Was Jason Arday just the perfect victim?

[KellyK2026]

Surely I can’t be the only one that feels like Jason Arday was a victim, right? Yesterday he was found dead and I feel bad for him. Here’s the reasons why I think he was a victim:

1. It is absolutely insane to me that Cambridge University would appoint him as a Professor when he was in the early stages of his career. It’s practically unheard of. At any university you typically have to earn your dues (which means working as an academic for many years) OR do something truly special, like a Nobel Prize nomination, to be promoted to Professor. I cannot imagine the amount of pressure he had been under to prove himself and likely had a tremendous amount of imposter syndrome. Cambridge let him down.
2. I’ve worked in academia for many years, and let me tell you, academics are under a tremendous amount of pressure to publish. This pressure can compromise quality. Arday isn’t the first nor will he be the last to publish questionable papers.
3. As I’ve worked in academia for years, I’ve experienced academics make racist and sexist remarks first hand. One white academic I worked with got drunk at a work get together and started a rant about how Black people shouldn't be president (this was when Obama was in power), that Obama was a Muslim and interracial relationships were ‘disgusting’. What made this somewhat even worse was that this particular academic wrote about racism in the public sphere, so he profited from writing about Black struggles while harbouring these personal views. There was no repercussions for him, despite presenting himself as something other than what he was.
4. I’ve also been sexually assaulted at a conference by a male academic. No repercussions for him either and he no doubt pretends to be a feminist in his work.
5. I don’t think it’s in doubt that Arday had autism. Now I don’t know how it affected him personally, but, again, that must’ve been extremely difficult and perhaps even blurred what is and isn’t acceptable in higher education.
6. He was also cleared of plagiarism but, again, so many academics have plagiarised ideas and papers, but they haven’t been strung up like Arday has been.

So, long story short, I feel like Cambridge let him down. And I feel like he was targeted because there’s plenty of other examples but they never get called out and nobody cares. It was a witch hunt. But I’d be interested to hear what others have to say on this matter.

Vulnerable man with a disability. But also a PhD, youngest professor at Cambridge, ultra-marathon enthusiast, brain tumour survivor... Pick a lane.

This is a 41 year old grown man. Don't take away his agency or his responsibility.

Could someone explain to me why this story was of such mega importance to the country that it required around 38 articles in the Times newspaper alone since the story first broke a few weeks ago? That’s the bit I don’t get. Why was the media so intent on pushing this case onto the front pages day in, day out, week in, week out, seemingly without let up and allowing thousands upon thousands of negative and nasty comments about the man to be written beneath the articles? Did they actually want to break him? Is it because it’s the “silly season” and there isn’t anything else to write about? Or was it because the media knew that this story really appealed to the baying (and in many cases racist) mob mentality and so would get loads and loads of clicks and engagement? I really couldn’t have given two hoots about Jason Arday before but now I feel really sad that he was driven to his death by the pressure put on him by the press. Yes, I know he was elevated beyond his capabilities and that is a separate issue but most of the focus was on him and not those at Cambridge University who decided to make him a professor.

He was caught out on so many lies & fantasies. It just kept escalating as his ego swelled.

He should have faced up to that rather than take the easy way out leaving his wife & kids to deal with the fallout.

Yes, this. TBH, not many people care strongly about the plagiarism (unless they’re directly involved). Nor would there have been lots of articles about his alleged plagiarism. What really got the media cart rolling was the huge amount of incredible claims he made.

Those unlikely claims were what kept him in the news after the initial reports. He survived an unsurvivable car accident and had locked-in syndrome - but I think it was this claim that was in the original outline for his book, but then disappeared from the final draft. There was also mention of testicular cancer, which then changed into a brain tumour, along with a shaman lady who told him he’d be famous, who then morphed into a different lady. There’s also the 6 marathons with a broken leg; doing work for Water Aid as a volunteer (but Water Aid don’t let volunteers do that work); raising millions for charity as part of a syndicate whose names he couldn’t reveal because he’d signed an NDA…. So many OTT claims. Those are what made the story run and run.

I feel very sorry for him that he could see no way out. It must have been humiliating beyond imagination. However, I blame those around him for not guiding him and advising him (presuming here that he couldn’t help his lies). Why on earth did anyone let him release that resignation statement where he said he hadn’t lied? If he’d released a different statement, there wouldn’t have been all those extra articles afterwards.

I do think the upcoming book was also an enormous pressure though. It was to be published globally, so he’d have huge new numbers of people focussing on him. His publishers let him down. They’d have been better off ‘postponing’ publication and letting interest fade away.

Someone amongst his colleagues and friends should have stepped in and taken over. Why did they let him engage lawyers when they must have known that the questions raised were valid? Why did they sign that open letter when it was clear there was something going on? Are they really that isolated in their ivory towered echo chambers that they no longer engage their brains?

May Jason Arday rest in peace. He should have been helped and guided way before all this kicked off. He wasn’t blameless but people let him down who should have known better.

He was a prolific liar, both fantasist lies (crazy marathon lies that were absurd and easily checked out) and manipulative lies (plagarism and threats of lawyers).

He clearly had a profoundly disordered personality, one that also likely didn't deal well with being called out and shamed and predisposed him to suicide. Even if this whole sitation had been handled within Cambridge Uni, not by the national media he would have still felt the shame within academia and the loss of professional standing, and in likelihood the outcome would have been the same, just maybe a little less soon.

He has also single handedly screwed things up for black academia, by voiding much of the research that came after him, which will have heavily cited his significant volume of plagarised and falsified work. Hardly a hero for black rights.

He also was not a vulnerable young person, he was a middle aged man in his 40s, with a 2 decade long career in academia.

I'm genuinely done with these threads.

The man has died by suicide and still the public thinks they have the right to continue to hound him.

And comparing him to Epstein.

It's sick and Mumsnet is wrong for allowing it to continue.

It tells me a lot when the Reddit threads I have seen have been better.

He was a con man and a liar and the impact of his lies were not restricted to Cambridge. No one is saying ‘he deserved to die’ - he chose to do that.

I think it was the absurdity of his claims. He wasn't just exaggerating he was a fantasist.

He should have thought about all that before he lied. We don't know what's coming in the book - maybe some really big porkers.

The lesson here people is: Don't Lie!

Hang on. JA is not responsible for the actions of the police. Yes, he reported the journalist but he didn’t ask them to run an investigation and the police have admitted wrong-doing. JA wasn’t a sex offender. He wasn’t a criminal. Having student complaints doesn’t make you a bad person and complaints are a normal part of working with thousands of paying customers (which is what students are now). I think everyone on this Thread has said, yes, he isn’t perfect. Did he deserve the amount of online vitriol that he got even after he resigned? No. Nobody thinks that your comparison with Jeffrey is smart or funny, even the people who don’t think JA was a victim.

God I really hope you’ve never lied.

Actually a lot of people have called out the comparison with Epstein. No one agrees with it. I do think it’s an important discussion to have as this cannot happen again.

Epstein also died by suicide. So which is it? Does suicide mean you can continue to scrutinise or not? Or is it only con men who get this concession?

He was divorced.

Of course they don’t. Who does like having their hypocrisy pointed out?

Nobody is saying you can’t scrutinise JA. What are you even talking about? People are saying that you shouldn’t have brought up Epstein in the same sentence as JA as it’s vile and inappropriate.

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

He can be a liar and a conman and all the things listed.
He can also be a victim or vulnerable for other reasons, plus we can also feel empathy for the family left behind.

Beatifying him because he died is wildly unfair to everyone he screwed over and minimises the harm he did to them.

Finally, you mention Cambridge. Oh boy did they come out swinging - remember their comment about the "vile campaign" against him on day 1, before they had asked one single question or checked one single fact? They bear a LOT of the blame here: they fell over themselves in their haste to hire their desired poster boy and then promote (in academic rank and public status) way beyond. And then instantly pushed him front and centre as totally innocent - without a shred of proof whatsoever, so they could continue to burnish their DEI creds. If they HAD handled it properly and internally from the start, I doubt it would have been such a media firestorm.

Yes, he was a victim, but he was a victim of the left and their hysterical obsession with DEI. The left now have an iron grip on academia, and you see the results everywhere. I despair at the constant attacks on the literary canon, for example. Left-leaning scholars now promote mediocre writers because they tick certain boxes and marginalise others because they were conservative white men.

The question we should really be asking is what kind of environment allowed Arday to get away with it. I know a male nurse who has to shadow trainees. He hesitated to fail one individual because he was afraid of being called a racist. In the end, his sense of duty got the better of him, and he did fail her. Had he caved in to pressure, she’d now be injecting people and administering drugs - maybe to your loved ones.

I think you make some valid points but he’s talked about like he didn’t have agency.

He didn’t have to call the police on the journalist who was just asking questions. Questions that he’s probably asked to hundreds of academics given the journalist specialised in academic studies.

He didn’t have to create a fictional list of outlandish achievements which he should have realised could have been looked into given his prominent role.

He didn’t have to create stories about pig heads and masked knife men on campus.

He didn’t have to plagiarise. I know John Moore’s cleared him but looking at the evidence it seems obvious given typos and grammatical mistakes were also copied.

So he’s not the victim that some are when they don't have any control.

I’m sorry he’s dead. I think distain for Mickey Mouse degrees and DEI is quite popular in a large portion of the public and that was part of why the story carried on but also with the various revelations due to his fantastic stories. I think many reports I watched were saying we shouldn’t focus on Arday individually and instead look at the wider issues. I agree with that. It’s not good to target individuals especially when it’s the institutions at fault.

You don’t report things to the police unless you want the police to run with it. As for not a criminal - his lies were only just coming to light but he was certainly obtaining money by deception.

The journalist who 1st discovered the alleged plagiarism worked for the times higher education, he had valid questions and arday shut him and the newspaper down with legal threats and police investigations. After that no mainstream paper would report on him, they just kept all the info on his lies waiting for the inevitable story to break and yes it was a racist who went public with it months later instead of just a niche educational newspaper.
So it was his own behaviour that caused this to blow up the way it did, he had months to be honest about his lies before it blew up and instead he just kept on lieing and accusing everyone asking questions of being racist.

The post I was responding too was certainly inferring that.

Exactly and the reason why there are a criminal offences of wasting police time and perjury.

It could be that Cambridge made a big deal of him being the youngest black professor. That pushed him into the public eye. It has also been said that his students complained about poor lectures from him but were dismissed as racist.

Thank you for clarifying.

Point still stands, and now arguably worse. They know people in common, having a drink with a friend, “oh did you know Jason did all those marathons?”

<tumbleweed>

How awkward for her. I’m not at all saying she was responsible for keeping him in line or exposing him. I just feel bad for her having the embarrassment around her neck.