Still no £20k for rape crisis worker

Liquidation means tribunal award not received

A former rape crisis worker is still waiting for a £20,000 payout awarded to her over claims she was bullied by her boss.

An employment tribunal in 2014 found that former Central Scotland Rape Crisis worker Helen McKean had been constructively dismissed from her post. However, CSRC went into liquidation soon after, before any payment could be made to Ms McKean. Now, despite the help of Stirling MSP Bruce Crawford, options for retrieving all or part of the sum appear to have been exhausted. That includes any hope of making a claim through the national charity Rape Crisis Scotland and the Scottish Government, who helped to set up a new organisation for the area - Forth Valley Rape Crisis - in the wake of the CSRC scandal.

Both RCS and the Scottish Government had provided £50,000 a year to the former centre.

In a letter Communities, Social Security and Equalities Minister Angela Constance said: “In order to maintain support services for victims of rape and sexual abuse in Central Scotland a new service has been set up in Stirling with the help of Rape Crisis Scotland and the Scottish Government.

“This is distinctly separate and a different organisation from the CSRC. As such, Ms McKean will not be able to claim anything relating to the previous CSRC organisation from the new service.”

Ms McKean (53) worked for the Stirling-based charity for more than a decade, first as a volunteer and then as an employee. She had told the tribunal that she had loved her job but that things started to change in 2013 when several volunteers resigned due to the behaviour of the board, chaired by former general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association Ann Ballinger from February that year.

The tribunal was told that in the ensuing period a then board member Duncan Dennett, a director at Citizens Advice Scotland who had been awarded an MBE, had been aggressive towards staff – including one occasion when a rape victim was receiving advice by telephone.

However, bosses failed to investigate several complaints about his conduct.

Ms McKean was awarded £20,708 by the tribunal, which also backed her claim that CSRC had failed to follow its own policies and procedures relating to grievances and that they had removed core elements of the work she had carried out for many years without explanation or amended terms and conditions of employment being given to her. Mr Crawford said: “It is entirely unfair on Helen that because the organisation went into liquidation she has never received the payment awarded to her by the tribunal. She has suffered an injustice but it seems from a legal perspective there is very little that can be done.”