Whistleblowers: Cambridge professor ends ten-year dispute

Veteran academic-freedom campaigner Gillian Evans has called off a bitter ten-year dispute with Cambridge University, which has seen three High Court judicial review cases, an Appeal-Court hearing, a sex discrimination claim, an attempted injunction and countless internal grievances, all understood to have cost the university millions of pounds.

Professor Evans was awarded a Cambridge chair last year after a marathon campaign for reform of the university's promotion procedures. This week in a joint statement with Cambridge, she confirms that the "long-standing dispute" has been settled "with mutual confidence in a happy and constructive future relationship".

In return for the university dropping a claim for legal costs against her for about £200,000 following two failed judicial review claims, Professor Evans has agreed to call off two impending employment tribunal cases against the university.

After passing her bar exams, Professor Evans said she would train as a mediator and planned to set up a mediation and dispute-resolution service "so that universities can be spared this kind of long-running and expensive dispute at an early stage".