No racist and misogynistic culture to see here
A woman who complained of a racist and misogynistic culture in a Scottish government department claims she was taped to a chair and gagged by two male colleagues as a warning to keep quiet.
DeeAnn Fitzpatrick said the restraint took place amid years of bullying and harassment at Marine Scotland’s Scrabster office.
The fisheries officer has taken her case to an employment tribunal.
BBC Scotland has obtained a photo of the restraint incident.
It was taken by one of the men allegedly responsible.
Ms Fitzpatrick, a Canadian national, said it happened in 2010 as a result of her blowing the whistle on a threatening and misogynistic culture at Marine Scotland’s office in Scrabster, on the far north Caithness coast.
Well it certainly is a fine way to demonstrate a non-threatening and non-misogynistic office culture, to tape the accuser to a chair and tape her mouth shut and take a photo.
Rhoda Grant, a Labour MSP for the Highlands and Islands, has been supporting 49-year-old Ms Fitzpatrick since 2010, when a concerned colleague of the fisheries officer alerted the politician to the alleged treatment.
Seeing the photo for the first time, Ms Grant told the BBC: “It’s horrific. I’m kind of speechless.”
The MSP said she had been told it had happened but seeing the photo seemed to make it “10 times worse”.
Oh well, it’s only a woman.
Ms Fitzpatrick’s sister-in-law Sherry Fitzpatrick told the BBC that the photograph of the restraint incident needs to be shown.
She said: “We were horrified. We were sickened. We worry about what this has done to her.”
But it’s only a woman. Move on.
That is absolutely crazy.
If the story is as presented, then “bullying” and “harassment” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m no lawyer, but I’d think forcibly holding someone down would at the very least be battery, and tying them up would have to be some sort of kidnapping or unlawful imprisonment charge.
This shouldn’t be an HR and reprimand issue, this should be a police and jail issue.
Slightly newer article here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-44240538
It goes into some more detail about the investigation. It still seems like they’re treating this like a workplace rules violation rather than a crime.
Thanks, that’s interesting.
What the actual fuck. How is this not a police matter? I read the beeb article and still can’t understand how no charges are being laid.
And of course a lot of people are saying that she’s not really restrained in the picture because she could easily have broken free. Despite the people who restrained her still being there, taking pictures. And of course a lot of people are saying – despite not being there at the time – that the restraint was voluntary and it was all done in a spirit of fun with her full consent. As if that would make it not misogynistic, somehow.
Latsot, I suspect the people who say that sort of thing have never:
(a) Been the subject of extended bullying and intimidation;
(b) Been manhandled and verbally abused by a group of stronger and more aggressive people than them; and
(c) Never tried to break free of several bands of packing tape.
There’s a reason packing tape is used for holding large heavy packages together through rough transport and handling.
Rob, agreed. I hope my sarcasm was as dripping as I intended.
Yes, my experience has been that it is nearly impossible to get boxes out of that kind of tape even with both hands free and working on the problem. I usually have to resort to a blade of some sort.
And most of the people I’ve seen saying that are men. They seem to forget that women have lower upper body strength than men as a general rule.
Batman could have gotten free, though. He always got free.
Latsot, fair pouring off, it was. I was just providing the literal coda to go with it for any drive-bys who may have been confused.
Incidentally, iknklast, upper body strength has almost nothing to do with it. Packing tape tears really easily once you get a knick in the edge. But I just checked the data sheet for one bran chosen at random. The tensile strength is 560N/100mm (of tape width?) and the stretch at breaking point is 150%. In other words, bound as DeeAnn was, no one would get themselves free trivially.