Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, London, Prof. James Tooley, has been suspended, after allegations of an affair with a young woman from Hyderabad, India.
The woman, now in her 20s, claims she had a sexual relationship with the now 65-year-old professor. Tooley has denied the allegations.
In the news posted on www.indiatoday.in. Tooley is reported to have helped her with paying her university fees. The Indian woman claimed in her diary that she had a sexual relationship with the 65-year-old Prof. Tooley. These allegations sprang up after the professor’s wife handed over copies of the diaries written by the young woman to the university.
The accusations are said to have come from his 42-year-old wife, Cynthia, handing over copies of diaries penned by the younger woman.
Cynthia is a first generation immigrant originally from Nigeria. She arrived in the UK aged 21 to study her postgraduate degree and has two bi-racial children.
The Times quoted her as saying she was 18 when she first met Prof Tooley, then in his 50s, 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 was alleged 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.
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.’
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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.’
