JK Rowling requires public’s money to be ‘withheld’ from rape charity
JK Rowling last night called for taxpayers’ money to be ‘withheld’ from a rape charity after a trans woman quit as boss of a support service for victims.
Mridul Wadhwa stepped down after a damning review found the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) – which she headed – had hindered victims’ access to biologically female counsellors.
A report commissioned by umbrella body Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) condemned the centre for insisting that traumatised rape victims, who can be as young as 12, must specify if they do not want support from someone born a man.
Campaigners had called for Ms Wadhwa, who is biologically male but identifies as female, to be removed – and yesterday she quit after three years in the job.
Writing on X, Ms Rowling said ‘government funding for Rape Crisis Scotland should be withheld if a single-sex service can’t be guaranteed, because that’s what the overwhelming majority of female survivors want and need’.
JK Rowling last night called for taxpayers’ money to be ‘withheld’ from a rape charity after a trans woman quit as boss of a support service for victims
Mridul Wadhwa stepped down after a damning review found the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) – which she headed – had hindered victims’ access to biologically female counsellors
She added: ‘This problem starts at the governmental level. Scotland’s ruling party, the SNP (for which Mridul Wadhwa stood as a council candidate), has embraced gender ideology wholeheartedly, dismissing all evidence that the most vulnerable women are suffering as a result.’
The author questioned why RCS boss Sandy Brindley – who once called Ms Wadhwa an ‘amazing sister’ – is refusing to quit. Ms Rowling said: ‘The government continues to fund a service dominated by ideologues; vulnerable women have been denied help; and Brindley and Wadhwa continue to draw their salaries.’
Ms Wadhwa resigned after the report, by charity sector consultant Vicky Ling, found her to be domineering and said she ‘did not understand the limits on her role’s authority, (or) when to refer decisions to trustees’. She was portrayed as incompetent, overseeing an organisation with systemic failures.
Yesterday the board of the ERCC said it, together with Ms Wadhwa, had ‘decided that the time is right for a change of leadership’.
The review was triggered after an employment tribunal found ex-ERCC employee Roz Adams had been constructively dismissed over her ‘gender-critical beliefs’.
Although rape crisis centres are autonomous, they sign up to the standards of RCS.
RCS said it was ‘extremely concerned’ that for around 16 months, ERCC ‘did not provide dedicated women-only spaces, as required by the national service standards’. ERCC’s board said: ‘We are committed to putting things right and implementing the recommendations in the report.’
The Scottish Government awarded funding of £6million to RCS for 2022-25.
Writing on X, Ms Rowling said ‘government funding for Rape Crisis Scotland should be withheld if a single-sex service can’t be guaranteed, because that’s what the overwhelming majority of female survivors want and need’
The Scottish Government’s Equalities Minister Kaukab Stewart (pictured) said: ‘We continue to fund ERCC to support survivors of rape and sexual assault, as we do for rape crisis centres across the country’
Ms Brindley was asked yesterday whether she would quit. On her behalf, a spokesman said: ‘RCS takes any concerns about poor practice within services for survivors extremely seriously.
‘We will now be working with ERCC to ensure the recommendations of the review are implemented.’
Ms Wadhwa was contacted for comment.
Equalities Minister Kaukab Stewart said: ‘We continue to fund ERCC to support survivors of rape and sexual assault, as we do for rape crisis centres across the country.’
In 2024-25, ERCC was awarded £405,899 through the government’s Delivering Equally Safe fund and £384,200 of Covid emergency funding to cut waiting lists.
