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LONDON: The beleaguered British scientist at the centre of the "climategate" email scandal has admitted he considered suicide in the wake of the global backlash.
57-year-old Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, said he was unprepared for the scandal.
In emails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009, Jones appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring climate change.
Professor Jones, who has stepped down from his post at the University pending a probe said he had a "David Kelly moment", referring to the weapons expert whose body was found in the UK's Oxfordshire woods after being exposed as the source for reports that the government 'sexed up' claims about Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
"I am just a scientist. I have no training in PR or dealing with crises," he said, adding "I thought of killing myself". He told The Sunday Times that he thought about killing himself "several times".
The scientist said he was shocked. "People said I should go and kill myself. They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world," he was quoted as saying by the British daily.
Jones, who has temporarily stood down as director of the climatic research unit at the University, fiercely defends his groups unit's science. He believes that the unit was maliciously targeted with multiple Freedom of Information (FoI) requests by climate change sceptics determined to disrupt its work.
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