Social Work England dropped the case against Rachel Meade, a social worker and member of the Free Speech Union (FSU), who was suspended over posts on her personal Facebook page.
A complaint about the posts was filed by Sport England’s Diversity Champion Aedan Wolton. That single complaint resulted in the suspension of Meade from her social worker position at the Westminster City Council.
Meade’s ‘crime’ was sharing links to articles covering transgender issues and petitions and blog posts on the national debate about if it is right for people to self-identify their gender. The case lasted for almost two years.
Meade told the Daily Mail that the “last two years have been nothing short of an Orwellian nightmare for me and my family.”
“My apparent crime was to share some news articles and petitions about the self-ID gender debate to fewer than 50 friends on Facebook. I found myself wrongly accused of holding abhorrent transphobic views,” she added.
Her lawyer, Shazia Khan, said Social Work England violated Meade’s freedom of speech and asked for an apology to Meade. The organization refused to apologize.
