The chief executive of a sexual assault support service has stood down after a damning review found it failed to protect women-only spaces.
Mridul Wadhwa – a trans woman – resigned from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) after a Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) report found she “did not understand the limits on her role’s authority” and “failed to set professional standards of behaviour”.
The investigation, carried out by an independent consultant, found evidence that some women who had approached the service had been “damaged” by their experience.
The probe was launched after former worker Roz Adams won a claim of constructive dismissal against the service in May.
An employment tribunal judge found Ms Adams had suffered harassment and discrimination after seeking guidance from her superiors in June 2022 over how to respond to an abuse survivor who queried whether her support worker who identified as non-binary was a man or a woman.
The judge agreed that Ms Adams, who holds gender-critical views, was subjected to a “heresy hunt” as she did not “fully subscribe to the gender ideology” supported by ERCC’s senior management.
Ms Adams has since gone on to work for Beira’s Place, a support service for women who have experienced sexual violence, which was founded by Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
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In a statement on Thursday, ERCC said both Ms Wadhwa and the board had decided the “time is right for a change of leadership”.
The board added: “Mridul has stood down from her role as CEO of ERCC. Recruitment of a new CEO will happen in due course.
“We are committed to delivering excellence while taking on board the recommendations from the independent review to ensure we place survivors’ voices at the heart of our strategy.
“We are in daily communication with Rape Crisis Scotland, have met their urgent demands, and are currently implementing the recommendations in the report.
“We will continue to work alongside RCS to ensure our services not only meet but exceed the national service standards.”
The review, by legal specialist Vicky Ling, found some of the basic systems at ERCC were “not robust”, which “did not help the organisation to manage situations well”.
Several examples were highlighted, including “a strategy which did not put survivors first; a failure to protect women-only spaces; poor review of systems, procedures and document control; and a period of weak governance”.
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In its recommendations, the review said: “In the light of the debate between those holding gender identity/affirmative and gender critical beliefs and the developing context of litigation, ERCC must take advice from RCS concerning the definition of ‘woman’ within its service.
“Women-only spaces and times must be protected and clearly publicised.”
The review added that the ERCC’s definition of a woman/female must also be publicised.
Despite the organisation’s “many serious failings, and damage that it has done to some survivors”, the review noted that it “still manages to deliver high quality services to a significant number of people”.
In response to the report, the ERCC board stated: “We recognise that we got things wrong. We are sorry.
“We are committed to putting things right and implementing the recommendations in the report.”
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In the past year, ERCC said it had delivered specialist support, counselling and advocacy to 1,149 survivors of sexual violence.
In a statement, RCS said it was “extremely concerned” that dedicated women-only spaces – as required by the national service standards (NSS) – had not been provided by ERCC for around 16 months.
RCS stated: “This is a significant breach.”
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The charity has paused new referrals to the centre and has ordered ERCC to “produce an action plan, with clear timescales, to implement the review’s recommendations”.
RCS added: “The needs of survivors should be listened to and respected when they come to any Rape Crisis Centre.
“It is important that survivors can make informed choices about the services they access at Rape Crisis Centres, and we recognise that for some survivors this includes the choice of a single-sex service.
“We are working with our member Rape Crisis Centres across Scotland to consider what more we need to do to ensure survivors can make informed choices about the support they receive from Rape Crisis Centres, to ensure they are able to access the services they need.”
Campaign group For Women Scotland accused the ERCC board of “ignoring their own culpability”.
Speaking to Sky News, co-director Susan Smith said: “We have no faith that there is any real commitment to change the culture. This went much deeper than one person and the ideology was enforced from the top.
“We do not trust the board or RCS to clean up the mess they created.”
