Rachel Meade awarded exemplary damages

[Lovelyview]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c18e91c6-e124-4a6d-a491-87031e762e6d?shareToken=6c9d5a2ee8339d1d0efeb44de2f7782a

This has made me feel ridiculously cheerful today 🙂

Social worker Rachel Meade has been awarded exemplary damages of £58,000 against Social Work England and Westminster City Council. She was suspended from her job as a social worker due to her gender critical beliefs.

'Awarding the damages, the tribunal judge, Richard Nicolle, said that Social Work England’s actions constituted a “serious abuse of its power as a regulatory body”.
The judge said that the regulator had “allowed its processes to be subverted to punish and suppress” Meade’s lawful political speech, and to do so on grounds of her protected beliefs. In doing so it had violated her right to free speech as protected under human rights law.
The judge added that the regulator had a “pre-ordained view” that Meade’s beliefs were “unacceptable”.'

Well done, Rachel. I suspect those 'exemplary' damages come to very little when held up against the years of strain and fear and frustration experienced by those going through the process. We really need to lobby for changes to the limit on damages in these most egregious cases so that employers really think twice before behaving so badly.

Very good news.

Does anyone know how enforceable the ET’s “recommendations” are? What happens if SWE just double down with some Stonewall training instead?

Fantastic result

Good judgment

"In view of this situation it is apparent that the views expressed by the
Claimant were not extreme but rather represented her expressing her opinion in
an ongoing public debate. The fact that the debate can often be vociferous, and
on occasion toxic, does not mean that the right to freedom of expression in a
democratic society should be restricted. An analogy was given during the hearing
was to the divisive position of Brexit in the period up to and beyond the 2016
referendum, to which the Respondents both acknowledged that an
employee/social worker would have been entitled to post their opinions, and we
consider that the same entitlement should have existed to another contentious
area of debate.

274. We consider it wholly inappropriate that an individual such as the Claimant espousing one side of the debate should be labelled discriminatory, transphobic and to pose a potential risk to vulnerable service users. That in effect equates her views as being equivalent to an employee/social worker espousing racially discriminatory or homophobic views. The opinions expressed by the Claimant could not sensibly be viewed as being transphobic when properly considered in their full context from an objective perspective, but rather her expressing an opinion contrary to the interpretation of legislation, or perhaps more accurately the amendment to existing legislation, advocated for by trans lobbying groups to include, but not limited to, Stonewall".

Actually I don’t think this is a great result. The lack of a costs award results in a significant financial loss for Rachel (I believe the shortfall is in excess of £60k if not more)!!

The exemplary damages are therefore worthless - I’m so sorry 😔

Can someone remind me of the name of the TRA please? Doing some digging on something else, cheers.

Did somebody say "bundle" ?

Yes 💪! All power to you Rachel. A stunning victory. You were so brave and have been vindicated. All these wins are setting the way for more of us to make a stand and bring about change and a return to common sense.

Good judgement but I wish they had included costs too. Does anyone know if it is still possible to do a bit of gardening?

Yes it is definitely still possible to do some gardening and let's all do our bit, else Rachel won't get even a bottle of champagne out of the award as it'll go to the lawyers.

The original crowd funding is still open and an update from Rachel is on there asking for help with the shortfall in legal costs.

Aedon Wolton? Works for Sport England

That's the one. Thank you.

Brilliant result.

Exemplary damages are rare!

Naomi Cunningham, who represented Rachel Meade, did mention "bundle" in her brief Q&A after being named "Lawyer of the Week" in the Times. (Hope the archive link works!)

Naomi Cunningham on her career and winning a gender critical case:
https://archive.ph/5oDum

I just donated to her legal costs, it's the last day for it.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/unlawful-discrimination-by-soc/?utm_source=backer_social&utm_campaign=unlawful-discrimination-by-soc&utm_reference=d8bdcb9358c04431cdceb33889bfba87&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_content=post_pledge_page

Donated to reduce the losses for taking this on on behalf of all of us (despite the damages).

Bumping

Thanks for the reminder, I'll drop a carrot in the bucket.

Thank you for the alert. I have just donated for her costs. It is so wrong she has them.

I didn't realise how far short she is. Borrowed some seeds from somewhere else.

Thanks for the reminder. I’ve contributed, she shouldn’t be out of pocket for fighting this fight

That's how I feel.
Cheers! 🙂

You called?