A new dispute has erupted over the fate of Sir Tim Hunt, the Nobel prizewinner accused of making sexist remarks at an international conference earlier this year. Sir Colin Blakemore, one of Britain’s leading scientists, has resigned as honorary president of the country’s science writers association over its support for the journalist whose reports led to Hunt’s dismissal.

Blakemore said he had been frustrated by the decision of the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) to continue to give unconditional support to Connie St Louis, who first claimed Hunt had made sexist remarks.

Subsequent evidence has since suggested that St Louis’s account was “unbalanced, exaggerated, and selective”, Blakemore told the Observer.

“Yet the ABSW refuses to investigate the issue, despite the fact that its standing orders explicitly state that ‘wilful or frequent misrepresentation or inaccuracy’ shall be considered a breach of its standards,” he said.

“Given the very serious consequences of St Louis’s reports, and the ABSW’s refusal to act, I have decided to resign. I have been honorary president of the association for 11 years but feel that I have no alternative.”

However, Martin Ince, the president of the ABSW, rejected the idea that the association had a role to play in assuring journalistic standards. “Our statement simply supports her right to report a story without fear of personal attack. We note that Sir Tim Hunt has acknowledged the accuracy of St Louis’s reporting and has apologised for his remarks,” he said.

The resignation of Blakemore, one of the country’s most distinguished biologists and professor of neuroscience and philosophy in the School of Advanced Study, University of London, will rekindle the furore over the treatment of Hunt earlier this year and is likely to raise further questions about journalistic standards employed in covering the affair.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Connie St Louis, left, reported comments at a science conference by Sir Tim Hunt that were picked up worldwide. Photograph: Guardian, Observer

The Nobel prizewinner was subject to intense, vitriolic online abuse in June over reports, originally stemming from St Louis, that he had claimed there should be separate laboratories for men and women and that if women were criticised they cry. Hunt was later sacked from key posts, including an honorary position at University College London.

Tim Hunt: ‘I’ve been hung out to dry. They haven’t even bothered to ask for my side of affairs’ Read more

However, subsequent investigations suggested Hunt had intended his remarks to be jocular, and many of the claims of St Louis – who runs a postgraduate course in science journalism at City University London – about her own professional credentials were called into question. Her online CV was taken down and republished with large chunks of its original material removed.

Nevertheless, in the middle of the furore over the incident, the ABSW – the professional body for UK science journalists and communicators – issued a statement giving “its full support” for St Louis, who happens to be a member of the ABSW board. Since then it has refused to make any further comment on the matter.

The ABSW has simply brushed away serious complaints and refused to implement its own procedures Sir Colin Blakemore

Blakemore added: “I’m really disappointed to resign from the ABSW, but I have no choice. In the face of a controversy that’s dominated science journalism for four months, the board of the ABSW has simply brushed away serious complaints and refused to implement its own procedures. The ABSW was in a position to look at all the evidence and to help to bring some closure to this whole affair, but it’s missed that opportunity.”

Blakemore’s action was backed by the distinguished physicist Dame Athene Donald, who also criticised the association. She revealed that several weeks ago she wrote to the ABSW to ask that it investigate the way that the Hunt story was initially reported.

“Tim Hunt’s reputation has been destroyed because careful journalistic due diligence was not followed by many who wrote about the event, and the ABSW decision not to take any further action appears to endorse such behaviour,” Donald, who is professor of experimental physics at Cambridge University (and the university’s former gender equality champion), told the Observer. “The justification for this non-action strikes me as inadequate.”

In addition, the British ambassador in Chile, Fiona Clouder – who is a former head of science and innovation at the Foreign Office – has revealed she has also called for action, in a private capacity, from the ABSW. “It became apparent that not all the facts [concerning the Hunt story] were as originally reported and this was misleading for presenting British science and British values abroad,” she told the Observer. “I suggested the ABSW might acknowledge things were not all as they first appeared in reporting the story. I have not heard any more from the association.”