Civil servant ‘tied to seat’ is accused of misconduct
Whistleblower had claimed to be victim of a revenge attack
A SENIOR civil servant who claimed she was bound to a chair and gagged by her male colleagues has been accused of gross misconduct.
DeeAnn Fitzpatrick claimed she was driven to the brink of suicide and became a virtual recluse after a decade of abuse at the hands of co-workers.
The 50-year-old said the bullying came to a head when she blew the whistle over claims of ‘misogyny’ – and was then tied up in revenge and photographed by colleagues at Marine Scotland in Scrabster, Caithness.
But an official Scottish Government probe has found that Miss Fitzpatrick, who earlier this year announced she was suing the government for £42,000, made ‘false statements’.
It found metadata from the image shows the photo was taken more than
‘You gave dishonest accounts of events’
a year before she blew the whistle and that co-workers said the incident was part of an office culture of ‘high jinks’ in which she was a willing participant.
They claimed one office prank would involve wrapping staff members in sticky tape if they fell asleep during night or late shifts.
The report, which has not been made public, found two of Miss Fitzpatrick’s colleagues have no case to answer and no crime was committed. Canadian-born Miss Fitzpatrick is now facing a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct, which can lead to dismissal.
A senior human resources civil servant has written to the Canadian-born officer setting out the findings against her and she has been invited to a hearing, accused of using ‘deception with the intention of obtaining personal gain and causing loss to others’.
The Sunday Herald quoted a letter from a senior human resources civil servant to Miss Fitzpatrick, saying: ‘It is alleged... you gave dishonest accounts of events, made false representations, concealed material facts and submitted documents which you knew to be false.’
Miss Fitzpatrick is standing by her original version of events, which began in November 2017 when she announced plans to take her government fisheries agency employers, Marine Scotland, to an employment hearing.
As part of her complaint she sent investigators a picture of her tied up and gagged in the office, which she claimed was taken in December 2010 after she complained about the conduct of her colleagues.
She told the tribunal that a colleague told her: ‘This is what you get when you speak out against the boys.’
During the court case in June last year, Miss Fitzpatrick said she felt ‘humiliated’ and ‘degraded as a woman’ after an alleged threeyear campaign of harassment, which she has blamed on the men that she worked with at Marine Scotland.
The photo did not form part of tribunal evidence as it was time-barred, so her case centred on a string of greetings cards that arrived at her home in Janetstown, near Thurso, and her harbour office in Scrabster between 2015 and 2017. She alleged that two colleagues – Derek Yule and Reid Anderson – were responsible for sending them.
Miss Fitzpatrick told the employment tribunal that she considered ending her life after receiving the anonymous birthday and Valentine’s cards, teasing her about her age, sexuality and gender.
The tribunal said it could not agree if the cards were likely to have come from current colleagues and ruled against Miss Fitzpatrick.
In the wake of the ruling, her family accused the Scottish Government of a ‘cover-up’ and announced plans to appeal the verdict. The latest report is a further blow to the ‘victim’ who said she had suffered great ‘stress’ and repeatedly ‘relived’ the incident.
Miss Fitzpatrick’s legal firm, Thompsons Solicitors, said she had no comment.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘This complex and sensitive case, which impacts on a number of individuals, is the subject of an ongoing internal process.
‘We do not discuss individual staffing matters. We have been consistently clear that all staff within the Scottish Government must be treated with dignity and respect.’
‘Deception for personal gain’