Women’s Place - cancelled Leeds meeting

AverageAvenger

An FOI for the invoice from the builder who repaired it?

This FOI malarkey is brilliant!

Datun - the ceiling stuff was communicated via phone calls. But my understanding is that FOI has been requested anyway.

Good work.
All that handwringing about comms line, but not one of them asks or discusses what 'bigoted' views WPUK supposedly holds.
It doesn't reflect well on Leeds, to put it mildly.

It gets better. WPUK were first contacted at about 13:30 by LCC to be told the meeting had to be cancelled because THE CEILING IN THE MEETING ROOM HAD COLLAPSED and it was for health and safety reasons!

Dear lord.

And presumably WPUK have that email.

I can't wait to see the FOI request emails suggesting a collapsed ceiling.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/womens_place_uk_booking_safety

The excellent fellow who submitted the FOI has today submitted another one. I'm posting most of it here cos it's a good un:

Dear Leeds City Council,

This is a follow up FOI based on the response received to a previous FOI request Ref 22150. This is not a request for an internal review, please do not treat it as such.

Background to request 1:

In response to FOI Ref 22150. LCC states regarding a summary of an investigation carried out:

"In light of this new information, officers had to quickly consider whether allowing the group to hold its meeting at the Civic Hall would represent a significant security risk and also impact the work to tackle prejudice and promote understanding in the city."

In the appendix 1 A of emails for FOI Ref 22150

Between 1202 which if the first email in the set from CLLR Jessica Lennox until 1305 email from Tom Riordan,.

"Just to be clear we are cancelling this booking as it was booked under false pretences.
Plse make sure we have a comms line and Civic colleagues are fully briefed in case people arrive for the meeting.
T
Tom Riordan"

There is no mention of a "significant security risk", nor any discussion, or risk assessment of the situation. Between these two time spans in the email release.

This commitment to cancel was further underscored by an email sent by Tom Riordan 11 minutes later at 13:16

"After consulting the Leader and Cllr Lewis, we are cancelling the booking. I understand the event was booked without the council being aware of the nature of it until today.
Richard can provide more details and I’ve asked him to consider any safeguards we can put in place to reduce the risk of it happening again.
Best wishes
Tom"

REQUEST 1.1: Please provide any and all recorded information where discussion that holding the event could represent a significant security risk.

REQUEST 1.1 Please provide any and all recorded information where consideration to cancel the event was made regarding the potential safety and security risks to the building, its staff and users.

He's also asked for details of all other events which Leeds held which were "high risk events", and if they were cancelled etc.

Bravo!

Very interesting. Glad this is being pursued.

I can’t say publicly. But councillors have been made aware.

Really?! Where is this info from?

It gets better. WPUK were first contacted at about 13:30 by LCC to be told the meeting had to be cancelled because THE CEILING IN THE MEETING ROOM HAD COLLAPSED and it was for health and safety reasons!

You could not make this up.

Well, LCC have.

If it wasn't mentioned on twitter who is he getting his info from?

Presumably from the emails that they have refused to release. But he does seem to be under the impression that it was WPUK were going to be organising a protest.

If it wasn't mentioned on twitter who is he getting his info from?

Then they mention that the WPUK twitter doesn't mention a protest so maybe it won't happen. What protest were they expecting - one by WPUK or from trans activists?

Those emails from James Rogers about WPUK:
Cllr Lewis has just informed me that they are now planning a protest at the Civic Hall for this evening - presumably at the same time the event was due to take place - I’ve organised for community safety/policing colleagues to attend to monitor.
and later
Their twitter feed doesn’t mention a protest anywhere tonight so hopefully it will be a small or non existent.

Did he actually understand what was going on there? Did he really think that WPUK were going to organise a protest? Did someone mislead him?

It's West Yorkshire. Where safeguarding goes to lie down and die.

What a fucking shower they are.

FOI's useful isn't it.

They were saying the booking was under false pretences pretty early on.

They were worrying about whether some Visit Leeds delegates would see a protest. Then they mention that the WPUK twitter doesn't mention a protest so maybe it won't happen. What protest were they expecting - one by WPUK or from trans activists?

No one questioned the narrative they were given. No one asked for evidence. It's a bit like when you hear that police officers believe the first witness they speak to, and then understand everyone else's statements within that narrative (that might be being mean to the police but it's something I have heard people say).

That email trail is unbelievable. That message from Geoff (Turnbull?) to the comms team - 'Can we liaise re the message / comms line we are using?...'
Quite aside from anything else, I cannot believe the stupidity of putting all this in email.

And nice to see him dragging in the City Council comms team who, I assume are paid employees, not elected politicians.

Highly recommend the pdf of emails

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/522563/response/1257930/attach/3/appendix%201a%20emails%20FOI%2022150.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

It's like a Private Eye satirical piece - with various people trying to beef up the statement with lengthy denunciations of A Women's Place after the statement's been released, someone fretting about the tourism bloggers who are in the hotel near the event and who may see the activity...

I've got screenshots of the councillors crowing about this on twitter - I'll dig them out later

What time were the venue details released? Someone had time to receive 32 e-mails, and write that e-mail by 12.02?

Ignoring all the shock/horror about possible misrepresentation - why should women, meeting peacefully to discuss legislation that will affect us, be forced to hold back information about who and what we are, in order to prevent our meetings being sabotaged?

All the snorting and being-offended is nothing but camouflage to hide the fact that women are being silenced.

The booking assistant. Here's the full paragraph -

When handing in the booking form at the Civic Hall, the individual asked the booking assistant for extra security explaining that the meeting was about women’s rights and peace and that some women can feel nervous and intimidated as a result of violence and showed her pictures which were described as portraying female immigrants. As a result of this it was agreed that some additional security would be in place to help manage access as it was ticket only - which is not an unusual course of action.

Doesn't make clear who described the pictures as portraying female immigrants - WPUK or booking assistant. My money's on the booking assistant.

“the meeting was about women’s rights and peace and that some women can feel nervous and intimidated as a result of violence and showed her pictures which were described as portraying female immigrants.”

Who is the "her" here? The sponsoring councillor or the admin worker who accepted the booking form?

“the meeting was about women’s rights and peace and that some women can feel nervous and intimidated as a result of violence and showed her pictures which were described as portraying female immigrants.”

What does that even mean? It's a bizarre conversation - again, it feels like conversations I've had with people who seem to have decided what I'm talking about, but it turns out they've got no idea.

What possible pictures could they have shown? The website seems to have suffragettes I think?

The other councillors who were not involved in the cancellation should be demanding answers from those who were involved. That's their job. The council is accountable to the people.

This shambles reflects very poorly on the integrity of councillors at Leeds CC. Not one of them assessed evidence before rushing to judgement. And then they flailed around trying to decide which lie would work best. That is clear.

And given that so many people were involved in it (including the Chief Executive), it makes you wonder what else is going on in that council.

Looking at the emails, Jess Lennox sent hers at 12:02pm and by 12:34pm, the reply from Geoff Turnbull shows that Cllr Lewis had been made aware and was already looking into cancelling the booking.

For this to all happen within a half hour time period strongly suggests that nobody questioned what Cllr Lennox had put in her email and took her at her word that this was a 'hate rally', backed up by the email response from Cllr Bithell at 12:08 saying that WPUK were trying to 'restrict the rights of trans women'.

Cllrs Lennox and Bithell need to take responsibility for the defamation of WPUK that led to the meeting being cancelled.

It would be brilliant if someone could get either Cllr Lennox, Cllr Bithell, Cllr Blake, or Tom Riordan to answer the questions:
Do you believe women can have penises?
Do you believe that same sex attraction (NOT same gender attraction) is a fetish?
Do you believe facilities such as refuges and mental health wards should be same sex or open to all?