Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland

J.K. Rowling shares survivor's heartbreaking letter calling on Rape Crisis Scotland boss to quit

J.K. Rowling has posted the letter, which has been written by a woman called Paula to Sandy Brindley, in its entirety on her X profile.

25 Sep 2024, 14:54 by John Dingwall, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/authors/john-dingwall/ · Daily Record

A rape survivor has written an open letter to the Rape Crisis Scotland chief who claimed the service was being “weaponised” in the trans debate, calling for her to resign

J.K. Rowling has posted the letter, which has been written by a woman called Paula to Sandy Brindley, in its entirety on her X profile.

The Harry Potter author, who has been criticised by many in the trans community for her outspoken views, let the letter do the talking, by simply tweeting the words, "An open letter to Sandy Brindley from a Scottish rape survivor."

Brindley has refused to quit despite a damning report into the scandal surrounding Mridul Wadhwa – a trans woman who ran Edinburgh’s sexual violence support service.

The heartbreaking letter demonstrates the hurt felt by the survivor following Brindley’s actions.

She is accused of of “consistently putting her own agenda and needs above that of service users”

Mridul Wadhwa

Paula writes: “To be honest, I didn’t even know who you were until a few weeks ago. When the report into the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre came out and Wadwah resigned, I thought I could put this whole experience behind me.

“Last week, however, I heard on BBC that you ‘unreservedly’ apologise for failing the ERCC. I have had no such apology. In fact, quite the opposite.”

Paula's letter also addressed that an email she wrote was used in the employment tribunal of Edinburgh Rape Crisis worker Roz Adams, who was unfairly constructively dismissed for believing that those using the service should be able to know the sex of staff.

The emotional letter goes on: “In July this year, I received an email apologising for the GDPR breach that saw my email used in the Roz Adams tribunal.

“No mention of the entirely inappropriate email I’d received from Mridul Wadhwa in August 2021 that shamed me into silence for two and a half years until I saw it used in the tribunal in January 2023.

“Am I genuinely meant to believe I’m going to get a sincere apology from a witness that felt it was OK to file my email as ‘hate mail’.

"Having you suggest I’ve had any sort of apology is incredibly thoughtless and hurtful."

Only this week, our sister paper the Sunday Mail revealed Brindley had offered up the contact details of rape survivors to the newspaper in an attempt to save her job.

Brindley asked the Sunday Mail if reporters wanted the phone numbers of women who used the centre to bolster her role.

She said: “If you do want the numbers of some rape survivors let me know.”

She told a reporter: “Are you going to speak to rape survivors, that would be an important voice if you’re talking about me resigning, to include them?” Just 32 minutes later, the Sunday Mail received the first email from a survivor backing her. The paper was sent five separate emails from six survivors over the next 90 minutes, who said they were aware of the story calling for Brindley to resign.

Paula's letter continued: "To see you say your biggest regret is the impact on survivors, and particularly survivors who have spoken out to defend Rape Crisis Scotland is another slap.

“Those women should have never been in that position in the first place. You chose to offer them up.

Letter from rape victim put out on J.K. Rowling twitter account

“What about the people like me that didn’t choose any of this, that aren’t activist, that were just needing to be heard and cared for, that have been harmed?

“I get it. You don’t care about us, but do you have to gloat about it in the national press?

“Then in an interview in The Times at the weekend you said your daughter was in tears that JK Rowling called for your resignation. The utter lack of self-awareness and responsibility.

“My daughter has also been in tears a few times over the last three years and I’ve had many sleepless nights going over it in my head. When I went into a spiral in 2021, after being re-traumatised she couldn’t understand and she was too young for me to explain why I was crying all the time."

The letter ends, “I understand you’ve done some good work. I can almost understand we’ve both been hurt by this. The difference is, it was your job to ensure I wasn’t, and you’ve failed in that. That is why people are asking you to leave.”

The Harry Potter author's followers flooded her X account with comments of sympathy and support for Paula's call for Brindley to resign.

One wrote: "She really, really needs to leave. I don’t know how she has the audacity to keep clinging on at this point. I’d be too humiliated."

Another tweeted: "Thank you Paula for your words, it must've been hard to write and I can understand you feel re-traumatised when people who are meant to care for you call you a bigot for not welcoming men into your safe spaces."

Brindley has come under fire after an independent probe this month found Wadhwa “did not understand the limits of her authority”, rape survivors were not prioritised and single sex services not protected.

Wadhwa – who was backed by Brindley – claimed rape victims who wanted single-sex care were bigoted and “should reframe their trauma”.

J.K. Rowling shares survivor's heartbreaking letter calling on Rape Crisis Scotland boss to quit

J.K. Rowling has posted the letter, which has been written by a woman called Paula to Sandy Brindley, in its entirety on her X profile.

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