Charity boss’ apology to rape survivors over support centre row

Ms Wadhwa arrived in the UK in 2002 while living as a woman in her native India. Her passport said she was female. She has been been working in the the violence against women and equality sectors in Scotland since 2005.

She has previously tried to stand for election for the SNP but was not selected as a candidate and later joined the Scottish Greens.

In an interview with The Ferret, external news service, she said that coverage of claims she was “legally male” had unleashed “a host of hate” and that the focus on having a gender recognition certificate was racist as well as transphobic because it failed to take in Indian cultural norms.

In an interview with the Guilty Feminist podcast in the same year, Ms Wadwha was asked about rape survivors who might be uncomfortable with the presence of trans women in spaces such as rape crisis centres.

In her response, she said that “sexual violence can happen to bigoted people too” and that if rape victims hold “unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma”.

Controversy arose around the Edinburgh centre when an employment tribunal found in May of this year that a counsellor – Roz Adams – had been unfairly constructively dismissed over her belief that people who used the service should be able to know the sex of the staff that would be dealing with their case.

Ms Wadhwa was highlighted in the tribunal outcome as she appeared to believe that Ms Adams was transphobic.

Rape Crisis Scotland then commissioned legal consultant Vicky Ling to review the Edinburgh service.

Ms Ling found that the centre had failed to protect women-only spaces for 16 months and that Ms Wadhwa “did not understand the limits on her role’s authority, when to refer decisions to trustees and failed to set professional standards of behaviour”.

The report also said there was “evidence that the actions of some ERCC staff had caused damage to some survivors”, and that concerns had been raised that some women were “excluding themselves from approaching Rape Crisis Centres including ERCC” because of their aproach to gender identity.

Ms Ling also said she had been made aware that some professionals had heard that “some survivors did not feel safe using the centre”.

After the report was published, Rape Crisis Scotland said it would pause referrals to ERCC – though people can still self-refer – until it was happy the review recommendations had been put in place.

Ms Brindley said she knew nothing of issues at the centre until October last year.

She said she then advised the ERCC board to settle the case rather than proceeding with the employment tribunal and acknowledged she should have been aware of the conflict sooner

Ms Brindley added there had been “significant failures” at the ERCC and she hoped to introduce a “robust framework of assessment” to make sure the national standards are followed and that women-only spaces are provided in future.