The chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has stepped down after a review found that it caused “damage” to survivors by failing to protect women-only spaces.
In the independent review, published on Thursday, Mridul Wadhwa, a transgender woman, was found to have “failed to set professional standards of behaviour” and “did not understand the limits on her role’s authority”.
In a statement released on Friday morning, the Edinburgh Rape Crisis board said it had decided “that the time is right for a change of leadership … We are committed to delivering excellence while taking on board the recommendations from the independent review to ensure we place survivors voices at the heart of our strategy.”
The report said under Wadhwa’s leadership the centre had lacked focus on its core requirements and that “there were no protected women-only spaces available through ERCC unless they were specifically requested”.
It added: “Putting women in the position of having to discuss whether the service they receive will be provided by someone who was born and continues to identify as female has caused damage and does not amount to the provision of protected ‘women-only’ spaces.”
Scotland’s official rape crisis network has a longstanding policy of trans inclusion, with the implementation of this policy left to individual centres.
Responding to the review, Rape Crisis Scotland said it was “extremely concerned” that for about 16 months the centre “did not provide dedicated women-only spaces, as required by the national service standards, while declaring to [us] that they were adhering to the standards”.
“This is a significant breach. We have asked ERCC to produce an action plan, with clear timescales, to implement the review’s recommendations”.
The review was commissioned after a tribunal ruled that Roz Adams, who previously worked at the centre, was unfairly dismissed from her role after she expressed gender-critical views.
Adams had questioned whether it was fair and appropriate for the centre to insist that its clients could not specify that they only wanted support from biological women.
The tribunal ruled that Wadhwa had “formed the view that the claimant was transphobic”, which led to “a completely spurious and mishandled disciplinary process” that amounted to “a heresy hunt”.
The campaigning organisation For Women Scotland said on X that Wadhwa’s resignation was “not good enough”.
It added: “This is the very least that they can do. It seems the board are intent on ignoring their own culpability.”
Adams now works for a new support and counselling service for survivors of sexual violence in Edinburgh called Beira’s Place, which was set up and funded by the author JK Rowling because she believed there was an “unmet need for women” in the Lothians area.
At the time, Rowling said: “As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I know how important it is that survivors have the option of women-centred and women-delivered care at such a vulnerable time.”
