'Some of you will be aware that there has been speculation, much of it misleading and inaccurate, in regard to my personal life.The source of the comment is a matter in my personal life which does not impact upon the university or my ability to discharge my responsibilities. Therefore, I ask only that colleagues respect my privacy and that of my family at a difficult time.'

Nine months ago, Gerry McKenna, Ulster University vice-chancellor, went on sick leave after denying unspecified rumours. Now he has left his post. Many who have tried to get to the bottom of the case have come up against a brick wall. Faisal al Yafai reports.

It started with an e-mail. In September last year, staff at Ulster University were surprised to find a message from their vice-chancellor waiting in their inboxes one morning, in which he denied rumours of which most had been completely unaware.

"Colleagues," it began, "Some of you will be aware that there has been speculation, much of it misleading and inaccurate, in regard to my personal life.

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"The source of the comment is a matter in my personal life which does not impact upon the university or my ability to discharge my responsibilities.

Therefore, I ask only that colleagues respect my privacy and that of my family at a difficult time."

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Gerry McKenna, who had been vice-chancellor since 1999, had e-mailed all 3,500 staff to tell them, in essence, that the thing they hadn't heard about wasn't really true, so could they stop talking about that thing they weren't talking about.

The way the message was written - refuting but not specifying, clarifying but not explaining - was a prelude to the shadowy saga that eventually led to McKenna standing down as vice-chancellor. It is a story with names missing, a story about something that happened that, for legal reasons, this newspaper has so far been unable to detail. It is a story about closed-door meetings and clandestine deal-making. And in its latest twist, it is a story in which another e-mail, this time sent by the university to staff after an extensive inquiry by The Times Higher , reveals that there had been "a loss of confidence... in the executive leadership of the university" .

Although the initial e-mail had nothing to do with subsequent allegations that emerged about McKenna, it sparked a game of Chinese whispers. "No one was talking about it before," said one staff member who received it. But afterwards, there were more rumours, and not just about the professor's private life, but about its impact on his job.

Staff and students at the university might have expected that there would be a swift and open explanation, especially when the media began to take an interest. But between the press, a nervous university council and watchful lawyers, the full story was not exactly forthcoming.

McKenna's departure as vice-chancellor is unusual - there are only a handful of cases in the last decade of a university leader stepping down unexpectedly, and each is different in detail. That McKenna went after the first use of the university's whistleblowing procedure in its history made the story even more remarkable.

On November 22 last year, the university council, the decision-making body, met for the first time in the new academic year. Rumours that had circulated about the vice-chancellor had found voice as whistleblowers raised a number of matters concerning McKenna. The council, made up of 31 members, staff and laypeople, was told about the allegations, which were mainly to do with his conduct.

It decided to launch an investigation to look at the allegations and to decide whether there was sufficient evidence for an internal tribunal. Two days later, on November 24, McKenna went on sick leave.

Ulster University has four campuses across Northern Ireland. One of the largest is at Coleraine. It is here, in a suburb called Mount Sandel, that McKenna lives in an impressive university-owned residence that comes with the vice-chancellorship.

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He had good reason for believing that he was doing the job well. The university had benefited under his tenure. And in the summer of 2004, McKenna's tenure had been extended by a decade and, a few months later, he had been awarded a pay rise by the university. He was well paid, appeared well regarded, and ran a major higher education institution. Yet by the end of the year, he had been ordered to stay out of his university's grounds and told not to use his job title.

Throughout the debacle, McKenna chose to maintain a public silence. But in a response to the allegations made against him that he would later distribute to the university council, he said he was unaware of any dissatisfaction with his behaviour or management, expressed either to him or in an open forum. His solicitors wrote that he regarded it as "bizarre that, without any prior warning or complaint, he has been subjected to an attempted suspension".

The new year dawned with much uncertainty. The university had announced before Christmas that McKenna was taking a sabbatical. At the first council meeting in January, the council agreed that Sir Michael Buckley, the former Parliamentary Commissioner for Complaints and Health Service Commissioner, would investigate the allegations. Sir Michael began his interviews the following week.

According to council members, the rumours were that the vice-chancellor would not come back. There was some justification for this view: the use of the whistleblowing procedure was unprecedented in the history of the university. Once McKenna went on sabbatical so soon after the allegations surfaced, it made sense to some to believe that he probably would not return.

There were other reasons as well. There was scepticism among staff about some of the projects that had occurred during McKenna's watch, such as the instituting of charges for use of campus car parks.

In mid-February, two months after allegations first surfaced, Sir Michael produced a draft report of his findings. But it was not shown to the council. Instead, lawyers for the university outlined the main findings to council members. The wall of silence began to rise. One question stands out: why was the report not accepted by the council and minuted? The council felt that the situation had to be resolved in as non-confrontational a manner as possible, presumably to spare the university a lengthy and damaging process. So it agreed that senior members would try to continue a dialogue with the vice-chancellor. It was understood that this would be a formal process, involving lawyers on both sides, and that an agreement would be sought.

But the nature of such an agreement was unclear to council members and was not spelt out. Some felt that it would have to be a severance package of some sort. Others felt that the vice-chancellor should return, but in a different role. Ambiguity remained and weeks went past.

Some time before Wednesday, April 6, The Belfast Telegraph obtained a copy of the draft Buckley report, which the university council had still not seen, and approached the university for comment. One of the paper's reporters, Claire Regan, then went to Coleraine to put the allegations contained in it to McKenna at his university residence. She wrote her story and the paper planned to publish its scoop the next morning.

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With remarkable speed, solicitors for the university got in touch and by 4pm the next afternoon, The Belfast Telegraph and Ulster University faced each other at Belfast High Court. The university argued that the newspaper should be prevented from publishing, on the grounds that the Buckley report was a draft of a preliminary investigation and was therefore incomplete.

The judge agreed and granted the injunction.

The Belfast Telegraph was now eager to find out when the university would consider the report ready, and asked repeatedly. It has still received no answer. Sir Michael told the newspaper that his investigation was complete and he did not plan to conduct any more interviews. So The Belfast Telegraph was left in a silent limbo: told by the author that the report would not change, but not able to ascertain from the university whether they considered it complete.

Behind the scenes, the Department of Employment and Learning, the Northern Ireland Executive equivalent of the Department for Education and Skills, had offered in February to facilitate a conciliation between McKenna and the university. They suggested two names to head this initiative, one of which was Sir Brian Fender, the former chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

During March, Sir Brian met McKenna, Gerry Burns, the chair of the university council, and Richard Barnett, the acting vice-chancellor, to try to facilitate an agreement. Why he was brought in at a time when the Buckley report still had not been presented to the entire university council is unclear.

In the proposal that he submitted to the council, Sir Brian cut to the heart of the matter. He noted: "The breakdown in relationships which has occurred over the last few months could not have been predicted. There has been a serious loss of trust and the concerns raised have to be dealt with." He alluded to the worries the council had felt at the possibility of an internal tribunal, acknowledging that it would cause "great damage" to the university and even to Northern Ireland.

Sir Brian concluded that changes ought to be made to how the university was run at the top, but paved the way for the vice-chancellor to return. It seems clear that this was McKenna's preference as well - to go back to his original post, albeit with some alterations.

With the Buckley report the subject of an injunction and the future of the vice-chancellor still unclear, the university council arranged to meet at the end of May to discuss the situation. Days before the meeting, on May 18, an e-mail arrived in the inboxes of council members, followed in some cases by a printed document. It was a detailed response from McKenna, ahead of the meeting.

The council now finally received the draft Buckley report, eight typed pages stapled together, three months after a draft was submitted by Sir Michael. At the same time, they discussed Sir Brian's conciliatory proposals. In the end, the council agreed a compromise deal, with only two abstentions.

Under the deal subsequently announced by the university, McKenna will return to the university in August, but will relinquish his position as vice-chancellor. He will remain as president, travelling overseas to extend links to the university, until the end of July 2006. Barnett, who stood in as acting vice-chancellor throughout, will remain until a new vice-chancellor is found.

After the council meeting, The Belfast Telegraph reported that McKenna had been offered a compromise package as "a chance to avoid an internal tribunal on his conduct".

One insider, who preferred to remain anonymous, asked: "The question remains - what happened to those allegations? If there was sufficient cause to investigate McKenna on Friday, why wasn't there after?" Staff members who were not at the meeting, having heard its outcome, feared a cover-up.

An hour before The Times Higher went to press yesterday, Barnett, the acting vice-chancellor, sent an email to all members of staff at the university outlining the nature of Sir Michael Buckley's investigation and attempting to allay fears about a lack of clear information.

He wrote: "By doing this my aim is to give you the assurance that you deserve that Sir Michael's findings, as they relate to the good order of the university's affairs, have been taken most seriously and that appropriate action is being taken."

Barnett restricted his e-mail to Buckley's findings on "the good order of the university's affairs", saying that the report itself remained confidential. He wrote that Buckley found "a loss of confidence, by the majority of the senior officers of the university, in the executive leadership of the university".

He said that while there was no impropriety on McKenna's part, by relinquishing the vice-chancellorship and concentrating on his role as president, Sir Michael's concerns had been addressed.

He also said Buckley had found "concern in some areas of management for which the office of vice-chancellor bears ultimate responsibility" and outlined "a fundamental review" of governance structures that would now take place.

But with the Buckley report still subject to a legal injunction, to date it remains unclear what lies at the heart of the story. Without knowing what the full allegations against the vice-chancellor are, and what all of Buckley's findings were, observers, at the university and elsewhere, cannot judge how both parties have been treated.

If Sir Michael found evidence that would have stood up to a tribunal, why was one not instigated? Equally, if he found no evidence, why did McKenna not return as vice-chancellor? Neither the university nor McKenna has decided to comment further on the matter. There is a definite feeling among council members that it is now in the best interests of the university to simply close ranks and move on.

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