Adebola Adedimeji, a former Trinity lecturer, failed to defend his work in court after being accused of plagiarism by his former thesis supervisee, Annette Rochford. Rochford, a clinical nurse specialist, has accused Adedimeji of presenting her research as his own on two separate occasions.
The Sunday Times reported that Rochford has accused Adedimeji of providing little guidance to her as a thesis advisor, yet asking to use her work in a talk at the Population Association of America conference in September of 2008. Despite Rochford not consenting to Adedimeji’s use of her work, Rochford argued that Adedimeji presented a paper in 2009 which was “substantially” based on the work she had completed.
Adedimeji cited Rochford as the secondary author in the paper he presented, which was called “To Tell or Not to Tell: Managing HIV/Aids Disclosure in a Low Prevalence Context”. In 2010, Adedimeji formally published the work he presented at the conference in 2009 and did not include reference of Rochford or of her research upon publication. According to The Sunday Times, Adedimeji utilised six direct quotes from individuals who participated in Rochford’s surveys, going against the conduct Rochford agreed upon with the individuals she surveyed.
Rochford is suing both Adedimeji and Trinity in the Circuit Court under copyright law. Adebimeji has claimed that his work was within the realm of Trinity’s ethics committee, while Trinity has claimed that they have not violated Rochford’s rights.
Since the accusations, Adedimeji has failed to comply with a discovery order from the Circuit Court. The order required that he provide documentation to prove that he had co-authored the work. Rochford has argued that based on Adedimeji’s affidavit, he plans to continue to disobey the orders of the Circuit Court.
Currently, Rochford is a clinical nurse specialist at Crumlin Children’s Hospital. She completed her masters at Trinity in 2007 in the field of global health. Her work has been centred around researching the management of HIV disclosure to partners at risk.
