28th March 2019 MSP Rhoda Grant, member for the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish Highlands and Islands delivered a powerful speech during a parliamentary debate for condemnation of misogyny, racism, harassment and sexism. This can be viewed at the copying following link into your browser bar. I would highly recommend that you take a moment to view this:
Our family are very grateful to Rhoda Grant for taking this stand and asking the different ministers to support her in getting a totally independent investigation into the institutional harassment, bullying and victimisation that our sister, DeeAnn Fitzpatrick had endured and still continues to this day. Rhoda Grant clearly identified that that the Scottish Government only looked into the allegation of the picture that shows our sister restrained and gagged by the hands of her co-workers. This clearly was the result of the story being picked up during a preliminary employment hearing. Yet over the years this criminal act was ignored by her senior management team and the human resources department. As Rhoda Grant pointed out, DeeAnn's emails were intercepted by the HR team and the picture of her being restrained would have been viewed by them because they accessed all emails to her trade union representative and other vital correspondence. Rhoda Grant provided a statement to the investigating officer about the restraining and this information was directly fed back to Marine Scotland Compliance and used against DeeAnn. The investigation was to be highly confidential but yet statements were shared of other employees who came forward and gave evidence into how senior management treated staff over the years in an abusive way and was never held accountable and only to suffer reprisal for speaking up for DeeAnn and trying to speak out for themselves.
Rhoda Grant has been a decade trying to get the right people in the right places to listen. She has asked that the abuse towards a female employee to stop and for something to be done for those who speak out about inappropriate behaviour within their workplace.
Rhoda Grant and DeeAnn's trade union representative state that DeeAnn has only become the subject of inappropriate treatment because she stood up for a female colleague who was nearly punched in the back of the head by a male fishery officer. DeeAnn Fitzpatrick was left to try and deal with a very highly dysfunctional work environment that existed long before she joined Marine Scotland Compliance. Two other women in that same office were sick and tired of writing letters of complaint to the head of HR about a particular member of staff. Instead all this racism, sexism, bullying and harassment was left to be challenged by a Canadian woman who had no support from her senior management or the HR team.
DeeAnn is constantly reminded that she cannot speak about anything that has happened to her or about what she is going through because of Data Protection. Yet the abuse goes on and on. She is allowed to speak to her counsel but not her family. Who better to speak with to help you through this institutional harassment than your family? We are her voice and Rhoda Grant is her voice.
LET DEEANN SPEAK, GIVE BACK HER VOICE AND LET HER BE HEARD.