Comment Central: 10 worst smear campaigns

Derek Walcott today ruled out a second bid at the newly-vacant Oxford University Professor of Poetry position after Ruth Padel resigned over "smear e-mails" against him.

Walcott, who withdrew from the first race after a dossier detailing sexual harassment allegations against him was sent to around 100 Oxford academics, told The Times that he did not want to revisit "that awful business".

He said: "I don't think I'll stand again."

Padel resigned last night after it emerged that she had emailed two journalists about Derek Walcott, the Nobel laureate, tipping them off about sexual harassment claims made by a student at Harvard University in 1982 and documented in a book, The Lecherous Professor.

Speaking this morning at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival, in Wales, Padel, the first woman to win the prestigious poetry post, attempted to justify her actions and said she had resigned after being told by Oxford University that opinion at the institution was “bitterly divided”.

Padel refused to admit she had done anything wrong and went on to needle at Walcott, who pulled out of the running complaining of “a low and degrading attempt at character assassination”, by expressing her hope that "the next Oxford Professor of Poetry is a woman”.

In a long, rambling, pre-prepared statement she insisted that her e-mails were in no way related to the anonymous mailshot. She said: “I suddenly realised [the emails], could be misconstrued as a part of this same large campaign which was nothing to do with me.

“They were not. I fully acknowledge that it was an error on my part to send them and I really regret that it could be misconstrued as evidence that I had participated in a large scale campaign. In fact of course it was nothing of the kind and nothing I did led to Walcott withdrawing from the election.”

Padel insisted that she had acted “in good faith” when she emailed journalists alerting them to the sexual harassment claims against Walcott. She said that in sending the emails she was passing on “students’ concerns”, adding: “I was very silly.”

Tellingly, she did not offer an apology to Walcott or to the university, and when asked if she wanted to do so, she said: “I apologise for anything I have done which can be misconstrued as being against him.”

She added: "I’ve got a book of his essays. He writes beautifully. I’ve never heard him lecture but I think he would do wonderful lectures."

Oxford will shortly re-open nominations for the post, but Padel said she would not stand again.

“I don’t think now I could have a clean beginning because I think people wouldn’t believe in me,” she said. “I’m not afraid of people but I wouldn’t want a faculty or a university to be divided. I care about poetry in that university and I don’t think it would be helpful.”

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