Real victims of Holyrood scandal are women who must work there in fear
THE Hamilton inquiry this week has cleared Nicola Sturgeon of breaching the ministerial code over her dealings with Alex Salmond.
Yesterday, a Holyrood committee found woeful failures in the Scottish Government’s handling of the harassment allegations against Salmond.
Sturgeon can now focus on the upcoming election and Salmond can continue to milk his role as martyr.
In the meantime, the women who originally made sexual harassment complaints continue to suffer one devastating betrayal after another.
Two of the women are lodging an official complaint to the Scottish Parliament after private evidence they had given to the Holyrood committee was leaked to the media.
Unwittingly, they found themselves in the stocks of public opinion, facing a deluge of harassment and insane allegations of conspiracy.
They have been maligned, trolled and deceived and throughout they have conducted themselves with integrity and dignity.
Time and again, these women have found themselves abused and failed by men and women in power.
As one said in a statement yesterday: “Complainers in this case have been subject to regular attacks and misrepresentations on social media and have found their experiences repeatedly exploited for political purposes during the inquiry.
“For committee members to perpetuate this is indefensible and an abuse of their position.”
Yesterday, the committee’s report concluded the same women had been failed by the Scottish Government’s handling of harassment complaints, and the subsequent judicial review was “seriously flawed”.
Without a doubt, this was right conclusion.
Yet someone who was party to the women’s private testimony decided to leak it for no other reasons than political expediency.
Damning evidence from the women was published in the committee report yesterday but it didn’t come quick enough for the source of the leak.
Inaccurate accounts of the women’s private evidence were fed to a Sunday newspaper in what the women describe as “a violation of the trust we placed in the committee”.
Once again, political players prioritised headlines damaging to their foes over gathering evidence to help future victims of harassment.
The committee report recommended yesterday, in future, harassment investigations should be dealt with independently of politicians and the civil service.
If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it is that Holyrood can’t be trusted to handle in-house complaints of sexual harassment.
After the farcical and cruel treatment of these women, the injustices will continue with victims of harassment in Holyrood deterred from coming forward.
One told the Holyrood committee that she had gone from feeling she had helped empower victims to the harsh reality of experience proving an impediment to them reporting.
She said: “It went from feeling that we had made people feel able to speak up – when they thought that they would never be able to – to feeling that we had just created a position that left them open to so much often personally-directed abuse and misrepresentation on social media, so it has been completely crushing.” Sadly, that’s an accurate assessment of where we are now.
In the aftermath of the Sarah Everard murder, women across Britain last week joined in the movement to “Reclaim the Streets”.
In the 21st century, women still have to adapt their lives in fear of widespread violence – from day-to-day harassment in the street to sexual assault, rape and murder.
But reclaiming the streets will always be a pipe dream while women working in our parliament have no effective protections or access to justice when they fall victim to sexual assault and harassment.