Rape crisis chief accused of knowing about female-only space concerns five years ago

SUNDAY MAIL EXCLUSIVE: Women have come forward to reveal they raised concerns with Sandy Brindley in 2019.

The head of Rape Crisis Scotland has been accused by rape and sexual assault survivors of knowing FIVE years ago about concerns that the Edinburgh centre was failing to provide female-only spaces.

The women, all of whom had self-excluded from the service after worries they or their family would not be seen by a female, told how the issue was at the centre of an ­extraordinary meeting with Sandy Brindley in 2019.

They revealed how charity chief executive Brindley, the then Edinburgh Rape Crisis CEO Caroline Burrell and a university professor tried to shame them into accepting that men who identify as women had a right to be in women-only spaces at a rape crisis centre.

Brindley has apologised after a review into ERCC found it had failed to provide women-only spaces for 16 months and that its CEO – trans woman Mridul Wadhwa – had not acted professionally or understood the limits of her authority.

Brindley said she only found out the centre was not following national standards last October and paused referrals 11 months later when the review said ­safeguarding was a problem.

But the survivors, who have all come forward to us to speak publicly for the first time, are angry and deeply upset.

Maren Smith, who waived her right to anonymity, said: “When I listened to Sandy’s apology, I thought, ‘You are not apologising to me.’ We are the ‘wrong type’ of survivor to her. We had gone to ERCC five years ago because of our concerns.

“When we were asking about women-only spaces, Sandy wouldn’t give us a straight answer.

“When she talked about women she was including trans-identifying males in that, but when we asked her to confirm that this meant there was no female-only space, she refused to answer.

“We were forced to go the route of saying ‘people with a penis and people with a vagina’ to try to find a common language.”

Maren, who was sexually assaulted as a child, said Brindley struggled with defining what a woman was before admitting that if a woman asked for a female counsellor, she could be assigned a male-born person identifying as female.

Maren said: “It was an awful experience. We didn’t know each other, we have had different experiences.

“The four of us shared our stories and the importance of women-only spaces and women counsellors.

“I was in tears listening to another lady talk about the rape of her 14-year-old daughter.

“All of us had gone expecting to be ­reassured that we had got it wrong and women would be offered all-female spaces.”

Burrell, then the CEO of ERCC, told the women how distressed men who ­identify as female could feel not being accepted by other women.

Maren said: “I don’t think I could believe what I was hearing.”

One of the other women told the Sunday Mail that they had initially thought another woman in the room on October 23 introduced only as Sharon was a fellow survivor.

And it was only then that Joan McAlpine , then an MSP and who had helped arrange the meeting, recognised her as Edinburgh University’s Sharon Cowan, a professor in law and queer studies.

She said: “She berated us, stating that we had no right to expect female-only spaces. We were all taken aback.”

The mother of the teenager raped who had opted out of using the service said she was devastated by the meeting.

The woman said: “I came out re-traumatised and my worst fears confirmed. It was one of the worst ­experiences of my life.”

Another woman, raped by a taxi driver, and wanted to ensure that women had access to single-sex spaces when they needed them said: “We were shellshocked. When I read the review, I was not surprised.”

The fourth woman, who spent years in sexually abusive and physically abuse ­relationship, said in the meeting there were times when she was so shocked, she couldn’t speak.

The mum was working at Edinburgh University at the time and said she was put in a vulnerable position because of Professor Cowan’s presence.

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A Rape Crisis spokeswoman said: “The independent review of ERCC found that between October 2022 and February 2024, there were no protected women-only spaces available through ERCC unless they were specifically requested.

“Prior to October 2022, ERCC operated women only provision which was inclusive of all women as defined by ERCC, who operate independently of RCS.

“This account of the meeting referred to was provided to RCS on December 1, 2019.

“We responded to the note of the meeting on December 6, 2019, to say we didn’t recognise the account provided. This remains the case.”

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