By Gemma Fraser
Head of content
An officer who won more than £40,000 in a case against Police Scotland says she is being pushed out of the force because of her disability.
Denise Gemmell – who has 26 years’ service – has “lost trust in the organisation” and claims bosses prefer to “support people out the door” than help injured or disabled officers find alternative roles.
Gemmell suffers from a chronic pain condition following a car accident in 2014 and has been on modified duties ever since.
Despite having agreed adjustments in place to enable her to continue working, Gemmell has never felt her condition has been understood by supervisors, or that she has been fully supported.
This culminated in an “ambush” by bosses who tried to put her “in her place” after she had to take a day off work, leading to her making a formal complaint to the force.
Despite a lengthy grievance process, Police Scotland did not uphold her complaint, but an independent employment tribunal subsequently ruled that Gemmell had been victimised, awarding her a total of £43,092.35 for loss of earnings and injury to feelings.
“I wanted the truth to come out,” Gemmell told 1919. “It was never about money for me. It was always about going back to work. I wanted to get what I’ve always wanted and just go back to work.
“I’ve totally lost trust in the organisation. I feel like I’ve been targeted because I’ve got a disability.”
Gemmell has suffered from occipital neuralgia since the car accident where she was hit by an articulated lorry.
She spent three months off sick, but was unable to return to frontline duties as a result of her condition.
Gemmell experiences chronic pain which she manages with greater occipital nerve (GON) injections every three months, but her pain worsens with certain triggers, including cold weather.
“I’ve totally lost trust in the organisation. I feel like I’ve been targeted because I’ve got a disability”
Denise Gemmell
After a medical with the force’s occupational health team in 2016, she was marked as permanently disabled and given a role within the service delivery unit organising and allocating police resources.
Her records were updated to include formal adjustments to her working conditions to acknowledge the triggers which make her pain worse, such as the weather, however Gemmell says they have not always been understood or accepted by certain supervisors.
“I’ve got to control triggers, like all chronic pain conditions, to basically get on with my life,” she explained. “Triggers for me are cold weather; my condition is generally worse in the winter.
“Stress is a trigger. Brushing my hair, tying my hair up, anything that involves touching my head – I get teeth pain, I even get facial pain and it’s really painful, very sharp.
“I have travel issues because of the mechanics of my accident. I have anxiety driving in snow or icy conditions because of the loss of control feeling, so I just don’t drive in icy or cold weather, I just don’t do it.
“I’m also scared if I got caught in anything I’d be standing out in the cold weather.”
Matters came to a head on December 16, 2022, when Gemmell was unable to travel into her usual office in Govan because of snow, which she reported to her supervisors and subsequently logged her absence using the force sickness line.
Gemmell said she should not have had to report as sick, as her inability to attend work in adverse weather forms part of her disability adjustments, so she reported her concerns to HR and to the Scottish Police Federation (SPF).
When she returned to work, she was surprised to find herself pulled into a meeting with supervisors Inspector Stephen Gow and Sergeant Mark McBlane.
They told her it was a ‘return to work’ interview, but the tribunal later likened it to an “ambush” due to the nature of the meeting – which lasted around two hours – coupled with the lack of forewarning or opportunity for her to bring in an SPF representative.
The tribunal also ruled there was a “degree of vindictiveness” in the comments made by Gow about Gemmell.
She said: “I was totally unprepared, I didn’t know what it was. They called it a return to work interview – for being off one day. They were trying to talk me into agreeing the wording of my adjustment was not clear.
“They tried to disparage me, saying that all my colleagues didn’t like me, that nobody could work with me. They painted me out to be someone difficult to manage.
“The meeting ended and I told them I was going to go to the toilet. I got really upset and ran to the toilet. When I got out, they were gone. They just left.
“I phoned the duty inspector to explain what had happened. I sat and wrote out everything I could possibly remember in that meeting as the federation advised me. And then I went off and I’ve been off ever since. And that was December 21, 2022.
“The federation gave me options of what I could do. I gave it some time, but put my grievance in in the February.
“The grievance process lasted over a year. And they starved me of pay as well. I was a year without pay. That whole procedure makes you ill. My grievance wasn’t upheld in any way. I never got any justice.”
Gemmell’s next course of action was to take her complaint to the Glasgow Employment Tribunal, which unanimously judged Gemmell was victimised “contrary to section 27 of the Equality Act 2010 in respect of how a meeting held on 21 December 2022 was conducted”.
It stated that “the manner in which the meeting was conducted amounted to a detriment”, and that “it is difficult not to see a degree of vindictiveness in the comments made to the claimant by [Gow] about how others view her”.
It continued: “The tribunal does consider that there was an element of [Gow] seeking to put the claimant in her place by raising these issues in the very blunt way that he did.”
“We acknowledge and accept the finding of the employment tribunal that the officer was victimised”
Gemmell is now going through the ill-health retirement process and is confident Police Scotland will accept her application, but remains disappointed by the manner in which her career ended.
“I feel incredibly disappointed and saddened by the way the police dealt with this and the way they have treated me,” she said.
“It leaves me with no other option but to ask for ill-health retirement. Apparently there are no jobs for me in the police now.
“They support you out the door. They don’t support you to work. They don’t like differences. I loved my job, that’s how sad this is. I really cared.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We acknowledge and accept the finding of the employment tribunal that the officer was victimised.
“This was not in line with our values of integrity, fairness and respect and we sincerely apologise for the unacceptable conduct she faced.
“While it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on individual circumstances, Police Scotland retains the right to manage its employees in line with our policies and procedures.”