Founder Of Anti-Abuse Charity Liable For Egregious Harassment Of Employee
By Richard Cohen, FisherBroyles Partner
September 26, 2016 — Sometimes a story is so unbelievable (and horrific) that you do a double take and re-read it to see if you read it right the first time.
The founder of a charity whose goal is to prevent abuse of vulnerable members of Scotland’s ethnic communities was just found by a Scottish tribunal to have abused an employee so badly that “[a] clinical psychologist who later treated the victim said she has been left with major depressive order and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
It ordered the charity to pay her £75,000 in damages.
Holy moly. This is some unbelievable story, reported by the Herald – Scotland.
Apparently, the tribunal found that the “philanthropist” either had an affair with the employee, or made advances to her (the article was not clear), and it “turned sour when she rejected [his] advances.”
He then began a campaign of “calculated and premeditated” harassment of her.
He: “attempted to turn her family against her and threatened to turn up at her mother’s house unannounced to reveal an alleged affair between them;” “reduced her working hours and gave her a final written warning;” “carried out a campaign of verbal and physical abuse against her, including making ‘sexually explicit remarks;’” “threatened to ‘post a video of them online’, disclose intimate details of her private life, and isolate her in the community to ‘damage her prospects;” and “made threats of violence to her family.”
It also revealed the charity did nothing to stop the abuse, although the charity said that “At no time were the trustees aware of this.”
The charity’s spokeswoman said that she was “very disappointed” by, and did not agree with the decision.
She said that “As well as dealing with the legal elements of this case we have had to consider cultural and wider relationship issues which have clearly had a wider impact than the employer/employee relationship.”
Huh?
The article must have left something out which the spokewoman deemed very significant; but what possible “cultural and wider relationship issues” could justify this harassment and abuse?
All I can say is “What kinda anti-abuse charity is this?”
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