Oxford don Dr Devinder Sivia 'treated appallingly' over friend's death Dr Sivia, 49, was finally released on Friday as police indicated that the case was more likely to be a matter for a coroner's inquest than the criminal court. Nevertheless he officially remained on bail last night as police await the results of post-mortem examinations. Neighbours said he had been unable to return to his home in the village of Southmoor near Abingdon, Oxon, following his release and questioned why he ever arrested on suspicion of murder. "He's been treated appallingly," said one woman living close to Dr Sivia's detached bungalow. It has now become obvious that the police should not have arrested him and the poor guy's life has now been ruined. He's been splashed all over the papers and had people thinking he's done something awful. How do you come back from that? It's all anyone's been talking about. One man called for police to publicly apologise to their neighbour after he had been "dragged through the mud." Another elderly gentleman added: "They kept him at the police station for nearly two days. The body was at his house, fine, you've got to at least question him but did they have to keep him there for so long and did they have to say he'd been arrested for murder? He added that Dr Sivia was known locally as a "quiet and gentle" man. "We thought there had to have been a mistake and lots of us are glad that now there seems to be an explanation and the other bloke died naturally," he said. Members of Dr Sivia's family said only that they were relieved the matter appeared to have been resolved. A female family member who answered the door at Dr Sivia's brother's house in Birmingham said: "As far as we're concerned the matter has been cleared up. Professor Rawlings' wife put out a statement to say that she didn't think Devinder was to blame for the death and there's nothing else we want to add to that. Last night colleagues of Prof Rawlings paid tribute to his work developing the world's largest radio telescope. He was one of a handful of figures who helped bring the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - which will peer back 13 billion years in time - to the brink of construction. Only days before Prof Rawlings's death the project reached a major milestone, becoming a legal entity for the first time. It is due to be built in the next four years. Dr Andrew Faulkner, an astrophysicist at Cambridge University, said:"Undoubtedly Steve Rawlings made a huge impact, especially while it was in its embryonic state and bringing it in to fruition." He added: "Frankly he was right up there, as a cosmologist in the UK, he was top notch. He was a lovely man, very kind and supportive and very, very intelligent. You get some clever people who are really very sure that they are very important, Steve didn't come over like that. He was very happy to talk to anybody at all, you only gradually realised that this guy was really quite something.