Memo to Janine Rennie: Should Cat Scot be allowed near CSA survivors?

Things were really hopping here in the HR comments section yesterday, and one topic in particular caught our interest: given the appalling behaviour of Catriona Selvester, aka Cat Scot, should she really be involved in an organisation which claims it is intended to serve survivors of child sexual abuse?

Cat has a long and disturbing history of spreading the most pernicious conspiracy theories and claiming that they are true. That would be bad enough, but she is well known as a foul-mouthed bully and a troll, who seems to take particular delight in picking on vulnerable individuals.

In a comment on YouTube, a person calling themselves Vive le Hoaxtead! summed it up:

We’re not particularly concerned about Cat’s threats toward this blog—we’re used to that sort of thing from her and others—but is this really the sort of person who should be allowed to participate as a member of the FSF, which is attempting to paint itself as a legitimate organisation serving people who were sexually abused as children?

Time to pull your finger out, Janine

We’ve already seen that Janine saw no problem with hiring Bruce Hotchkies, whose band “Thunderfuck” performed egregiously misogynistic and violent material onstage, as chair of her charity, Open Secret.

Janine was only persuaded that it was a very bad idea having this person chair an organisation devoted to helping survivors of CSA, after the issue became a public embarrassment.

Commenters on this blog expressed very firm opinions on the subject, pointing out that as CEO of the FSF, Janine ought to have the backbone and good judgement to take a stand against Cat’s behaviour:

Referring to Cat Scot, OMGN says:

It is astounding that any human being could fail to understand that Cat Scot’s malicious communications are anything other than vile abuse, especially of CSA survivors, and yet Janine, who we are meant to believe is an activist against SRA just lets it all go on without comment.

And An Owl Called Sage says:

Janine Danielle Rennie is registered at Companies House as the CEO of Fresh Start Foundation which is not a charity. She is also company secretary for Wellbeing Scotland which is registered as a charity. 

It would be interesting to see whether as a responsible person she will disown Catriona Selvester for her behaviour or whether she is prepared to condone it. If no action is taken against Cat by the CEO of FSF, you would have a legitimate question as to whether Janine is a fit and proper person to be involved with a regulated charity.

Janine has long protested that the FSF is a legitimate organisation; and she concurrently runs Wellbeing Scotland, which receives monies from the government to carry out its activities. She occupies two positions in which one would expect her to take responsibility for the behaviour of her board members and staff.

At what point, then, can we expect her to stand up on her hind legs and tell Cat Scot to shape up or ship out?