‘Bat’ lecturer succeeds in quashing sanctions

A LECTURER has succeeded in quashing sanctions imposed by his employer following an inquiry into sexual harassment allegations by a female colleague to whom he had shown a paper on the sex life of fruit bats.

Dr Dylan Evans, a behavioural science lecturer in UCC’s department of medicine, should have been admonished or received a verbal warning rather than being required to undergo counselling and two years of monitoring, president of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said yesterday.

The sanction was disproportionate, the judge said, and he ruled the matter should go back to the president of University College Cork (UCC), Dr Michael Murphy, who imposed the sanctions.