A harassment attempt rebounds on Social Work England

In October 2022, following a complaint made in June 2020, SWE finally admitted it could not proceed against a social worker who expressed 'gender critical views'--by Sarah Phillimore.

I have a special interest in this case because I was smeared in a public-facing document Social Work England published about it. Here’s the brilliant Sarah Phillimore on Rachel Meade’s win and its consequences. It was first published on Sarah’s splendid Substack.

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There is a convention at the Bar that it just isn’t the done thing to talk about your cases as it smacks of self promotion. I think we have gone far beyond that now, into matters of significant and urgent public interest and so for that reason I want to talk to you about a matter in which I was recently instructed - the Fitness to Practice hearing of a social worker (SW) who had posted to her private Facebook page over the years, a variety of newspaper articles, blogs and satirical cartoons which all supported a ‘gender critical view’ - i.e. that sex ought to remain a protected characteristic and not be conflated with or even erased by a subjective notion of ‘gender identity’.

Hopefully the full decision of the Adjudicators will soon be posted on the SWE website. In the meantime, you can find, my main submissions here and my submissions in answer to SWE’s application to discontinue the proceedings here.

The Adjudicators allowed SWE to discontinue and applied no sanction to the SW.

What happened?

In June 2020 the social worker (SW) was subject to a complaint by a former friend about 100s of posts on her Facebook. This person (FF) only got to see them as he was one of about 40 people who had access to her private Facebook. FF found himself ‘disgusted’ by the ‘abhorrent’ and ‘offensive’ posts, even ‘frightened’. So ‘frightened’ that it took him 2 years to pluck up the courage to complain.

Here are some examples of the offensive posts.

SWE then conducted a six month investigation before telling the SW in November 2020 that she was subject to a complaint. She was given a sanction of a warning for a year about her behaviour and told to get some training. This all took place of course in the shadow of the unlawful Employment Tribunal decision in Forstater , where women who believed in the existence of biological sex were told they were no better than Nazis. So the SW reluctantly accepted the sanction and attempted to re-educate herself out of her unacceptable belief.

Once the EAT confirmed in June 2021 in Forstater’s appeal that a belief in the immutability of sex was in fact worthy of respect in a democratic society, the SW requested a review of the sanction as she no longer accepted it was valid. SWE did not take this opportunity to reflect and consider, on not merely the SW’s now protected belief but also her Article 10 ECHR rights and the Cass Review, or the public Twitter account of the FF who complained, (which identifies him as a social worker and contains derogatory and hostile public comment against ‘terfs’) and decided that as she was no longer compliant, this matter had better proceed to a full blow Fitness to Practice hearing.

That was listed for October 17 2022 for 5 days. In July 2022 SWE submitted its statement of case which contained assertions such as a GRC allowed someone to change their biological sex and it was offensive for a social worker to comment on existing law, such as sex being a biological reality and gender a social construct.

The statement of case included in depth analysis of the articles posted by the SW, and they were concluded to be sufficiently offensive to justify full steam ahead. There was never any evidence presented that the SW had behaved in a discriminatory or offensive way in practice and she had glowing references from two Managers, who promised additional character witnesses if required - but SWE did not.

It was not until shortly before the hearing in October was due to start, and having read both my submissions and the SW statement of case which set out at length exactly how and why the SWE procedures were punitive, oppressive and unlawful, that SWE declared they wished to apply to discontinue.

This would not be done on the basis that there was no case to answer, and SWE would reflect on the lessons to be learned. But on the basis that SWE claimed that pretty much every point in the SW’s favour was in fact news to them. Discontinuance can only be granted on the basis of new information so it is unsurprising that SWE felt compelled to take that route but it is alarming to note its arguments that the ‘new’ information was inter alia; the SW was not abusive, that she was engaging in debate about political reform, that she was sharing material from the mainstream media, that her Facebook page was private and she didn’t identify herself as a social worker.

One may legitimately ask what on earth was being done in the six month investigation following the complaint if all this was ‘new’ information as late as October 2022.

The Panel agreed with SWE that two elements were ‘new’ - the content of the posts and the additional character witnesses. I disputed this, arguing that the contents of the posts were easily discoverable, and when they were SWE simply doubled down and said they were offensive; further that the character witnesses had already been offered and this did not go to any new issue. No one had ever claimed that this SW was other than exemplary in her practice.

However, given that the tribunal findings do not bind the Employment Tribunal - where this social worker is headed next - this did not matter too much.

What does matter

What does matter, very much, is that the regulator for the social work profession decided to take over 2 years to investigate a social worker for what - I now assume they concede - was the lawful exercise of her protected political speech and manifestation of her protected belief. It is instructive to note that the SW received particular criticism for her concern about the operation of the charity Mermaids - concerns now echoed in the Houses of Parliament and calls for a police investigation.

Social workers have an extremely important role in our society; they are obliged to safeguard vulnerable adults and children. To tell them that any individual, organisation or political ideology is exempt from criticism - and what is worse, that you will risk your job and your professional reputation if you dare - places a wholly unacceptable fetter on a social worker’s safeguarding obligations, a foundation of the profession.

If SWE is not willing now to reflect and clarify its position, and reassure its registrants - and I appreciate that these proceedings were not the arena for that exercise - then I hope it will be soon. Social work is far too important to allow itself to be captured by any one ideology, and particularly not that of ‘gender identity expression’ which puts at risk the dignity and safety of women, and encourages children and young people into irreversible medical interventions, on the basis of very scanty evidence indeed.

The Fitness to Practice hearing was arranged to protect the public and the reputation of the profession. It is ironic that it turned out not to be the SW who should have been under scrutiny, but her captured regulator.