Another GC Employment Tribunal: Roz Adams vs Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre #5

[nauticant]

Roz Adams was employed by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) as a counsellor. She is claiming constructive dismissal for Gender Critical (GC) beliefs. The CEO of ERCC is a well known transwoman known for, among other things, controversial "reframe your trauma" remarks.

There's live tweeting from https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets or if Twitter doesn't show the tweets, look at https://nitter.net/tribunaltweets. There's an informative substack here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre

This post explains how to get access to watch the hearing: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4988632-another-gc-employment-tribunal-roz-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-2?page=24&reply=132419912

Abbreviations:
J: Employment Judge McFatridge
RA: Roz Adams, the claimant
NC: Naomi Cunningham, barrister for the claimant
ERCC or R: Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, the respondent
DH: David Hay KC, barrister for the respondent
KM: Katy McTernan, ERCC Senior management
MR: Mairi Rosko, ERCC Board Member
MS: Miren Sagues, ERCC Board Member
KH: Katie Horburgh, ERCC Board Member
AB: ERCC staff member (name redacted)
NCi: Nico Ciubotariu, COO of ERCC
MW: Mridul Wadhwa, CEO of ERCC
BP: Beira's Place

RA gave evidence over 15-18 January 2024.

Witnesses:
Nicole Jones (NJ): 18 January 2024 (on behalf of RA)
Mairi Rosko (MR): 19 January 2024 (on behalf of ERCC)
Katy McTernan (referred to both as KT and KM): 22-23 January 2024 (on behalf of ERCC)
Miren Sagues (MS): 24 January 2024 (on behalf of ERCC)
Katie Horburgh (KH): 24 January 2024 (on behalf of ERCC)

Thread #1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4985570-another-gc-employment-tribunal-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crsis
Thread #2: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4988632-another-gc-employment-tribunal-roz-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-2
Thread #3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4990903-another-gc-employment-tribunal-roz-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-3
Thread #4: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4991883-another-gc-employment-tribunal-roz-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-4

What a read.

I assume that as a Scottish tax-payer I will end up indirectly paying towards ERCC's defense given they're largely publicly funded. :(

When the verdict comes out, I'll be tempted to approach my MSP (Liz Smith) to ask what she makes of it all and whether she'd consider raising a Q at First Minister's questions.

Dear all

Just to say thank you from me and from the members of Tribunal Tweets for your excellent threads and interest in lawfare on the madness topic of gender critical beliefs.

People need to be aware of the consequences of this and the degree of penetration in politics, charities, health, civil society in general.

It has been helpful to be able to scan your 'highlights'. One of the real challenges of TT is the 'did the witness really just say x' because it so often seems to deny common sense, bend the usage of language and distort the purpose of organisations.

Thank you,

Baker

It has been helpful to be able to scan your 'highlights'. One of the real challenges of TT is the 'did the witness really just say x' because it so often seems to deny common sense, bend the usage of language and distort the purpose of

Certainly interesting to see how much of legal twitter is following along, sometimes mentioning it, and mostly not, but definitely aware of it.

@Justabaker many thanks back at you. Your contributions on the threads here have been really helpful and full of insight. Long may TT thrive in bringing proceedings live to so many of us. I hope that everyone does their best, in their own way, to support you in your work.
Thanks from me to everyone else who reported live on the thread, you are brilliant.

If ERCC were not adequately insured by an outsourced HR company (which it looks like they only engaged after the investigation report) then the legal costs will have to come out of their existing budgets/reserves.

Additionally HR insurance does cover the legal costs, but never cover awards to the claimant.

So if Ros wins an award, which i hope she does, one can conclude that it is going to cost them an awful lot of money.

Having read the case from an ex CEO of a smaller charity than ERCC i am agog that they proceeded.

It is pretty clear from the efforts of the defence counsel, that he struggled to mount a defence of any worth at all.

The funders will not cover the costs, it will be seen as a hopeless waste of taxpayers money, (meant for services)

And there is unlikely to be any bail out.

Huge mistake on the part of MW and his baa lambs

IANAL but as it was explained to me, an ET is about balance of probability whereas a criminal court is beyond all reasonable doubt.

So an ET can decide 51:49 and find in favour of the 51% party. The Jo Phoenix judgement was very detailed and to put it plainly the witnesses came across as not credible, to say to academics they lacked rigour is damning.

In this case the “I wouldn’t like to comment on that”, “I’m not going to speculate on that”, “I don’t want to get drawn into that”, and the “you need to ask X or I didn’t write” are likely to be seen as weakening the ERCCs case. We all know the reason the witnesses didn’t want to answer, and so do the Judge and panel, is because they couldn’t honestly answer without undermining their evidence and possibly the ERCCs defence.

I have been an ET witness for the respondent and the barrister was clear that he was not going to coach us and that we should answer questions honestly and not to worry if we thought it harmed the case. We were told to direct answers to the judge and panel and not him. We were also told give a clear answer to the question asked but then expand if necessary - so “yes but…” I did catch him wincing very slightly at a rushed answer I gave but he addressed it in final submissions.

I am so in awe of what barristers like Naomi and Ben do.

I have just been back and re-read TT for KT’s evidence. Naomi was clever in her cross exam.

Very early on there was this exchange:
NC: Had you done a workplace disc previously
KT: No first time, so hence I consulted Worknest a lot, and guided by policy.

Much later on:
NC: Had you had diversity training?
KT: Yes
NC: Did it include freedom of belief?
KT: Yes, some, not at ERCC don't think/
NC: Heard of Forstater?
KT: Yes
NC: Training on it?
KT: No

If KT had heard of Forstater and recognising her inexperience consulted Worknest why did she not ask if it was relevant/ why did they not give advice? I know legal privilege may apply, but did KT naively think by discounting evidence as “irrelevant” the Forstater judgement was not applicable rather than realising the “irrelevant” evidence was actually evidence of discrimination?

I looked at tribunal awards, which are not that much - an average of £13k for unfair dismissal, which feels like nothing when you consider how much both sides spend on the process.

However, if the ERCC loses, we need to push the Charity Commission to pull its finger out and do its job, specifically on Trustee recruitment and internal processes.
https://www.dacbeachcroft.com/en/gb/articles/2023/january/employment-tribunals-statistics-published/

I’m sure there’s a debate going on in Spanish languages spaces about how grammatical gender might need to adapt to suit gender identity beliefs but it would be a nightmare to sort.

As I mentioned on this thread at the time the Spanish witness MS gave evidence, most Spanish language media seems to me to get around it by using a noun, which obviously will take either no binario or no binaria because it's already a gendered word. So persona no binaria or genero no binario, avoids either wrongthink or clumsy language. Quite an elegant solution I think.

So this is the Scottish Charity Regulator's outline of main duties of Trustees of charity - which is KH is role as 'board' member.

A charity trustee must:

1. Act in the interests of the charity:

1.1 You must operate in a manner consistent with the charity's purpose 1.2 You must act with care and diligence 1.3 You must manage any conflict of interest between the charity and any person or organisation who appoints trustees

1. Comply with the 2005 Act (specific duties):

2.1 Charity details on the Scottish Charity Register
2.2 Reporting to OSCR: making changes to your charity
2.3 Financial records and reporting
2.4 Fundraising
2.5 Providing information to the public.

And looking at this I think NC has done sterling work in opening up two areas that should be of concern to the panel.

First is that they 'must operate in a manner consistent with the charity's purpose'.

If, therefore, the policy created by the charity is at odds with its purpose, as it so clearly is, then the KH line of just sticking to policy and only claiming a focus on policy doesn't stand up. Her chief concern should have been the charity's purpose: the support of victim's or rape. If the needs of staff interfere with that purpose then KH's responsibility is not to the staff member, or the policy but to the purpose of the charity.

Secondly. She had to 'manage any conflict of interest between the charity and any person or organisation who appoints trustees. Surely this allows much scope for the panel to see that she has favoured the person who appoints trustees over the purpose of the charity? I hope that is where NC is going with this.

apples24 · Today 12:57

I assume that as a Scottish tax-payer I will end up indirectly paying towards ERCC's defense given they're largely publicly funded. :(

I was wondering, but Karensalright has answered. How horrifying that they are likely to have to pay legal costs and compensation out of their budget. Surely that will have to mean that MW gets sacked?

I do think the advice from Worknest would be fascinating to read - not only what their advice was (real law or stonewall law) but also how much of it there was and the extent to which it was followed.

I'm not sure I totally believe any of the ERCC witnesses about the extent to which they sought or acted upon worknest's advice.

I would be very interested to see the briefing they gave Worknest and the guidance they requested.

Ha ha ha. I just googled worknest.

This is on their front page 'Struggling to tackle toxic behaviours?Discover a wealth of expert guidance and resources on our free employer hub.
'
https://worknest.com/

Never heard this before but it fits my EX DH to a T

See, I reckon they did.
But like Naomi pointed out to MS, she seemed to scuttle back to MW each time she'd been given advice from Work Nest, to check the 'party line'.

You have to subscribe to get their 'guide to tackling toxicity in the workplace'.

I wonder if ERCC is one of the examples that informed their guide? An organisation that failed to follow up on an employee who was signed off work with stress after being accused of transphobia for respectfully asking how to respond to a service users question in a meaningful way for that user. And the text message quoted as an example of care was 'when are you coming back to work?' (or something to that effect).

Deleted cos I stupidly haven't learned how to add the comment I was responding to.

In following policy she was acting more like an employee than a trustee. So she was never going to do anything that the CEO didn't want her to. She never seemed to consider the policy could be wrong / illegal.

Yes, I suspect Worknest don't have particular advice for the charity sector and that the reliance on broad advice might undo them. I suspect also they haven't consulted guidance for Trustees of Scottish Charities and so 'You must operate in a manner consistent with the charity's purpose' has been superseded with 'policy' which might be fine in a standard work environment but won't work for the position of a charity Trustee. KH had a responsibility to the purpose of the charity, not the policies of that charity if they are in conflict and the bias NC pointed out in the i/x report is clearly in conflict with the charity's purpose. I wonder if NC will use that in her submission? She didn't raise it in questions but perhaps she hadn't anticipated KH would take that line.

Maya's award was £109K
Carl Borg-Neal got £800K+ from Lloyds - he asked at diversity training how to deal with a BAME staff member who used the word n-- . And said the actual word out loud.

Some of these awards are starting hurt.

Destroyed his decades long career.

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/remedies-hearing-borg-neal-v-lloyds

@Largofesse such a helpful post . Thank you.

Which would lead again to question the wisdom of appointing a young employee of 18 months working experience as a trustee, when it would involve responsibilities including independence of thought and providing checks and balances. What ability would they have to be aware of or stand up against serving the interests of a CEO who is powerful, a well known public figure, and from the culture presented by the witnesses, a rather revered one so protected by the service.

For example not being expected to attend trainings that might be a bit traumatic in presenting challenging POVs to them. (Not a consideration the CEO personally extended to physically attacked and traumatised women incidentally. They apparently could be expected to just find resilience and get on with things, in very arguably much more severe and pressured circumstances.)

Social media is undoing centuries of valuable intellectual individualism. Academics who once worked in creative solitude now work with the virtual equivalent of the Traitors roundtable in their pockets. Nobody wants to be voted off. Everywhere, ideas are increasingly judged by their social rather than their intellectual cachet. On Twitter, “alpha” users who bully and brag their way to dominance are not only accepted but disproportionately rewarded. The weird, the sceptical and the intellectually independent are comparatively helpless. It is now quite easy for a handful of toxic but socially dominant personalities to reshape their university departments, media organisations or political parties.

The same is true of Third Sector and too many other institutions.

On the usual sites: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/like-the-traitors-were-hostage-to-groupthink-6dhrhx9xt