Former minister stood down due to ‘credible’ threat against her

Former drugs minister Elena Whitham stood down because of a “credible” threat to her and her staff, she has said.

Whitham announced last year she would be stepping down from ministerial office due to post-traumatic stress disorder, before eventually saying she would quit Holyrood altogether.

Speaking to the Herald, Whitham said both her life and the lives of her staff were at risk as a result of the threat, for which a man was convicted, according to the newspaper.

“At first we were a bit incredulous,” she said.

“Then the police treated it very seriously. And then the realisation was, ‘We are not blowing something out of proportion. This is actually a credible threat’.

“But working through the realisation of what possibly could have happened was difficult. I could not get out of the loop of thinking about it.

“It was affecting everything that I was doing.”

The former minister went on to say she felt a sense of “deep regret” for having to quit the role but recognised she had “no other choice”.

She said: “It was really difficult, I felt a real sense of duty to the people I had met and I know require a huge amount of change.

“I think now that I am in a space where I am so much better, I have deep regret but you cannot change what happened. I couldn’t have kept doing it. It’s a very sensitive and difficult portfolio, dealing with a lot of trauma.

“You needed to have somebody who was absolutely [able to] give their all to it, and I just wasn’t able to towards the end.

“So there was no other choice for me but to step away.”

Whitham said she had to change the way she worked, including moving to more online surgeries, not advertising in-person events beforehand and holding them in public places.