British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

JonH wrote:

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Have you had legal support on this, BTW? And have you thought of going to the press to expose it? I know a very good Guardian journalist who might point you to the right person on their team - he may even be interested himself, hes an investigative journalist with a sports background, but also knows Tum Caryol really well.

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We have not had legal support, but I have already told Virtus that I think they have broken victimisation laws and that we would be seeking legal advice. We have informed UK's sporting body of all the things we feel that are inconsistent. Including how the complaint went direct to Virtus when their rules state it has to go to the National body first. The person at Virtus started their role in Aug and the complaint came in Aug. We suspect a connection with the complainer and this person via the NHS learning disability services in London. The so called independent person brought in to review the evidence was previously a close colleague of the eligibility person, so not independent. Also, she is a Sports Psychologist, and therefore is not qualified to make a judgement, even if they have worked with the eligibility officer in the past in helping with eligibility assessment. The harsh and cold attitude was unpleasant. The eligibility person even said they were going to a formal stage and go and get the counselling support that the LTA paid for. They took no interest when we told them that it was destroying Anna. They ignored 50 documents that we provided and focused on one report which did not prove their case. We recorded the person brought in the review things telling us that we are hiding scores and she thinks it would be an 80-109 IQ score that we are hiding.   

These people are fresh from getting wins in routing out Paralympic OZ athletes who have cheated. But there were clear and obvious things to see in those cases. With Anna they just ran with it trying to make a name for themselves. There are far more obvious targets who would not be able to provide the evidence that we have got. Without us Anna would not have been able to have defended herself.

I have been told that what has happened to Anna has happened to others. So it is a disability organisation designed to support disabled athletes who has no care about how it treats athletes if the narrative suits. Anna's name is mud as people have been talking about it in many different circles. Anna heard someone from Stirling say that she was a scammer. So they have also created a libellous situation. 

They obviously do not care about how they treat their best athletes, it is all about tick boxes and control.

Virtus deserves to be exposed for how they have handled this, but we need to get through the next period. GB have had to delay naming their team for Poland because of this. No one could plan for an event that starts early in July. They are going to name the team next week.