The PhD that started well may not lead to a degree...First, my supervisor left half-way through my PhD, refusing to let someone else be appointed as my supervisor in his/her absence. Then, I find some odd differences between figures I provided versus the same figures that my initial supervisor has edited to fit into a manuscript in preparation. To make a long story short, further looks into the matter only points in the direction that my initial supervisor has cheated (and not only on my figures). Afterwards, I have received bullying, threats and outrageous accusations from my initial supervisor. Instead of acting on this case of scientific misconduct, my department tries to cover it up and pretend it does not exist. To make it even worse, the department instead acts on my initial supervisor's outrageous accusations against me - despite that he/she has no support for these accusations and have been found to lie on many occasions. This has lead to massive delays for my writing up of thesis, as well as getting the department to appoint examiners. I though it will be an end of the hell when submitting thesis, but then there were quite some weeks without any viva date - despite reminders to the examiners. Therefore, I asked the University to ask the examiners when they can provide a date. Instead, the examiners say they will not do it...this means that my department needs to appoint new examiners. In the mean time, my initial supervisor has come with even more accusations against me...The last months of writing up, it was clear to me that the department withheld to provide feedback to my thesis draft til they have digged into my initial supervisor accusations...the latest accusation is among the worst (and of course not true) and I am not sure any longer if it is worth prove to them again that initial supervisor is again making up stuff...the department is likely to withhold to appoint examiners til initial supervisor is happy, just like they did with my thesis drafts...

It seems strange that you suddenly get informed that you need to undergo a 2nd viva if the results from the first viva did not state that? Can you reach your first supervisor for advice/support via email/Skype?

I think you should let your supervisor have the final review of the thesis. I doubt your supervisor would be happy finding out you have submitted without informing. I don't think it is worth risking your working relationship with your supervisor for such a reason as you both should have been aware that the extension time was running short.

Many thanks for all the advice and input! I have just finished 3 years of the PhD and ideally would like focus on the thesis writing and next step instead of the issues my supervisor is causing. I do not have an official second supervisor, but there is another supervisor at my department that has offered to read through my thesis chapters (I will include my version of the graphs instead of my supervisor's modified ones). My supervisor has bullied me as well and the communication between the me and him has been poor lately (including status of the publication where the suspected figures are included.) I guess my only option is to go to the head of department for this.

Don't let yourself feel down because of something your supervisor did. Are there anyone at your department that can help out with the practicalities of this issue? And as mentioned by Tudor_Queen it is really important to talk out about such feelings and thoughts; try to call Samaritans again. They are offering support 24/7 all year round.

I would like to ask for advice for what are the most appropriate actions to take if one suspects that the supervisor is falsifying data. My suspicion arise when some figures I send to my my supervisor does not look the same as in the supervisor's figure files. In one figure "the low responding" values in the treatment group are gone, error bars altered and some outlines gone and the control group. In another figure the control values are identical to those I sent but the treatment group are altered showing a difference to the control group (which my experiments and my graph does not do).

Of note the same supervisor has on several occasions been reported to HR for bullying behavior, including bullying against supervisor's own group members.

What would you advice me to do, and what would be expected of me to do since I know and are aware of this?

Many thanks in advance!