In a 2022 interview with Sky the 73-year-old said: ‘I stand behind the Gender Recognition Act, so as far as I’m concerned, women are women who are born women, but women are also women who are trans women.<\/p>\n
She has faced questions over her work for the National Council for Civil Liberties, a pressure group that granted ‘affiliate’ status to PIE, a group of predatory paedophiles who openly campaigned to legalise child sex in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Miss Smithies said when worried investors asked questions about their money, they were told to ‘stop badgering’, ‘f*** off, in terms’ and others were warned if they kept asking they would ‘go to the back of the queue’.<\/p>\n
The court heard Rae convinced investors to part with money by claiming he had secured a ‘major financial investment’ but could not reveal the specifics of it as he had signed a non-disclosure agreement in relation to it.<\/p>\n
Some lost their entire pensions, one woman who retired not only lost her home but had to return to work and a father was unable to fulfil his promise to pay for his daughter to attend university, meaning her chance at higher education was lost.<\/p>\n
Miss Smithies added: ‘Meanwhile, he was enjoying luxuries, there is reference in the papers to a \u00a3200,000 Aston Martin, a luxury trip with friends via private jet to a golf tournament in the US, the jet cost \u00a3114,000.<\/p>\n