A psychological counsellor, who faced demotion following accusations of intentionally allowing a patient to peer up her skirt in the midst of a therapy session, and purportedly instructing the patient to “get a proper look,” has been recommended for compensation exceeding €177,000.
The therapist contended that her client had bent down to retrieve an object and subsequently glanced up her skirt when she was unaware. The counsellor dismissed the incident as an “innocent mishap” on behalf of the patient at that moment.
Posted this week, the WRC adjudicator’s verdict on the employment dispute revealed that the therapist had “endured the loss of her role, professional path, and professional esteem” as a result of a “defective” investigation by an unnamed employer in the healthcare sector.
Almost eight years after the first accusations and following ten hearing days at the WRC throughout 2022 and 2023, the adjudicator reprimanded the employer for the “unjustifiable and outrageous” three-year duration it took to reach conclusions.
The WRC highlighted that the employer had launched two accusations against the employee, firstly, that the patient caught a glimpse of the therapist’s underclothing during the session, and secondly, that the therapist “displayed unprofessional behaviour in the incident’s aftermath”.
The accused, known as Ms SU, was a child sexual abuse survivor who had been undergoing therapy for a while as of June 23rd, 2016, the supposed day of the incident, as aired in the tribunal.
Ms SU submitted a complaint, stating that her therapist, Ms AB, sat with “her legs uncrossed,” enabling Ms SU to catch sight of the inside of her counsellor’s skirt, as the WRC reported.
Ms SU further alerted Ms AB’s employer that she had raised her discomfort about the issue, but her therapist didn’t correct her posture and instead told her: “Have a thorough look.”
Ms AB affirmed that her client stooped down to collect an object and then glimpsed under the therapist’s skirt whilst she was distracted.
The therapist emphasised that the length of her skirt would have made it challenging to corroborate Ms SU’s claims and that she dismissed it as an “innocent accident” at that time.
Following a phone call in which a patient accused her of inappropriate behaviour while on leave, a therapist found herself in a discussion with her line manager. They concluded together that the patient may have been “projecting trauma from past childhood sexual abuse” onto the therapist, creating a supposed “trauma re-enactment,” according to the records of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
The adjudicator, Emile Daly, observed that the investigation team may have misunderstood a statement the therapist made during an interview. They apparently took it as an acknowledgement that the patient, known as Ms SU, had seen her underwear. Ms AB, the therapist, explained that she had told SU the incident was accidental, referring to a mishap on SU’s part, as per Daly’s writings.
Daly quoted AB, stating that the therapist was trying to assure SU that even if the patient had unintentionally seen up her skirt, it was not an issue for AB. At that point, AB was unaware that SU would later allege that she had deliberately exposed her underwear.
The adjudicator expressed serious concern over what she perceived as “hearsay evidence” in relation to the use of phone recordings to support claims of unprofessional conduct. She noted the employer’s stance: secret recordings of two telephone conversations between the patient and the therapist, made the month after their meeting, were dismissed without being heard.
Conor White of Comyn Kelleher Tobin, representing the therapist, highlighted that the line manager listened to the recordings during the investigation and was questioned about her interactions with the patient.
Throughout the process, the therapist seemed to adopt a more defensive stance, becoming notably critical of both the patient and the investigation. This was observed by the investigator and reported by the WRC.
In April 2021, the WRC was informed that the therapist had been downgraded to a clerical officer role. Although she sought to reclaim her previous role, Daly ruled that the relationship breakdown between the parties made a return considerably impossible.
Daly suggested that the therapist should be compensated the equivalent sum of what she would have earned if she had continued in her role as a counsellor for the period spanning from her demotion in April 2021 up to the final WRC hearing in October, which is a span of two and a half years. Pursuant to the Industrial Relations Act of 1967, the recommended payout came to a total of €177,618.
Ms Daly has advocated for this high degree of recognition, not merely to rectify the actions towards AB, but also to deter such future incidents from affecting other employees. In her view, the three-year span to determine the truthfulness of the initial claims was shockingly inappropriate and flagrant. She acknowledged the torment an employee experiences each day, living in fear that their professional integrity might be tarnished if they were deemed responsible for misconduct.