It is nearly Christmas 2020. For us as a family and especially for DeeAnn, our sister, it is another year of ongoing institutional harassment. Since 2010 our sister has never had the pleasure to be able to relax and enjoy the festive period.
DeeAnn Fitzpatrick is a whistleblower for reporting inappropriate behaviours within her place of work. She was being bullied, victimised and physically and sexually harassed by some of the men she worked with during her employment with Marine Scotland Compliance. Her senior managers and the human resources department have been working together closely with a legal advisor to ensure that it is covered up. Since 2010 both the human resources and senior managers worked in harmony together to have DeeAnn dismissed. In March 2020 they finally achieved what they planned to do according to an email that was published on a public calendar of the superintendent of Marine Scotland Compliance in October 2011 for the entire workforce to read. The superintendent outlined his plan to a top human resources member of staff that he will have DeeAnn dismissed. He said that he would discipline, prove her untrustworthy and then dismiss DeeAnn. He
In 2010 DeeAnn was asked by a senior human resources person, who is now retired, to send her the details of the complaints that DeeAnn had raised directly to her. The human resources person said that she would have a staff member contact DeeAnn to offer her support to take matters forward. DeeAnn sent the complaints and instead of being offered support she was labelled a serial complainer, trouble maker and a liar.
DeeAnn was physically threatened by her senior officer and treated badly by the other men in the office. In September 2010 she witnessed her fellow male colleague attempt to physical assault a female staff member. DeeAnn feared for the safety of the female and she reported her fellow colleague. She made a protected disclosure to her trade union representative in fear of repercussion due to the bullying and harassing behaviour that she was already being subjected to. DeeAnn was a whistleblower. She witnessed the criminal behaviour of her fellow colleague who attempted to punch a female staff member on the back of her head as she walked away from him. The same fellow colleague was instructed by the senior officer present that he was to make sure that it was a good one when he hit the female staff member. At the time 3 other officers were present and each saw and heard the same thing. The three officers gave evidence but two of the officers changed their statement a few weeks later. They were approached by the two officers suspended. They did not approach DeeAnn.
DeeAnn was subjected to countless incidents of abuse prior and after her protected disclosure to her trade union. The issue was raised immediately with senior members of Marine Scotland Compliance and human resources within the Scottish Government. They did nothing. The trade union again contacted them to raise further concerns and it was then that action was taken. During the senior officer’s appeal hearing he placed a recording device in his jacket which he “accidentally” left in the room with the panel while they were being briefed about the case by a human resources member of staff. Many issues that our sister had reported prior to this case was brought up and was being used against him without his knowledge. Due to his illegal recording the information was good enough to ensure he was reinstated. More so that he has been twice promoted. The officer who attempted the assault was reinstated and given a work location move at the cost of the tax payers.
Every year since 2010 DeeAnn has been either threatened with disciplinary action, under investigation, facing a disciplinary or appealing a dismissal. She has never had the opportunity to work in a stress free work environment since being a whistleblower.
The Scottish Government are currently investigating the matter into the handling of the harassment complaints. The complaints were raised by women working within the Scottish Government that had alleged they were sexually harassed by the Former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond.
The Scottish Government were at the time devising a new fairness at work procedure. The procedure did not include complaints about former First Ministers. It is alleged that the procedure was structured in a way that would allow complaints about the Former First Minister Alex Salmond to be included and there would be no time restrictions. The Scottish Government then reported the matter to Police Scotland who charged Alex Salmond but was later exonerated in the court of session of all charges.
One of the most fundamental failures here in this case is the way that the Scottish Government handled their investigation into the complaints.
On the 1st December 2020 the committee hearing into the Scottish Government handling of complaints, Maureen Watt MSP pointed out to Nicola Richards, Director of People at the Scottish Government that it appears to be the same small cabal of civil servants that develop an internal procedure and then investigate the complaints.
This was a point of interest for our family because the same cabal are involved in our sister’s case. It appears to be one corrupt group of people who have a lot to hide and they have proven that they will do whatever it takes, no matter the fallout or cost.
Nicola Richards categorically stated that all formal complaints will be investigated by her human resources team and if they felt that any matter should be referred to the police, they would do so.
Nicola Richards and her cabal failed to mention that they did not do this in our sister’s case. On two occasion that we are aware of, they trolled through her emails to seek out any information that would assist them in the case they were compiling against DeeAnn. They read private emails between DeeAnn and her trade union. We have since learned that there are other members of staff with in the Scottish Government that have had their emails invaded for the purpose of bringing disciplinary action against them.
When DeeAnn reported the matter of the physical assault to the police, she was told that it is a criminal charge. The human resources said that there was nothing to answer for and they did not feel that they needed to report the matter to the police. When DeeAnn received malicious cards at her place of work and then to her private residence, the trade union asked the human resources to involved the police and they said no on the three different occasions that our sister received the cards. The Scottish Government felt that it was not a work related incident even though the first lot of cards were received at her place of work and we are convinced by the wording that it was someone from her place of work. During the employment tribunal even the judges were surprised that the human resources did not see this as work related and they could have investigated internally or referred the matter to the police.
We know that everything in this petition is being monitored by the legal directorate of the Scottish Government and their human resources team. Therefore maybe they can explain to us why the following inappropriate behaviours were never investigated
1. A senior officer threatened to punch DeeAnn in the face and 3 other male officers were witness to this at the time.
2. A senior officer threw a coat rack at our sister while male officers sat at their desks in the same room.
3. Pornographic material was being displayed and viewed in the same office where our sister worked and was raised with the office manager.
4. Our sister was repeatedly called a fuc*ing retard, fuc*tard and Canadian wh*re. She sent an email to the men involved and a senior manager who did nothing.
5. Our sister was mocked about experiencing a miscarriage in front of other male staff. He said that he should have a miscarriage and take six months off his work.
6. Our sister was mocked for standing up for another member of staff who was off from his work with stress for being bullied.
7. DeeAnn reported the men for inappropriate language used about black people being referred to as n*g*ers.
8. DeeAnn reported having to listen to sexual harassment on numerous occasions. i.e The female secretary was off work with wrist strain but the senior officer told people that it was from w*n*ing little boys and if you were to put your hand up A8 and pull down the foetus, if it is wearing glasses, it belongs to *C.
9. Being told not to speak or wave to her friend who is from Pakistan because he is a black ba**ard.
Her male colleagues used pens as pea shooters to spit at her. They would urinate over the floor in the women’s toilet and leave faeces. They would break wind constantly in the office knowing that it would upset her and if she asked them to do it elsewhere they would tell her to f**koff.
DeeAnn has suffered permanent injuries because her male colleagues would not assist her during monitors. Instead 3 of the male officers would remain in the office while DeeAnn was ordered to carry out weighing exercises.
A senior manager learned that DeeAnn was exonerated for the first list of disciplinary charges that he brought against her but told the other male senior managers to keep the faith. He then went on to mock DeeAnn and said that she would probably go off sick.
Several complaints were made about two officers that were using company benefits to aid their business that they were running through their place of work. Formal complaints were lodged with a senior manager on two separate occasions about an officer misusing vessel monitoring surveillance for financial gain. The same senior officer who denied knowing about what happened to our sister and emails were tampered with to look as if they did not exist.
A female member of staff in the Scrabster fishery office was planning to travel to Orkney Islands for a few days. DeeAnn’s male colleague, who attempted the physical assault against the female member of staff asked her who she was sha88ing in Orkney, Scotland in front of other office workers. DeeAnn told him that it was inappropriate language and she raised this with the line manager who did absolutely nothing about the matter.
DeeAnn’s line manager said that during a work review she got angry and was seen to be jumping up and down and yelling at him. Her officers were in the very next room. They both said they did not hear anything and they have never seen DeeAnn lose her temper but this line manager said that DeeAnn was out of control all the time.
DeeAnn was called a Canadian paedophile and on many occasions she defended the office manager, who the men referred to as a child molester, because he took several holidays during the year.
DeeAnn was forcefully restrained, taped and gagged and had reported this on several occasions. During the preliminary hearing for the employment tribunal DeeAnn told the judge that she was restrained, tapped and gagged because she spoke out against all the inappropriate behaviours. DeeAnn was later told that if she had to stand with the boys she would not be going through all of this today. DeeAnn is not a woman who will stand by and watch someone else be harmed.
Confidential documents regarding DeeAnn’s disciplinary were allegedly delivered to DeeAnn and was supposedly left in an abandoned jeep in the garden. The vehicle was not locked, no battery and 4 flat tires. It had not moved in years. DeeAnn reported this to her employer and the trade union asked the Scottish Government to contact the police to report the matter and they refused. Documents of a similar nature were later discovered in the hands of a media outlet who published a story about DeeAnn.
Do you not feel that some of the complaints raised by DeeAnn formally should have been investigated? There appears to be a case of discrimination here and a definite case of no protection for the whistleblower. Nicola Richards stated during her interview that all formal complaints are investigated by the human resources. In 10 years, they investigated one complaint and that is because it made headlines.
Every man that abused our sister and put her through hell and back has been promoted within Marine Scotland Compliance. Many men at senior level are responsible for the inappropriate behaviours that took place within Marine Scotland Compliance and instead of them being held accountable they took the easy route, dismiss the whistleblower. Silence is no longer your protector.
The cabal themselves are under investigation at the moment and we will keep pursuing this for our sister until the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has the decency to speak with DeeAnn about what she has been put though for doing the right thing.
At this point in time we would like to offer Rhona Malone, who was a firearm’s officer with Police Scotland our sincere support and to let Rhona know that we are extremely proud of her for standing up for herself and many more women who have and are faced with sexism in the workplace. Rhona has been made to leave her job by ill health retirement because she was victim to sexism while employed by Police Scotland. Rhona has taken the brave stand and is not remaining silent because she intends to remove sexism from Police Scotland. We are supporting Rhona and we stand by her all the way. There is no place for sexism in a workplace.