Crisis employee claims she was removed from work chat after criticising serial-killer event

Crisis has since changed the event to a ‘general Halloween theme’


A Crisis employee claims she was removed from her work group chat after expressing her concerns to her manager over the event company’s serial-killer themed Halloween event.

Fourth year University of Nottingham student Maddie Buchi, 21, sent her concerns about the event into her work group chat on WhatsApp with her managers and co-workers after she saw the announcement of the serial-killer theme on Instagram, these messages have been seen by The Tab.

Maddie, who has worked for Crisis for 14 months, claimed that upon sending the message she was immediately removed the from WhatsApp group by her boss.

via @wearecrisis on Instagram

She then addressed her concerns about the theme further in an open letter addressed to Crisis that was posted to her Instagram. Immediately following her post, Maddie received a message from her boss telling her that she had breached her contract.

In a statement, Crisis said Maddie was removed whilst it considers “any possible breaches of her employment terms”, stressing that “her views were entirely valid.”

Maddie told The Tab Nottingham: “People should not be allowed to dress up as serial killers for Halloween, bearing in mind having a student nightclub encourage it, by having it as the theme of the night.”

She then went on to say: “When I saw the theme announced, I instantly called my manager at Crisis and asked them if he thought it was ok for people to come to a club night with their fancy dress costume being ‘Jeffery Dahmer’, they said yes.

“I then asked them that if Dahmer was acceptable, would it be ok for a student to come to Crisis dressed up as Hitler with a Swastika around their arm; they agreed again that this would be fine as it is a ‘costume’.

“Not only is this completely insensitive to the Jewish and non-Jewish students at UoN but also wearing a swastika or any symbol relating to Nazism in public is illegal unless for ‘educational purposes’.”

Crisis has addressed these comments made and said this “does not accurately reflect our views nor what accurately what was said. We do not believe that it is ok for someone to wear a ✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎ because it’s a costume.”

Maddie Buchi

On Sunday evening, Crisis posted an apology statement on their Instagram page and their initial post advertising the event, in which they used photos of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, has now been deleted after 16 hours of being up.

In this apology, the event organisers confirm that whilst the event will still go ahead, the theme has now been dropped and said they: “realise that this was an upsetting and triggering concept.”

In response to the allegations made by Maddie, a spokesperson for Crisis said: “The employee was not removed for her views at all. She was temporarily removed for the inappropriate use of a work channel and whilst we considered any possible breaches of her employment terms. Her views were entirely valid as we have acknowledged in our statement.

“However, we did not feel it appropriate that she contacted people late at night and on a weekend whilst management were unavailable to provide any response. Once we had properly gone through things and addressed matters we would have restored her access.

“We wish to clarify the content of the call which we feel does not accurately reflect our views nor what accurately what was said. We do not believe that it is ok for someone to wear a ✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎✴︎ because it’s a costume.

“What was said was that we do not believe we need to have a door policy to tell people not to do this since it’s so obvious to people that it’s offensive (and as she says illegal) that it polices itself. We regret that she did not felt heard and we will be apologising directly.”

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• Crisis apologises for serial-killer themed Halloween club night after backlash

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