In a highly unusual intervention, Mark Stephens, who represented Georgie Robertson and Laura Murray, said they were playing “high public interests” and said the party was “undermining their credibility” by issuing statements denying it had tried to offer them Revelation. agreements. Stephens, a trustee of the Index on Censorship and who sits on the FCO’s Free Expression advisory board, has previously worked on the McLibel case and represented Julian Assange and Salman Rushdie, head of department at Howard Kennedy LLP. His letter was also supported by one of the country’s leading experts on employment law, Lord Hendy QC, a Labor peer, who told the Guardian he “cannot see how it would be possible to deny this [the settlement the women were offered] is anything but a “non-disclosure agreement”. Both women worked under former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn and made separate allegations of sexual harassment against the same person. One of them uploaded her experience in January 2020 and both revealed their experiences in March 2020. Robertson, a former press officer, and Murray, who led the complaints, resigned from the party but refused to sign legal non-disclosure agreements and walked away without pay. The former official accused of harassment was temporarily suspended but denied the charges. Labor issued a statement to the Mail on Sunday saying that no non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) had been offered to any staff member alleging sexual harassment since then [Keir] Starmer took over as leader.” However, Murray and Robertson cite documents that show the party’s senior attorney set up confidentiality clauses to protect the party and the individual they accused. In his letter to the Guardian, Stephens called both women “brave” and said the party’s proposed clauses “would prevent them from taking legal action against their alleged harasser”. He wrote: “It is unusual for a lawyer to write a letter of this nature to a newspaper, but there are high public interests involved when a political party makes an official statement denying that it proposed an NDA to cover up allegations of sexual harassment. and is now adding insult to injury by claiming that it takes “any allegations of sexual harassment extremely seriously” and that they are “fully investigated”. He said statements issued by the Labor Party in media reports – including the Guardian – should be corrected or it would amount to the party “covering up the horrible things they believe happened to them”. Heady, who has a long history as a lawyer for trade unions, told the Guardian he agreed with Stephens after reviewing the documents. “Confidential information is defined as including information relating to the business, affairs and ‘details’ of, among others, employees,” he said. “The definition also includes information about ‘your job’. Therefore, someone who has been sexually harassed at work by a fellow staff member is not allowed to disclose (or retain) any information about it. I can’t see how it would be possible to deny that it is anything other than a “non-disclosure agreement”. In fact, the offer is even more restrictive, barring any claim from “out of or relating to” “your complaint.” Labor received a long-awaited independent report from Martin Forde QC looking into party culture and factionalism, which said the party needed to make further progress against discrimination. “It is clear that the party cannot address this unacceptable culture while continuing to promote terminological inaccuracies around the handling of allegations of mistreatment of female workers, particularly where NDAs are contrary to Labor policy,” Stephens wrote. The case of the two women has been raised by members of the party’s national executive committee and female party MPs – including in meetings this week with the party’s general secretary, David Evans. Stephens told the Guardian he would be happy to share all documents relating to the case with members of parliament and anyone else appropriate. “Such issues are not susceptible to spin and distortion – they are too serious for that,” he said. “The truth must be released.” The Guardian understands NEC member Gemma Bolton tried to raise the case at Tuesday’s meeting but was told the media reports were inaccurate. Both Robertson and Murray are two of five former staff accused by Labor of leaking an incendiary report containing unredacted private WhatsApp messages, many of them abusive to Corbyn and his allies. All deny leaking the report. In his inquiry, which was commissioned in the wake of the leak of the report in 2020, Forde said he would not form an opinion on who leaked it. Labor said it had no further comment beyond its previous statements.
