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We’ve read the independent review from CRK Sandison QC into the University of Strathclyde's handling of complaints into Kevin O’Gorman
THREAD
https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/newsdocuments/University_of_Strathclyde_Report_into_Kevin_O'Gorman_FINAL_VERSION_051120.pdf
THREAD
https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/newsdocuments/University_of_Strathclyde_Report_into_Kevin_O'Gorman_FINAL_VERSION_051120.pdf
Despite some helpful recommendations, we agree with Fraser Blevins, one of seven students targeted by Kevin O’Gorman’s at Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt, who described the report as a ‘whitewash’
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18863045.amp/?__twitter_impression=true&s=03
https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18863045.amp/?__twitter_impression=true&s=03
O’Gorman was convicted in 2019 of 14 offences carried out at Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt universities, which included sexual and indecent assault https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/17827883.strathclyde-university-hold-inquiry-ex-staff-member-guilty-sex-crimes/
Overall this report is a missed opportunity due to failing to draw on sexual violence expertise. Strathclyde should explain why it has employed a QC whose practice is based on commercial, company and property litigation to investigate its handling of sexual violence complaints.
After - #MeToo 
, the world expects more from institutions in preventing and responding to sexual violence, and there are significant gaps and oversights in this area in this report.
, the world expects more from institutions in preventing and responding to sexual violence, and there are significant gaps and oversights in this area in this report.
For example, experts from the sexual violence sector could have contributed invaluable evidence as to why the vast majority of sexual violence goes unreported, particularly when it is perpetrated by someone in a position of power.
As a result, the report's recommendations around improving mechanisms to support reporting do not draw on existing knowledge around this issue and are not likely to make a material difference to the issues the report identifies around non-reporting of sexual violence by HE staff.
While claiming to represent the latest in best practice, in fact the report fails to engage with emerging best practice around how to encourage reporting eg 'proactive investigations' from ourselves at The 1752 Group
https://1752group.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/the-1752-group-and-mcallister-olivarius_briefing-note-1.pdf
https://1752group.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/the-1752-group-and-mcallister-olivarius_briefing-note-1.pdf
Other emerging best practice is from UCL on 'environmental investigations' that can be carried out in the absence of a formal report; and from Culture Shift around anonymous reporting. None of these ideas were mentioned in the report
This could have addressed issues raised in the report, eg to address the issue ‘that little or no attempt was made to enquire amongst the undergraduate body of students in contact with O’Gorman whether they entertained any concerns about his behaviour’
In addition, ‘the Principal had before him allegations of O’Gorman’s behaviour towards students’ which ‘although certainly objectionable, was capable of being regarded as falling towards the lower end of a scale of seriousness, and which was not obviously sexual in nature.’
Anyone with expertise in sexual violence will recognise that sexual violence is routinely minimised, both by those who are subject to it, and by wider society, including HE (as Vanita Sundaram and Carolyn Jackson’s work has documented)
This is why we need much more expertise around sexual violence in HE – these kinds of signs around ‘low level’ ‘objectionable’ behaviours that are ‘less serious’ would not have been ignored if there had been any SV expertise involved in handling this case, or reviewing it.
HE institutions routinely use this language of ‘serious’ ‘severe’ or ‘not serious’ and these labels can end up obscuring sexual violence and obstructing reporting. Instead, we need to take an approach where ‘low level’ behaviours are brought to light and taken seriously.
Overall, it does not offer the full range of options available to institutions to fully safeguard their students and staff from sexual predators such as Gorman.
However, there are some valuable recommendations in the report, many of which are ones that we have been pushing for some years.
The report highlights the lack of detailed procedures for complaint investigation and handling, which our own research has also highlighted. https://1752group.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/silencing-students_the-1752-group.pdf
And our sector guidance is designed to provide this: https://1752group.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/the-1752-group-and-mcallister-olivarius-sector-guidance-to-address-staff-sexual-misconduct-in-uk-he-1.pdf
We welcome the recommendations for more robust referencing practices. We hope that Universities HR will address this. These changes are long overdue, and there is no excuse to continue to put up with the cronyism that is rife in the way references HE are currently obtained
The higher education sector must urgently introduce shared referencing protocols so that hiring processes always involve references from a current or most recent employer, as is standard practice in most workplaces.
Having said all this, the more of these independent reports that are published the better and this increases the level of discussion and evidence around this issue – but next time, get someone who knows something about sexual violence.
Some of these points are made in my quotes in this article from The Times [paywall] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-inquiry-into-sex-abuse-professor-kevin-ogorman-wont-deter-predators-kjh53pn3f
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