The Weekly Witness is free to all paid subscribers of my Substack This Woman’s Work. This week I have removed the paywall because the subject matter means so much to me. I feel compelled to share.
I am a British midlife woman, mother, wife, former midwife and now writer. I write about personal, social, cultural and political issues from the lived experience of a very experienced woman. My writing can only exist from the support of my subscribers. Paid or unpaid all are welcome but for £3.50/$4.80 a month you can support me, receive all my work and be part of writing for better. With love and gratitude (and this week sadness), Rebecca X
‘You do the shopping and I’ll check the news’ my dad says as we leave Tesco’s café. It was our daily ritual when I went to visit him and my mum a few weeks ago. Breakfast at Tescos (would highly recommend, sorry no affiliate link!), followed by my dad ‘checking the news’ at the Tesco’s newsstand, whilst I whizz around the shop buying provisions for the day.
My dad is a newshound. It is the thing I remember most about him from my childhood. His obsession with the news. Like it was being beamed into our front room especially for him. He never missed a broadcast. He devoured ‘the papers’ every day with a great passion. He still does. Although now mostly online but our mornings out gave him the opportunity to peruse in the flesh.
After gathering my daily shop, we would reconvene at his news desk the news paper stand.
‘That young professor is in the headlines again’, my dad informs me.
He is careful not to say ‘black’ because he doesn’t want to sound racist and truly, he isn’t but I think we both know that if that ‘young professor’ was white, he probably would not have made the news at all.
The man he was referring to was Jason Arday. In 2023 Arday became the youngest black professor ever appointed to the prestigious Cambridge University. His back story is indeed intriguing and details his journey from mutism, neurodivergence and academic struggles to his coveted and celebrated professorship.
Jason Arday.
Arday has recently been subject to intense media and academic scrutiny and has faced continued accusations of plagiarism and inconsistencies about his recollections of his earlier life. He recently resigned from his professorship but the scrutiny of his life and his work has relentlessly and often cruelly persisted.
Cruel and unnecessary.
I had seen reports of Arday. I scanned them at most. The world was literally on fire at the time (and still is in parts), the Strait of Hormuz was looking anything but straight, Nigel Farage was going head-to-head with a man with a bin on his head and with a new Prime Minister taking his seat in the UK and an old President Trump still sadly remaining in his in America, I paid scant attention to rumours surrounding Arday.
Besides my dad was quoting The Daily Mail. Enough said.
The next morning, we continued our daily ritual.
‘There’s more on that young professor’, my dad informs me.
‘Apparently there are doubts now over some of the things he said he did when he was younger’. Dad goes on.
It felt gossipy. Tittle tattle. Unworthy of such column inches. Beneath me and my dad. I told him so and he agreed. We never spoke of it again and a few days later I returned home, still avoiding the Arday story. He hadn’t killed anyone, abused anyone, got filthy rich off the back of his ‘story’. It all felt rather over blown, contrived, bullying in nature and not my ‘news’ cup of tea.
I kept seeing pictures of Arday in the press. He looked kind, a bit naive actually. Not an ‘insta’ poser type and far younger than his 41 years. There was a kind of spritely innocence about his beaming smile and beautiful eyes. I did not have the kind of visceral reaction I get when I see pictures of the grotesque Trump or the plastic faced Musk.
A face only a mother could love. At a push.
On Friday 14th August it was no surprise to see yet another picture of Jason Arday in the news. What now? Another unearthed childhood ‘friend’ to dispute his version of his mutism? Another trawl through back editions of local newspapers to wax lyrical about how the fantasist that conned his way into Cambridge University?
No. Jason Arday was dead. His cause of death has not been released. His cause of death is none of our business.
Over the past few days, I have been reflecting on this shocking story. I was reminded of a patient I once knew when I worked for a community mental health team. The team was caring for those who trod the thin line between being safe in the community and needing inpatient care. Vulnerable people.
The patient, I will call him Giles, had been sacked from his job in finance for false representation in his application form. Despite the obvious fact that the company that employed him had failed to do their due diligence and the fact his work was no worse or no better than any of his peers, the company had decided to prosecute Giles and claim his earnings back.
Giles was an unremarkable man. A man like so many boarding the 7.30am train to the city each morning. Wife, a couple of kids, huge mortgage. Closest he had been to a court before was an unpaid speeding ticket. This was uncharted ground for him and the ground beneath him was so shaky he needed our support to stay standing on it. He felt ashamed. Lost. Couldn’t see a why forward.
The company had the right to prosecute him. Our services had the right to support him. The truth would be sought. But not at any cost.
Giles was prosecuted. Found guilty. Paid back what he could. Faced the wreck of his marriage and home. And eventually was discharged from our team to move on with his life.
There were many agencies involved in bringing Giles’ sorry tale to a head, the police, the courts, solicitors, G. Ps, social workers, mental health specialists, the list went on. Justice was served. Everyone survived.
Jason did not. Jason was not afforded the care Giles received. His case was not handled by a variety of multidisciplinary teams, qualified, bound by professional conduct laws, due diligence and supervised practice. The case was trial by media. And the verdict was death.
Now the media cares.
The reports are coming in thick and fast now, with a distinct change of tone. ‘A loving father’, ‘A man with autism’ ‘a time for reflection’. Too late for Jason and his devastated family. Too late to ever get to the bottom of this extraordinary man and his extraordinary life. So many questions posed by the salacious and unrelenting media will never be truly answered or understood.
Tomorrow it will be someone else’s turn. A woman this time. Or another person of colour. A distraction from the real stories of abject corruption, abuse and climate crisis. If the Epstein files received the same amount of scrutiny as Jason Arday’s PHD thesis, imagine how many people would be facing their day in court soon.
Release the files!
I think it is time for my dad and all of us to set some boundaries at our own news desks. Read beyond the headlines. Read what is being said and what isn’t and who by. What is the motive? Who does this piece of ‘news’ serve? What agenda is it promoting? What narrative is it emboldening?
The real news is often hidden behind the headlines and there was a piece of real news that was overlooked in the scrabble to hoist Jason Arday by his own petard.
The man whose Substack post ‘exposed’ Jason was bestselling Substack author, postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Ghent University and self-described ‘race realist’ Nathan Cofnas.
It is newsworthy to me that Cofnas is quoted as saying in 2024 that, in a meritocracy ‘Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.’ According to Cofnas, we need to accept that ‘talent is not distributed equally within or across groups’.
Time for a different headline.
Let’s see that on the front pages tomorrow. Let Cofnas and his work, his agenda and his race theory be subject to the same kind of forensic scrutiny, tireless investigation and at times, abject ridicule that Arday’s was.
No browsing, my dad would be quick to buy that paper. I think a lot of us would.
As ever, I would love to hear your views and comments. Please comment, share, like or restack to feed the hungry algorithm. All subscribers welcome, paid subscribers help keep this Substack alive and keep me writing for better plus paid subscribers receive The Weekly Witness every week plus all my other articles. With love and gratitude (and sadness) Rebecca X
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