GIDS being sued by their safeguarding lead.

HB - apologies. Couldn’t use hands. There has been a back and forth with YG suggesting SA being disingenuous and SA rejecting this. Very similar to earlier questioning)

YG questioning SA about first meeting between her and GR in March 2018

YG - Curiosity is we’ve got your evidence that there were concerns and yet there’s no action. There wasn’t any will on your part to help GIDS make the progress you want them to be making
SA - I’ve said this before. I had several restraints on my availability …

I was due to see Garry in May. I saw him in June, July, August where we had specific things to discuss.

END OF EVIDENCE TODAY

Sonia A comes across as calm, compassionate, and completely professional. Very impressive under hostile questioning.

SA I understand in one of the redacted transcripts in Dr Sinha’s review that I was referred to as a transphobe

YG - what you were doing was adding to splits already in the service. Your role in this was very partial - not impartial…

sa - I strongly reject that. “I know that I was bringing uncomfortable news to GIDS.” I respect their work but I do object to the name calling in this way and it’s something others have cited. And I do hope it’s something that can be put right.

SA - “I am not against the GIDS service. I never have been and I am very supportive of those who have the challenges that many of their clients have. I think anyone whether they be transgender or gender dysphoria… deserves a safe service.”

YG - para 30 of your witness statement. Why do you challenge the description of GIDS as a highly specialist service?

SA - I’m essentially saying that portraying as a highly specialised service without acknowledging that the service is riven with challenges from staff ...

If you have a staff group working with complex patients… but if that service is undermined by staff saying they’re too afraid to speak up, too afraid to use professional curiosity…and that some staff feel - and I’m not saying everyone experiences this…

…they have said you’re in danger of being called a transphobe if you’re perceived about being Curious about what the service is doing, even though I’m sure all staff members want to do their very best

I’m not disputing that this is a specialist service, and the work is complex. “But that work is made even more complicated by the complexities of the culture within the service”…

on the one hand we have children w complex needs and on the other we have some members of staff who have had serious problems in the service, and I don’t think these are deviant misfits. And they have struggled …in a service with serious splits.

…GIDS clinicians have some of the highest caseloads in the trust. They work incredibly hard.

SA - I think it’s unfortunate you are implying i don’t recognise the diversity in GIDS service, Dr Spiliadis indicated he was denigrated because of his diversity

YG - but at the same time as some are saying they’re being called transphobes, there are others who say they’ve experienced homophobia?
SA - I agree

SA - I myself Became known as a transphobe… anyone who accesses an NHS service needs a safe service.

Nose back to the grindstone

G says Bernadette Wren (member of GIDS exec) also does not know about safeguarding concerns

SA - dr wren does actually suggest that she was aware that I had spoken to rob senior about the concerns. I am disappointed if dr Senior failed to avail dr Carmichael on some of the factual details of this matter - that I had gone to him and was awaiting a response

It’s challenging now because it was in the past

The Tavi have tried to please everyone that has been pressuring them. They now have new people pressuring them and the points of pressure are incompatible.

Mermaids and TRAs have heaped pressure on them and they have been meeting some demands which must cause discomfort. Now people are sitting up and holding them to account, that discomfort is hard to tolerate and the decisions nigh on impossible to defend - accusations of transphobia are the first line of defence and when this fails tears are inevitable.

I found it really confusing yesterday but some of the things covered today have started to make better sense of what has already been said.

Hopefully, today will make more sense when we have other witnesses.

Also, we do not know what the written papers say.

Hopefully HannahsBee will be able to enlighten us when it is over.

SA says nothing she did was with the intention of causing harm to Polly Carmichael

YG cites an email from PC to rob senior in Jan 2018 - “you can see there, she is blind sided isn’t she?”
SA - I can see that she is not best pleased
YG - she’s blindsided because she’s not given any information

Thanks for all the updates Melroses and others who have contributed. This is fascinating to read but not that easy to follow.

I guess this is the defences narrative and they are covering two bases.

I assume they would prefer the over reacting but either way, both arguments aim to undermine Sonia

YG suggests that PC had not been informed about really serious matters
SA - not trying to be difficult but I cannot confirm that at the moment. But the critical thing is that I did go and speak with Dr C’s manager who advised me to speak to Dr C, which I did about a week later

SA confirms she spoke to Sally Hodges after speaking to another colleague - Mr Lowe - and more importantly I copied my line manager in and he did not respond. I was alert with no other choice but to raise with sally Hodges which I did.

Discussion of another email sent by professional in the trust.

SA - I just wondered about it so I rang him and he said ‘actually, everyone’s really really anxious” and that prompted me to speak to sally Hodges who was PC’s line manager. She suggested that I should go and speak to Dr Carmichael, which is exactly what I did.

(Discussion about lots of emails)

SA disagrees with YG suggestion on who knew what, when (HB - sorry not to be clearer)

Blame shifting - it can't have been that bad or you would have done something else, if it was that bad why didn't you do more, it's all your fault.

I am also wtf about PC crying in the meeting, what the hell? Totally inappropriate response from a professional in her position, ridiculous

Forgot to say, thx for the updates Melrose, and everyone else who has taken a turn.

YG discussing follow up email SA sent to dr senior - “it seems the most limited response you could possibly make” - do you agree?

SA - it was ltd and it was my way of chasing Dr S. I admit i didn’t put a strong text but I wanted him to know that I wasn’t going to let go and I wanted a response. But before he responded someone else contacted me and I did go to sally hodges (Polly Carmichael’s manager)

As for Dr C "becoming tearful" - wtaf?

I don't know if I'm reading this right, but it seems to me that they are simultaneously saying there was no safeguarding issue, and that SA should have been doing more to sort out the safeguarding issue.

It's very odd, the implication that she didn't do enough to sort out a problem that wasn't there

YG - you yourself we’re not doing anything. That wld systemically ameliorate these problems. That’s correct isn’t it?

SA - it is not correct. it was unfortunate that I was unable to meet with Garry during the autumn break, but I do know that Dr Senior was present in the team. It’s unfortunate that I could not have been as visible as I wld have liked.

YG - despite what you say, and I know you had health concerns in Nov 2017, but in June you’re holding a number of concerns from clinicians which have developed, and yet there is nothing more to be done from your end at all …

SA - if I were the only member of the s/g team I’d accept that. But I wasn’t. Dr Senior was working with the team. The only month I wasn’t away at all was October. It’s not ordinarily what I would subscribe to, but the service was not left …

…this was a service which had access to a psychiatrist who’d previously had a lot of involvement with the service. Of course I accept I wasn’t able to see GR in a timely way but what I cannot accept the proposition that is being put today that I basically did nothing

…the fact that Dr C was perturbed by the fact I spoke to my line manager before her is unfortunate. But as a safeguarding lead my duty is to speak to my own line manager first

YG - presumably you didn’t think a child was at risk? SA - no child was mentioned in my contact with 4 members of staff. They were telling me about their own experiences and how that effected their work. Some felt coerced. And that is a safeguarding concern…

…”staff whose job it is to make children safe do not feel safe themselves.”

YG - but that is an immediate safeguarding concern? If that’s genuine it doesn’t make any sense at all not to tell the director managing the service

SA - I think we’re going to have to agree to differ… I could not have gone and had that conversation with a senior manager without telling my own line manager. And his response was that he would speak to Polly’s manager

It displays a stark lack of safeguarding knowledge that she doesn’t know that if you have a safeguarding concern you talk to the person above you and if you’re the safeguarding lead you have to talk with your manager.

YG - it feels very process driven rather than outcome driven…
SA - I’m damned if i do and damned if I don’t. I don’t know what add S wld have said if I’d had a conversation with Dr C without talking to him. I wld do the same again - I spoke to my line manager and he said…

…he wld talk to Dr C’s line manager. When I came back from sick leave there was still not a response from Dr S so wrote again on 19th Jan and still no response.

YG - let’s go back a stage (402). In your first email to dr Senior you list a series of issues - Team members ‘coerced into not supporting s/g issues’; most concern that some team members ‘reported the tensions around political conformity within and beyond the trust’

This looks like ‘some kind of back room approach.’ You propose to have a meeting with the team without their managers being involved

SA - I don’t think it’s as conspiratorial as you’re suggesting. I’ll be absolutely clear agin: I consider it was right and proper that I speak to my line manager about matters brought to my attention. I wasn’t being underhanded. I wanted to ensure he would advise me on next steps

YG - your contemporaneous email undermines that and your approach was to undermine the management of the team

YG - suggests that there is no meeting between SA and PC in September 2017 (para 20 witness statement). PC can’t find reference to it
SA - we did have a meeting. A follow up meeting. And at that meeting Dr C wld confirm that GR would be the lead.

It was a much easier,cordial meeting. Not that previous one was unmanageable.

YG - according to PC there is a written service protocol. She’s unclear as to what else you were looking for to satisfy yourself as to how things operated in GIDS

SA - issue in 2017 was that I was not directed towards that model. Dr C talked very helpfully about the service attracting critics and admirers. But when I talked about the model, Dr C became tearful and helpfully Dr Senior wound the meeting up. September meeting much better

SA - it was a difficult meeting and it was a difficult meeting when I raised the subject again in 2018

YG - in October and Nov 2017 you receive info from concerned GIDS clinicians, you’ve established a s/g lead and had constructive meetings with Dr C, and yet you don’t go and talk to Dr C about that. Isn’t that blind siding her?

SA. Not it’s not at all. If I have a concern about anything to do with safeguarding I raise that with my manager. My manage assists me…

… I don’t make the decision myself to talk to anyone about v sig safeguarding matter without discussing with my line manager, which is exactly what I did.

YG - you send an email to Dr senior, who doesn’t respond in October or November. Presumably you’re in close proximity to each other?
SA - yes, same floor
YG - so you could have said let’s discuss with Dr C

SA - I did discuss this with Dr S and his advice was that he would speak to Dr Carmichael’s manager. He did not ask me to speak to Dr Carmichael

Wow. So part of the conflict was that she was specifically warning about GenderGP and Webberly? And even reporting them?