A GOVERNMENT child protection adviser facing a disciplinary probe over allegations she falsely claimed to be a had a PhD said that she was scared of the consequences of owning up.
Susan Stewart was service manager at Aberlour Child Care Trust when a report she had authored was issued with her title changed to Dr Susan Stewart.
Ms Stewart said she spotted the mistake but failed to correct it, allowing the deception to spread.
Read more: Government adviser faces probe into qualifications
She said: "When I came back from leave I saw that six copies of the report had been issued. My title of Doctor was on it. At that point I should have corrected it.
"I know I should have said something. I panicked because the reports had already gone to the hearing.
"I was the sole wage earner in my family. I didn;t feel able to approach my line manager. I didn't feel safe enough to do it. I thought about approaching another line manager in Aberlour. I just never had the courage to do it."
She is appearing before a Scottish Social Services Council conduct sub-committee hearing in Dundee later this week accused of claiming to be a doctor for 17 years between 1995 and 2012, and faces being struck off and banned from the profession.
Read more: Government adviser faces probe into qualifications
The charge against her states that she submitted a CV for a Stirling University teaching assistant post, a job she started in 2012, that claimed she had a PhD from the institution awarded in 1995.
She did the same at Aberlour for a position as service manager at their Child and Family Assessment Centre, a job she took up in 2010.
Ms Stewart, 46, is also said to have used the false credential on a website advertising a child and family consultancy run by her.
Read more: Government adviser faces probe into qualifications
Ms Stewart also provided independent assessments to councils, courts and childcare professionals seeking to decide on the best course of action for children, particularly in some of the most challenging child care protection cases.
She also sat as an expert on the Scottish Parliament’s finance committee when they considered the impact of budgets on child welfare.
The hearing continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article