OP appears to claim that involving the police is the way to get journalists off your tail. It isn't, and it didn't deter either the professors or the journalist. The much more effective way to get journalists off your tail, which OP didn't even mention, is lawyers. But that doesn't let OP rage against UK laws so he went with the bullshit claim instead.
There was absolutely zero media attention at the time police processed Arday's complaint against professor David Harris, in 2023. They closed the complaint without taking action. The professor didn't even know he was being investigated. His colleague Martyn Hammersley then went over Arday's head straight to the faculty. So much for the police getting people off your case!
In the case of the journalist Arday reported in 2025, police again did not arrest or charge him, but they (wrongly, in my opinion) phoned him and asked him not to contact Arday. This had a chilling effect and the police had no legal basis to direct him so. Again, this was long before any 2026 media attention.
It wasn't media attention that saved these people, it was that what they did wasn't illegal. The police shouldn't have given Arday's claims as much merit as they did, but no matter what Arday said, there was no evidence of crime there, it was never going any further than that.
Only once the deets about Arday were leaked by Cambridge faculty to Cofnas and he published them, and the media firestorm begain, did the details of the police phoning the journalist become known, and in reaction to that, the head of the police said that was clearly wrong and should not have happened: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rd9y99grzo
Especially rich to talk about habitual liars when it's a bunch of British press outlets and activists accusing others of being liars.
> 1 The Racism Of It All: It is not news when white men commit academic misconduct. It gets reported in a handful of stories, there’s a bit of media attention, but everyone quickly forgets about the problems.
> 2 Arday Was Definitely Guilty: The second point is somehow even more frustrating. Yes, Jason Arday was hounded by a society that demands different standards for young Black men than white guys. Yes, the amount of scrutiny he received was obviously connected to the colour of his skin. But also, he definitely did plagiarize. And not just a little bit. His work is riddled with clear, obvious, and extensive theft from other published academic papers.
> You do not need to trust race realists or other unpleasant people. Just download the thesis and check for yourself. It is clear that a significant portion of the thesis was copied directly from other people’s work. This is not in doubt, it’s not in question, and the fact that so many people online are arguing that the plagiarism charges are false because a university said so is deeply depressing. It’s arguably the worst case of plagiarism I’ve ever seen.
> Whatever your thoughts on plagiarism, it’s clear that Arday’s work harmed very few people. As he himself said, “I didn't murder somebody”. If he hadn’t been a Black academic and a poster child for diversity at Cambridge university, we’d probably have never known his name.
You sound like one of the Arday Truthers:
> For some of Arday’s supporters, acknowledging that any of the media scrutiny was justified has become tantamount to siding with his “killers.” He is instead a martyr—the victim of a “lynching”—and the inconvenient fact of his fabulism must be tidied away from the virtual shrine. This is an emotional position rather than a rational one, and its very indefensibility makes it a greater demonstration of tribal loyalty. Insisting that the academic was completely innocent, in the face of all the evidence, sends a strong social signal that you hate the right-wing media and care about racism.
> The postmortem airbrushing of Arday’s story also ignores how that story twisted and turned while he was alive. When The Guardian confronted him with the implausibility of some of his tall tales, Arday responded by editing them in real time: Yes, he had once claimed to have run 600 miles in six days, an exceptional feat for an endurance athlete, but what he actually meant was that he took daylong rest breaks in between. Yes, he had claimed to have raised more than £5 million for charity, but actually this was with the help of “many fundraising collectives” whose participants he could not name because they had signed nondisclosure agreements.
As they might say on Reddit, "Everybody Sucks Here". Arday the fabulist and plagiarist, the academic institutions who didn't vet him because they were razzle-dazzled by his bullshit lifestory (then drop him like a stone when their attempts to keep his plagiarism hidden don't work any more), the popular press who are happy to amp up a public shaming for clicks and views, the anti-woke and the racists who say this just confirms what they thought about DEI, and the anti-anti-woke and anti-racists who will deny the bleeding obvious if it makes them appear virtuous to their peers.
Step 1: put out the suggestion that the lies weren't lies
Step 2: don't read the responses
Job done!
EDIT: I'll give you one set of lies. Is it "exaggerated versions of statements" or you just didn't see them?
If I say I won the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing a cure for cancer, and I have no evidence of either, but I insist I did both and make up a lame excuse as to why you can't see my prize (it's away being washed today) or why you can't find my cure (the journal pretended someone else wrote the article because they're all against me, but trust me mate it was really me who wrote it) am I just making "exaggerated versions of statements" in your view?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/au...
> In a subsequent interview with the Guardian, Arday claimed to have been confronted at his faculty building on two separate occasions by a masked man threatening to harm him if he did not resign, and evading detection both times. On the second occasion Arday said the intruder produced a knife and threatened him with it.
> The Guardian understands that after Arday reported the first intrusion to the university, enhanced CCTV was placed in the faculty and a panic alarm was installed in his office. The professor said he hit the panic alarm during the second confrontation, but that no one responded. It should have triggered an alarm alerting the faculty’s security team, all of whom were present at the time of the alleged incident.
> The intruder was not picked up by CCTV on either occasion and no one in the faculty reported seeing anyone suspicious. Arday did not report either intrusion at the time, telling the Guardian that after the second incident he continued his working day and even conducted a PhD viva for a student less than two hours later.
> He did not inform colleagues that a masked man with a knife was in the faculty building.
> Arday confirmed in an interview with the Guardian that the “mutilated animals sent to his family home” mentioned in the open letter was a severed pig’s head, delivered in a large cardboard box to his parents’ home address in south London. He claimed to have intercepted the package and immediately thrown it away, only telling the police several months later.
> In a subsequent interview he claimed the police investigated, checking with butchers in south London if they had sold a pig, eventually finding one that had sold a “whole hog” on the morning the head was left outside the family home.
> When the Guardian checked those details with the local butchers Arday named, they said no police officer had come in to ask them about a pig. When asked if they were sure, the butcher said “that’s the kind of thing we’d remember”.
> When the details Arday gave about the pig’s head investigation were checked by London’s Metropolitan police, the Guardian was told they were “categorically” incorrect and no investigation had taken place.
> Arday had contacted the Met to lodge a complaint of harassment against Harris after his plagiarism allegations and, because he was based in Plymouth, the case was handed over to Devon and Cornwall police. Correspondence seen by the Guardian confirmed that the force declined to pursue a case against Harris.
> Arday took no photographs of the bullet, the banana, the corrosive substance or the pig’s head. The only other people who saw any of the items were close family members, who told the Guardian Arday had shown them the bullet and the “poison”. Arday could produce no messages from the time in which he discussed any of the items with friends, family, colleagues or the police.
> There are many examples of prominent black figures being intimidated [...] But the abuse and harassment Arday has outlined would be some of the most extreme any academic has been subjected to in the UK. When Arday was asked about his claims by the Guardian, he stood by them. “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me,” he said. “Why would I lie?” He would be jeopardising his career.