Kelly v Leonardo Employment Tribunal Thread 4

I posted this on another thread, but it’s great so I’m going to share here too:

Re the “how would we ever police this?” arguments, Victoria Smith has series of X posts where she says that these were the same arguments made when marital and date rape were being considered for criminalisation:

Victoria Smith@glosswitch
38m

A really significant moment for me as a young feminist was realising I'd grown up in a country where it was legal for men to rape their wives. I was 16 when making it illegal was being "debated"

Arguments in favour of doing nothing were very similar to ones against taking date rape seriously. How would you prove it? Wouldn't measures taken to prove it spoil relationships? What do you want, contracts, cameras everywhere?

The same tactics are being deployed against women having spaces of their own. How will you prove it? What do you want, genital inspections? We know that often we can't prove the things men did to us in a way that would lead anywhere.

It still matters to have a standard that men are expected to adhere to. It's remarkable how many men want us to think they wouldn't transgress but are passionate in their desire for it not to be illegal to do so.

Yes, and I have collated real-life incidents which show exactly why these are sensible for safeguarding.

Thanks, @MrsOvertonsWindow . I didn't read the whole judgement but that line about policing stood out to me as well. It couldn't be any clearer 😁

Thank you @SexRealismBeliefs . That was a very comprehensive dismissal .

I especially liked this section responding to claims that women safeguarding their toddler sons by taking them into toilets etc allows a middle aged man access as well:

"The example of the mother taking her young son to use the female lavatory is a bad example. That (and the corresponding practice for fathers and young daughters) is a common practice but is no more than a facet of ordinary parental responsibilities".

And this knocks on the head the insistence of all the sad people that employers will need to police toilets:

"The notion that an employer or anyone else is required to “police” the use of a lavatory, person by person and day by day, reveals the application of a “logic” so strict that it is divorced from reality and from any sensible model of human behaviour." 😂

An appeal was filed early Jan I think-

https://www.employmentbarrister.co.uk/eat/how-long-does-an-employment-appeal-tribunal-appeal-take-from-start-to-finish

The main stages and approximate timescales are: lodging the appeal (within 42 days of the written reasons being sent), the paper sift (approximately four to five months), the Rule 3(10) hearing if required (an additional three to four months), and the full hearing (approximately six to nine months after permission is granted). These are estimates based on recent practice and are subject to variation.

So anything from 14 months to 18 months maybe?

Justice 🤯

And employers keep on breaking the law.

That pleasant thought had occurred to me. And makes it even more delicious

Thank you!

Indeed. And for once women don't even need to donate. 😁

It was a slam dunk. The judge is trans captured and shouldn’t be given more cases.

Except of course she has.

It’s Naomi appealing I think so that plus a bit of AGP and a whole bit of there are phalluses in the ladies (and they don’t require a pump). 😂

A few previous posters said the Judge has drank the trans kool aid.

Whatever her excuse for her public intellectual paralysis- both GLP and the sensible opinion in LS v NHS England followed by the EHRC guidance to confirm say this is a total volte face on appeal.

A room with cubicles with gaps can’t be mixed sex.

I am curious as to timing but confident as to outcome on binding law here.

That being said no one has to wait for Kelly. GLP is binding and LS v NHS England is clear it’s discrimination of women.

So tell your employers they’re breaking the law if anyone had the delusion to think Kelly will stand.

God bless the GLP.

how long does it normally take for an appeal to happen?

Thanks for that extract, SexRealismBeliefs. Should be a nice easy job for her barrister: 'Your Honour, the High Court agrees with my client. Thank you.'

agree @Keeptoiletssafe about not getting over this case. I thought this was an absolute slam dunk. But hopefully by this going to an appeal we will get the right result as well as a legal precedent.

I still can’t get over this case. It was absolutely bizarre. Cubicles are like wardrobes, they are not rooms. Though point 20 is short, you can read it with the British Standards as they were at the time, and it makes perfect sense as they use the same terminology.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/good-law-project-EHRC-AC-2025-1953-judgment-13Feb26.pdf

Here at para 41 - but the entire thing is worth a read

So a bit late with this update but a welcome one.

GLP in another own goal challenged the EHRC's interim guidance re toilets.

The judgment was a slam dunk saying that per Workplace Regulations 1992, regulation 20 only biological women can use women's loos and if there are cubicles they need to be in a seperate room that is only designated for women.

The judge then goes onto say

41. Following the hearing, the Claimants filed written submissions relying on the judgment of the Edinburgh Employment Tribunal in Kelly v Leonardo Limited (Case 8001497/2024, sent to the parties on 24 November 2025).

This was a claim under the EA 2010 but in the course of its reasoning the Tribunal had cause to consider the meaning and effect of regulation 20 of the 1992 Workplace Regulations.

I have considered the relevant part of the Tribunal’s reasons (paragraphs 207 – 245) but none of the points set out there cause me to doubt any of the conclusions above or the meaning and effect of regulation 20.

What this says is the Judge in Kelly wrote a pile of pish and my judgment is the law.

So the Kelly appeal will be fun - esp as there is now High Court case law confirming the opposite of what was decided.

Both Maria and her lawyers have said they’d appeal. I very much assume they have done so.

But I’m not the horse 🐴 so it’s not from the horses mouth

The 42 days since the 24 Nov decision would have been up on 5 Jan. Do we know any more about whether Maria has lodged an appeal?

I did have a Dropbox people accessed but I was worried about confidentiality. I agree I do need to look at getting work out there and publishing stuff. My concern is that I am dealing with identifiable cases and also that my work is misused. I will have a think.

If you want my school report, pm me.

I agree.

how do we get hold of your work? We need to find a way that protects your anonymity but allows people to benefit from your knowledge!

You really need to be an expert witness in a court case @Keeptoiletssafe

Personally I'd bung some money into a crowdfund for you to do some CPD for both Judges in this and the Peggie case. Now that would be a good use of taxpayers' money.

I was trying to formulate my thoughts on a letter to a few MPs and EHRC about unisex toilets and came across an account in my files. It seems particularly relevant to what is about to happen. Because the way things are going women will be using unisex toilets, retrofitted into out of the way spaces. It isn’t a reference I use because it’s not from this country but it always makes me angry and was one that played on my mind.

This link is from a newspaper from 2012. please note, it contains quite a graphic description of sexual assault in a high-end nightclub. If you are ok with reading it, it can be read in reader mode.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ivy-toilet-sealed-like-a-vault-rape-case-hears-20120229-1u2be.html

There are sexual assault incidents in nightclubs toilets in this country which happen in similar designs.
And a nightclub is where I rescued a woman who had collapsed in time because it was a single sex design with a floor-door gap. No other person was anywhere near the toilets until my friends and I entered.

There was lots of consultation for toilet cubicles in Document T. The government commissioned a private firm (ARUP) to look at the requirements of people with disabilities and long term health conditions to inform future policy and guidance in particular Part M which makes reference to separate sex toilet washrooms. In the whole 171-page document there was no mention of the words: seizure, faint, diabetes, cardiac, heart, epilepsy, syncope, endometriosis, menorrhagia, collapse. There was one mention of ‘stroke’ in reference to a grab rail. In the report the article references to periods are only in relation to transgender people.
They recommended full height cubicles and the evidence was based on this quote from two Americans who design for trans inclusiveness, ‘A better solution, supported by many transactivists, and increasingly found in trendy nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender-segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls.’
Those American designers still (as of April 2024) hadn’t actually done any health and safety tests on their designs.

The company that wrote that document won a gold Stonewall trophy. It also discussed such things as non-binary crotch height analysis for urinals.

We have NO studies in this country collating what’s going on inside unisex toilets, though I can give lots of examples of sexual abuse and fatalities.

The DfE wouldn’t allow unisex toilets as main provision at first on religious grounds:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/05/education.schools The headteacher dismissed fears of sex sessions, suggesting that pupils would seek somewhere more comfortable.

India has a recent report on unisex school toilets which shows girls avoid unisex toilets because of rape https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292125000030

Around the world, women and girls have absolutely justifiable apprehension of going into unisex provision. To suggest that unisex and single sex toilet provision are equal in terms of health, safety and welfare is wrong.
I think this is relevant to this case.

Men stand and pee against the wheels of their vans in laybys
they will cope