Stripped of university honour after failing to pay £2.5m donation he had promised
WHAT do Carol Vorderman, Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies and Gerard Walsh have in common?
They all received honorary fellowships from Cardiff University in July 2008.
Walsh was later stripped of his honour after a £2.5million donation he had pledged failed to arrive.
It was meant to fund the first Cochrane Chair in Public Health. A professorial research post, it was named after Dr Archie Cochrane, a pioneer of the NHS.
The university confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that Walsh’s honorary fellowship has been revoked. An internal inquiry also revealed university bosses set debt collectors on Walsh after he failed to pay the bill for his 50th birthday party, held on university grounds. A source suggested the party – attended by Rhodri Morgan, then the First Minister of Wales – cost between £30,000 and £40,000.
The report said Walsh established Sir Mansel Aylward, a professor who became chair of Public Health Wales, as his main university contact. It found that senior people within the university believed Walsh was ‘a reserved individual who liked to work through a network of advisers and that he generally shunned publicity’. He was seen as ‘an individual of considerable wealth who was both well connected and had a history of philanthropic donations’.
Sir Mansel, who sat on the board of one of Walsh’s firms, said it was an ‘uncomfortable and disenchanting albeit brief period in my working life’, adding: ‘He let me down tremendously. He let Cardiff down tremendously.’
The debacle led to the university reforming its rules on accepting donations and awarding honorary fellowships.
Walsh denies any wrongdoing.