge success.
He became vulnerable after his fantasy came crashing down. Everyone is vulnerable if their world falls down around them, no matter the reason for this.
Cambridge do have responsibility for enabling someone like Ardey, but he was an active player too, and an active creator of the identity politics culture that Cambridge were enacting.