I'm puzzled about the Captain deferring the decision to the FO. Presumably, as the FO had already decided against de-icing, the Captain didn't want to countermand him?
Yet, when they ended up returning to gate, I'd have thought the Captain might have gone to take a look himself, if for no other reason than to check his cabin crew's judgement. But from the newspaper report, it looks as if the FO was sent to check?
Does this sequence of events make sense to those of you who are professional pilots? Something about it doesn't add up to me.