Gibraltar NASUWT invites Unite and the Government to present evidence to substantiate the claims that NASUWT’s statements are “self-serving and designed by individuals pursuing personal agendas.”

A statement from Gibraltar NASUWT follows below:

In response to several unwarranted public attacks by UNITE, and the Government’s disappointing  and savage rebuke on 4 April 2022, Gibraltar NASUWT would like to remind both parties that is  important to always keep the discourse serious, respectful and grounded on facts. The Union  would also like to invite them to present evidence to substantiate their slanderous allegations that  our statements are self-serving and designed by individuals pursuing personal agendas.  

Regardless of attempts made by the Government and UNITE to deflect public opinion, we are still  gravely concerned about the Department of Education’s lack of understanding of safeguarding  procedures, as well as the Government’s reluctance to take decisive action to reprimand those  whose failures, according to the independent report, led to a young person being groomed in  2019. Failures which resulted in the groomer being reinstated by the Department of Education on  two occasions after concerns were raised by teachers at Westside School. It is in the public  interest that the report is published (censoring the names of minors and witnesses not under  investigation).  

The Union believes that if the Government is as concerned for the well-being of the person who  was a child at the time of her being groomed by a teacher 11 years her elder, the Chief Secretary  would have acted decisively when her parents went to see him, long before the independent  investigation was commissioned. We believe that the Government let those parents down and  sadly continue to blindly protect members of senior management, who in any serious democracy  would have faced a disciplinary board after the damning evidence uncovered by the independent  investigation that culminated in the Guzman QC Report.  

Gibraltar NASUWT will not resort to insults. When one is in possession of the facts, the truth can  pierce the toughest armour aimed at defending those who should hang their heads in shame. We  will wear the personal attacks from UNITE and the Government as a badge of honour and integrity  in the knowledge that we have denounced the most morally reprehensible conduct from senior  management in Education of our time. We are proud to be on the right side of this argument and  an honest trade union. In the words of Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice,  you have chosen the side of the oppressor”.