Thread by @tribunaltweets

Good morning.

We will be continuing to live-tweet the case of Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre today. It is expected to re-commence at 10am

The Claimant, was employed by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre as a counsellor.

She does not subscribe to gender identity theory. She believes that biological sex is real, important, immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity. The Claimant alleges constructive dismissal because of her gender critical beliefs.

Abbreviations:
J: Employment Judge McFatridge
C or RA - Roz Adams, the Claimant
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for the claimant
R or ERCC - 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

NVC: non-violent communication
E&W RC: Rape Crisis England and Wales
SRC: Scottish Rape Crisis
GRC: gender recognition certificate

Mairi Rosko, ERCC Board Member (MR) is expected to be the first witness for the Respondent

We're in the virtual court now. Waiting for the judge to enter and the session to commence

J: Is there any housekeeping?
[MR is affirmed]
DH: Can you confirm your name and address
MR: [confirms name and address]
DH: Some background. What is your connection to ERCC
MR: I am on the Board of Trustees and joined in May 2022

DH: Were you an ordinary board member when you joined
MR: yes
DH: are you remunerated for that
MR: no
DH: do you have a job
MR: yes I am a fundraiser for a theatre
DH: do you have experience on a board
MR: this is my first board appointment but helped with other board members

DH: at the theatre
MR: yes
DH: how many board members at ERCC?
MR: 7
DH: are all members volunteers?
MR: yes
DH: when you joined, what were your generally duties
MR: I attended board meetings and strategy meetings and was part of fund-raisiing group

DH: how often do the board meet?
MR: [missed]
DH: were you involved in operation of service
MR: no
DH: [missed]
MR: meetings on zoom - MW was part of meetings

DH: before disciplinary had you had dealings with RA?
MR: no
DH: re disciplinary meeting. How did you come to be involved
MR: MW asked me to. The was a Q of who would be on panel and I was asked if I could do it
DH: had you experienced on disciplinary meetings (DM) before

MR: I'd had some experience. I had been a manager for a long time
DH: had you had training from ERCC re DM processes
MR: not from ERCC. Elsewhere I had training
DH: [refers to bundle] do you recognise the DM procedure or ERCC
MR: yes

DH: did you have access to these prior to DM with RA?
MR: yes they were sent to me
DH: A board of director needed to be at meeting. Why was there 3 f them
MR: bc MW had already been involved and NCi knew about it and KM had already taken notes

DH: there was evidence that under the board was the CEO. then COO then service manager. This was MW, NCi and KM?
MR: yes
DH: Niamh McCrosten (?) and (?) were other members of the board? Were they there prior to you starting?
MR: yes
DH: was HR involved?

MR: not from the centre but we had access to legal employment advice throughout
DH: who provided that?
MR: Workness (?)
DH: did you seek advice
MR: yes at every step of the procedure

DH: the 1st contact with RA was an email you sent to her on 13/9/22 - you advised that there would be a communication forthcoming
MR: yes
DH: how far prior to that were you asked to be on panel
MR: on the 1st or 2nd of september
DH: did you receive papers re the DM process

MR: yes on the 9th and we agreed to meet on the 11th to discuss the way forward
DH: what papers did you received then
MR: copy of the investigation and the minutes and the procedure docs and the response from RA. It was many docs. And the email chains

DH: are these the emails from June?
MR: yes plus some from prior to that
DH: we know that you wrote inviting RA to the Disciplinary hearing. You also wrote a letter that was sent out dated 18/9/22. Not signed but over the page your name is at the foot. Who prepared the letter?

MR: I did
DH: Going to 1st page of the letter - there are 3 allegations
MR: yes
DH: 2 misconduct and 1 gross misconduct
MR: yes
DH: did you write this
MR: yes
DH: why is gross misconduct in the letter

MR: we discussed what the violation of the trans-inclusion and harassment policies said. There's a list of charges. The panel agreed that the policy guided us to make it gross misconduct in this case

DH: we have a 2nd letter of invite. there is a covering email describing a reissued letter. Who drafted that?
MR: I did
DH: like the 1st letter, there's ref to the same date but decided not suitable.Also the allegations were set out. The 3rd of those is now labelled as misconduct

DH: why was that changed from gross misconduct
MR: it was an admin error. we followed policy. When RA question gross m, I sought advice and we changed it
DH: did you discuss this with the panel
MR: not really a discussion. I told the panel what had happened

DH: in your covering email there's not explicit ref to the change from Misc to Gross Misc. What's the reason
MR: I was advised to reissue the letter and if I was questioned I was to say it was an admin error. I took this to mean I shouldn't mention it first

DH: you mentioned that when you rec'd papers this included papers re policies. You rec'd this?
MR: yes
DH: in the bundle can you see the same docs along with a cover page?
MR: yes
DH: is that the trans inc policy?
MR: I believe so

DH: going to the anti-bullying and harassment policy. Were you given these?
MR: yes I was
DH: there's ref in both disc invites to the data policy. were you provided with this?
MR: yes
DH: when
MR: on the 9th

DH: going to the data policy doc, is this the one that was sent to you
MR: yes
DH: Looking at that, there is a table. Do you remember seeing this on the 9th
MR: I don't actually
DH: we know that the disc hearing happened on the 14/10 (?)

MR: yes
DH: in the recording transcript of the 1st hearing. who prepared this?
MR: I did with [someone else]
DH: who transcribed it
MR: I did. Not a typist so it was a slow process
DH: how long did that take
MR: days and days - fitting it around my job and caring for my son

DH: you mention your son. Did he need care?
MR: yes until the middle of Feb
DH: how old was he
MR: he's an adult with a disability. He has support
DH: Are you satisfied that the transcript is accurate
MR: completely satisfied. i didn't included ums and ahs though

DH: there another email that you sent before the meeting to RA on 8/10. You ask if RA had read the reissued letter? Why did you ask her
MR: I assumed she was reading everything. It became apparent in her email that she hadn't read the letter. i suspected this and it was

causing her upset. I directed her to it so she would feel reassured
DH: going back to the disciplinary transcript, after the intro you make opening remarks. You mention the 3 members of panel. You mentioned that nothing had been shared outside of the panel. Why

MR: RA was concerned about this. I wanted to reassure her
DH: had you or the panel any particular approach as to your conduct during the meeting
MR: yes we met to discuss how we wanted to run the meeting. We agreed to let it run for as long a necessary. RA wanted to be heard -

we wanted to be respectful in our Q at a comfortable pace. We wanted to investigate all the allegations thoroughly
DH: you mentioned about the recognition of the potential hurtful nature of the allegations. Tell me more
MR: I felt RA must have been hurt by the allegations.

Some of the content of the investigation that RA had rec'd must have been upsetting even considering the nature of the allegations. We wanted the meeting to feel as secure as possible
DH: did you try to bring that approach to bear
MR: yes I believe so

DH: from the transcript, there are 2 entries. 1/ you say so we've been making the effort to look at the salient parts. 2/ there is also a comment from Ms McCoskin(?) we are gathering info on things that might have been hurtful to staff

MR: the investigation started by looking at some subsequent allegations and so we needed to look at those. We read the report in full. We decided that much had occured in training or safe spaces. We felt those places needed to stay safe so we felt it was difficult to make a

decision on the report so we focussed on the initial allegations
DH: towards the end of the meeting RA says she will issue a grievance. Ms McCostin said it would affect the procedure. What did she mean
MR: if a grievance is filed it might cause the disc hearing to halt

MR: if this grievance was re the process we needed to halt
DH: how long was the meeting
MR 3 to 3 and a half hours
DH: when did it finish
MR: after 7 I think
DH: did you look for advice re grievance on the same day
MR: I did on the Monday. I told RA what the process would be

MR: it took time to find out who the appropriate board member would be. RA sent it directly to the chair
DH: Did you seek advice on the impact of the grievance on the disc process
MR: yes
DH: did you get advice
MR: yes
DH: what did you do
MR: we halted the process

DH: until when
MR: February the 7th .
DH: did you do anything re the disc hearing before the end of the pause of the process
MR: I drafted a letter but didn't send it. I also transcribed the hearing

DH: were you involved in the grievance process
MR: No. But i did send information on the process to Elaine Cameron (?)
DH: when did you know that the grievance process had ended
MR: feb 1st or 2nd

DH: Ms Cameron's letter on the grievance appeal. Did you see that
MR: no
DH: was anything conveyed to you by Ms Cameron about the conclusions of the appeal?
MR: no
DH: how did you know it had ended
MR: I think I rec'd a text from Elaine Cameron and an email from RA

DH: what did you do then re disc process
MR: on the same day I sent an email to the rest of the panel to Niamh and Mairi. We confirmed we were in agreement with the letter and then I sent it to RA as quickly as poss to try to draw things to a conclusion

DH: you had drafted a letter after the finish of the disc meeting. Was that the outcome letter
MR: yes
DH: had you discussed with the panel about the conclusions?
MR: yes we discussed it on the Sunday or Monday. We didn't know if we should draft a conclusion bc of the grievance.

In fact I don't think I'd drafted it by then
DH: this was the 16th or 17th Oct
MR: yes but I don't have a record of when we did it
DH: in the outcome letter from 6th feb, to what extent are you satisfied that the letter captures the panels decision?

MR: very satisfied. we were in agreement
DH: the 1st allegation was upheld and the 2nd and 3rd weren't. Why
MR: we felt RAs evidence was compelling re how the forum is used. As board members we weren't privvy to that info so we took on board RAs using it as she did

DH: there is an apology contained about the length of time it had taken. What prompted this?
MR: we were in Feb 2023 - the process had started in June 2022. it was a long time to be in limbo waiting for outcomes. There were mitigating factors but it felt the time and the sanction

would have been live for 6 months. Didn't seen appropriate for that length of time
DH: there was an appeal against the panel's decision, did you know this and how did you find out
MR: I rec'd an email from (?)
DH: how were you involved in the appeal process

MR: I supplied the recording of the meeting and the email chain and I attended the appeal meeting
DH: at this disc appeal meeting what was your remit?
MR: to answer Q's from RA about the outcome and the process
DH: did you have any input in the appeal
MR: No
DH: NCi was there

MR: she was there re the process
DH: was she there the whole time
MR: I thought so but I might be wrong
DH: were you?
MR: yes

DH: that is all the Qs I have for you
J: we will stop now until 11:40
NC: could we take 20 mins
J: yes - we will be back at 11:50

[I will continue on a new thread after the break]