So, you are facing a fitness to practise hearing, what can you expect?
Hopefully, not as many surprises as I had.
First off, the SSSC has a lot of information on its website about the process and you really should read that – all of it.
When you arrive at 11 Riverside Drive, you can expect to be treated with the utmost courtesy by the reception and admin staff. You’ll be ushered into a private waiting room and someone will make sure you’re comfortable before you are called into the hearing room
I’d chosen my husband as my support, but wasn’t legally represented, reckoning that between the two of us we would be able to deal with what might arise. After all, I’d declined the offer of conditions on my registration and I was there to see the outcome of the SSSC investigation. I didn’t feel shamed (yet!)... I wanted a hearing; I had demanded it.
Not long before the hearing began, an SSSC official came into the room and again offered me the option to accept the conditions on my registration. After an 18-month process, I was certainly (and in hindsight, foolishly?) not going to accept that.
If I recall correctly, I said: “No thanks. I want my day in court.” Naively, I expected I would have the opportunity to have my say. I believed I had a right to a hearing, and it would be fair and just.
That was probably the final positive feeling I had over the entire process.
When we were called to the hearing room, we were introduced to the all-male panel. It was chaired by an advocate and two lay members, one of which came from the same field of social work as myself. I don’t know which. Neither addressed me or the hearing, or indeed spoke at all, throughout the entire proceedings.
We were also introduced to the “caseholder”, who was also the presenter, pursuer, prosecutor and official SSSC solicitor, Tom Miller. Despite an 18-month investigation and digital and hard-copy information exchanges, this was the first time I had seen him and, although he never addressed me directly, the first time I had heard his voice.
The proceedings that followed prompted me to lodge an official complaint, which is the core of this blog. This was never a challenge to the panel’s decision (verdict) but how the processes were applied.
But my first message to everyone is to ensure you are represented, and by the very best you can afford. As events unfolded in that room my husband, with a lot of legal experience in his years as a journalist and editor, was desperate to challenge many issues but he was warned at the very outset by the panel chairman that he had to remain silent. We still haven't been able to find out exactly why he was forbidden from speaking but, according to the rules, that was the case.
The scribbled notes between us didn’t help. and I felt totally isolated. An able legal representative would have been a great asset - not just because he or she would be allowed to speak and challenge. Do not be fooled; this is not an investigation, it is a prosecution, and you need someone who knows the law.
Possibly no-one will be called to support your version of events; key factors in explaining your actions may never be presented; hostile witnesses who are not on oath will sit close to you with their version of events that led to the hearing being given without challenge; even though you may only utter a few sentences throughout the duration of the hearing you are being psychologically – and subjectively - evaluated by the SSSC and its panel. You have no recourse to challenge their analysis of your personality, psyche, or state of mind or emotion.
Then, of course, at the conclusion, your caseholder will present the panel with a number of precedents where he highlights an outcome from cases that he deems relevant to your circumstances, and that can be an eye-opener.
They might be medical; they might even be gynaecological. So you might find yourself in a very hostile environment with a male prosecutor passing around documents to an all-male panel on the most intimate of subjects.
This, according to the SSSC chief executive, is entirely appropriate as it is down to “professional judgement” - something you, as a worker, do not have a right to query. A legal representative, however, is given that right.
Then, the panel retires to consider its ‘decision’.
Now, in my case, being struck off was maybe a fitting outcome but it was the process in reaching that outcome that concerns me, and prompted me and my family’s attempts to find out if what happened to me, happens to everyone.
I still don’t know the answer to that one.
I do know I don’t agree with the SSSC assessment of my personality or attitudes, or his description of how child protection issues actually work, or his interpretation of the events that led to the allegations.
But, it would be disingenuous of me to say my prosecutor and I shared no common ground. Without hesitation, his assertion that I am not fit – never mind qualified - to perform vaginal examinations is a valid one, though, in my opinion, a bizarre and irrelevant one.
But my first message to everyone is to ensure you are represented, and by the very best you can afford. As events unfolded in that room my husband, with a lot of legal experience in his years as a journalist and editor, was desperate to challenge many issues but he was warned at the very outset by the panel chairman that he had to remain silent. We still haven't been able to find out exactly why he was forbidden from speaking but, according to the rules, that was the case.
The scribbled notes between us didn’t help. and I felt totally isolated. An able legal representative would have been a great asset - not just because he or she would be allowed to speak and challenge. Do not be fooled; this is not an investigation, it is a prosecution, and you need someone who knows the law.
Possibly no-one will be called to support your version of events; key factors in explaining your actions may never be presented; hostile witnesses who are not on oath will sit close to you with their version of events that led to the hearing being given without challenge; even though you may only utter a few sentences throughout the duration of the hearing you are being psychologically – and subjectively - evaluated by the SSSC and its panel. You have no recourse to challenge their analysis of your personality, psyche, or state of mind or emotion.
Then, of course, at the conclusion, your caseholder will present the panel with a number of precedents where he highlights an outcome from cases that he deems relevant to your circumstances, and that can be an eye-opener.
They might be medical; they might even be gynaecological. So you might find yourself in a very hostile environment with a male prosecutor passing around documents to an all-male panel on the most intimate of subjects.
This, according to the SSSC chief executive, is entirely appropriate as it is down to “professional judgement” - something you, as a worker, do not have a right to query. A legal representative, however, is given that right.
Then, the panel retires to consider its ‘decision’.
Now, in my case, being struck off was maybe a fitting outcome but it was the process in reaching that outcome that concerns me, and prompted me and my family’s attempts to find out if what happened to me, happens to everyone.
I still don’t know the answer to that one.
I do know I don’t agree with the SSSC assessment of my personality or attitudes, or his description of how child protection issues actually work, or his interpretation of the events that led to the allegations.
But, it would be disingenuous of me to say my prosecutor and I shared no common ground. Without hesitation, his assertion that I am not fit – never mind qualified - to perform vaginal examinations is a valid one, though, in my opinion, a bizarre and irrelevant one.
No comments:
Post a Comment