A university chief has been suspended after claims of an overseas relationship with a young woman whose student fees he is said to have helped fund
University of Buckingham vice-chancellor Prof James Tooley, 65, who denies the claims, is reported to have been temporarily stood down from his £229,000-a-year post at Britain’s leading private university following allegations regarding a woman in her twenties from India.
The accusations are said to have come from his 42-year-old wife Cynthia, handing over copies of diaries penned by the younger woman.
The Times quoted her as saying she was 18 when she first met Prof Tooley, then in his fifties, and their sexual relationship started when she was aged 21 – though later updated this to suggest she was instead 25.
The alleged relationship began after the academic got involved in a project in the Indian city of Hyderabad aimed at providing low-cost private schools for poor communities.
He is said to have known the woman’s father and contributed towards her university tuition charges, before a relationship was struck up after she graduated.
Prof Tooley has led the private university, which was co-founded by Margaret Thatcher, since 2020 when he succeeded historian Sir Anthony Seldon.
Earlier this year, he unveiled a new course on the ‘woke’ movement, with related MA and PhD programmes – and he has also criticised Cambridge University for ‘discriminating’ against privately educated white boys due to diversity targets, while branding a drive to decolonise the curriculum as ‘dangerous’.
He said then: ‘Cambridge is absolutely being discriminatory against the privately educated, particularly privately educated white males.’
Prof Tooley’s suspension was revealed in a letter to students in October this year, following which he issued a statement through his lawyer branding claims made against him as ‘baseless and malicious’, adding that he would soon be ‘vindicated’.
The woman now claiming to have had a relationship with Prof Tooley was quoted by the Times as saying: ‘Anyone who reads my diaries can see I was in love with him and wanted to be with him.
‘He was kind and thoughtful and always treated me with respect. People will say he used me because he has power and money. But that’s not the case. He is a good man who cares a lot about other people.’
The newspaper added that she later got in contact to clarify she was 25 when the relationship begun, while there was no suggestion of any illegal conduct.
It was reported that Cynthia Tooley alerted the University of Buckingham to the alleged relationship on October 11, prompting an emergency meeting followed by Prof Tooley’s suspension.
His wife is said to have made multiple accusations against him including the reporting of ‘a suspicious object’ at the VC’s official residence in Buckingham.
Police officers were reportedly called to the property and took away a junior air rifle, but did not pursue any further investigations.
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