Climate scientist involved in emails controversy says he did no wrong

London, Nov. 16 (ANI): A year after he was accused of being at the centre of a political and scientific storm over hundreds of leaked climate science emails, researcher Dr. Phil Jones remains unrepentant, and claims that he did no wrong.

In an interview with the journal Nature to coincide with the anniversary of the emails' release, Jones says he did nothing wrong.

He said he did not illegally delete emails that had been requested under freedom of information laws. He also retracted a pledge made earlier in the year to correct one of his papers.

Jones said he was now more careful about what he wrote.

"I'm a little more guarded about what I say in e-mails now. One thing in particular I'm doing is not responding so quickly. I might have got an e-mail in the past and responded with an instant thought in the next 10 to 15 minutes, whereas now I might leave it a day," The Guardian quoted Dr. Jones, as saying.

But he argued that scientists should be able to express themselves in personal messages.

"People would be saying much the same things at scientific meetings and discussed [them] over dinner. But in an e-mail, it is recorded. People have probably forgotten what you said after a night out," he said.

The personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) servers in November last year and leaked onto the Internet.

Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed Jones and his colleagues colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals' research from being published at all.

Jones temporarily stood down from his post as head of the UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) while investigations were launched into his and his colleagues' conduct.

Jones and his team at CRU were cleared of any misconduct in an independent inquiry headed by former civil servant Sir Muir Russell earlier this year, who looked at whether the researchers had committed fraud or some other type of scientific misbehavior. (ANI)