Kelly v Leonardo Employment Tribunal Thread 4

It is a problem I agree. Men get put off having a wee especially.

People can hold off pooing for a long time. Others can’t and will have the indignity of people hearing them poo. In toilet terms this is where wants and needs come in. We need safe toilets but we want private toilets. When it’s mixed sex the want to be private also becomes a need, due to voyeurism.

Many in the world don’t even have toilets. It’s a fascinating subject in terms of health and safety. It’s interesting but around the world, it’s pretty much consistent that girls and woman won’t use toilet cubicles if they are used by men too. Privacy from the opposite sex is worldwide as far as I know in workplace toilets for adults, which is why the Leonardo case is so extraordinary. They are talking about allowing an adult man to be in a cubicle with floor to door gaps with an adult woman. And the judge even noted the door gap would help with hygiene.

In terms of complete privacy it will always be more dangerous in an enclosed toilet on your own. Do not feel too embarrassed if you are in a restaurant and start choking and rush to the toilet. Several people have died that way. It takes 4 minutes for brain damage to start to occur if someone stops breathing. The young woman we rescued was already blue but we got her breathing again. A quick google finds ‘Defibrillation within 3–5 minutes of collapse can produce survival rates up to 50% - 70%. Each minute of delay reduces the probability of survival to hospital discharge by 10%.’ Epilepsy and diabetes are concerns. It seems a bit daft to have defibrillators in public spaces but not be able to see people in the place where they are like to go if they fall ill before they collapse. Toilets are not checked that often. I have lots of recent incidences where people are found in private toilet designs and it’s too late (including children in schools in the uk). It’s very distressing. It’s where people go to take drugs, overdose and take their own lives. It’s where young women go when their drinks have been spiked. There was a recent case where the reason they realised there was a fatality was because of the smell. The toilet had not been checked for 6 days. It was in council offices not far from Leonardos.

Because of the well known risks of collapsing in a toilet, all non-domestic toilets should be able to be opened from the outside. That safety requirement is in building documents for England and Scotland. Now of course you get the worst of all scenarios for women and children. It’s better to know if anyone is waiting outside your cubicle, to be aware of your surroundings if someone can let themselves in.

I would be interested in seeing how a specific ‘gender neutral’ facility would work if it wasn’t private. I predict women and transmen wouldn’t use it. I have learn a lot studying what transwomen and transmen want and need in toilets.

There are very much cultural differences with door gaps btw. I am sticking to British Standards in the time period when the 1992 legislation was passed which was a floor to door gap of a max 15cm (similar to a kitchen kickboard) and then space above a 2metre door. This is in contrast to cubicle doors in American that seem more like saloon bar doors.

We are so close to getting it right in this country. If men and women are allowed in all cubicles, I know the cubicles around the country will go private (with or without shared sinks) and there will be more fatalities and assaults in less hygienic toilets. It’s all so predictable. I have learned a lot from what has happened in secondary school designs which is why I can predict that.

In terms of writing a book, I don’t have the money to take time off to write it! I haven’t found anyone who is looking at women’s safety and design in the same detail.

For sanitation and the importance of toilets, I would recommend Rose George ‘The Big Necessity’.

Here’s a Ted talk she did 12 years ago where she talks crap:

I know accessible toilets in enclosed rooms have safety issues but some people want complete privacy. Particularly for having a poo where the thought of someone hearing them defecate can stop a natural function. So what can we do for people like that?

Also can a third facility for women identifying as men who can't use the men's or women's have door gaps? How would that work? Surely an enclosed room is best? Does it just need checking every hour, like signed cleaning sheets we see on the back of the doors?

Me too - what's the working title?

Tome of Thrones?

I'd buy a copy.

Yes, please do.

I worked in a university library years ago and we had a unisex, single-user toilet on the ground floor. When the building was first opened it was unlocked, and we had issues with local drug addicts going in and also people passing out there when they were drunk.

We started locking it then and giving out a key instead.

Please write a book on toilets @Keeptoiletssafe

The initial forms were very much "have you plotted to overthrow any goverment" and "have you ever been bankrupt" then he got to been asked whether any of his family or friends had financial issues or issues with anarchy. He's not looking forward to the interview as one colleague claimed to have been questioned for 4 hours straight.

I don't think toilets and the moral propriety thereof came up even in those 4 hours though.

Toilets are very interesting for security problems due to the amount of sex and drugs that goes on in them. If I wrote a book on toilets, I could do a whole chapter on politicians around the world and other officials caught (short) by toilets.

A fully enclosed universal toilet room that is sound resistant, gives people a false sense of security for misuse and private phone calls. With the extra ventilation grills, smoke alarms and equipment needed it’s the ideal place to spend time hiding a hidden camera. There’s so many hidden cameras in loos now, and the Scottish Parliament know they can get into the heart of the building.

Gaps under and over the doors are a good way of preventing people misusing the toilets in case they get caught, especially now there’s clause 71 in the Sexual Offences List.

The literature ‘evidence’ given for enclosed designs for people with long term health conditions for document T, was an article by transactivist toilet designers with the actual sentence saying that transactivists in trendy New York nightclubs liked them. To be honest, I expect anyone, male or female, using them for other things than going to the toilet preferred that there weren’t witnesses too.

I have heard many stories about Edward Heath and toilets and how it allegedly compromised security.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hamps-ted-heath-469586

Emily Thornberry would have a few stories about toilets and security as she earned a living from being an entertaining defence lawyer in court.

Unfortunately, the toilet designs for having a good time in make the best designs for something going horribly wrong for the occupant in too.

It's all about his finances, social media, political leanings and those of his family and friends - anything that makes him vulnerable to becoming an asset or likely to want to become one.

I went through Positive Vetting in a couple of jobs - all of the above, (although social media wasn't a thing then), were designed to tease out whether you could be compromised by being blackmailed by the other side, especially for those with homosexual leanings which they had kept quiet about. We forget how society has changed in this respect in the last 40 years or so.

One of my relatives is currently going through vetting - the sort we cannot discuss- and none of the questions are about whether he might not be morally decent in the toilet at work. It's all about his finances, social media, political leanings and those of his family and friends - anything that makes him vulnerable to becoming an asset or likely to want to become one.

Presumably MI5 agents have to go through vetting even more stringent than Leonardo requires, and that doesn't stop them committing violence against women
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn8z78vjkn1t

It astonishes me that companies who do not bat an eyelid at providing toilets for disabled employees
even though they are few in number
and maybe only one has complained

are so utterly unwilling to apply the same principle to females

How’s that vetting line going for you EJ Michelle Sutherland:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/12/met-police-face-independent-inquiry-over-fears-300-recruits-not-properly-vetted

I delivered a baby to a lady in A&E who presented with stomach pains. She was ten months post partum & breastfeeding. She was large, in her thirties & unaware that she was pregnant.

I hope the Judge looks at the conclusions and recommendations in the Angiolini inquiry. Part 2.

I hope he starts to understand what women are up against because he doesn’t seem to at the moment.

Some excellent women have linked to two pretty important docs

https://kpssinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/DBS-Checks-and-Identity-Verification.pdf

https://iipcv-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E03342246_Angiolini-Inquiry-Pt2_Accessible.pdf - https://archive.is/JHWCs

I can't imagine how that was for her. Aren't bodies remarkable.

My knowledge of womens need of the toilets has vastly increased this week.

The girl in my case was a teenager, it was a good while ago now but I think she was only a young teenager. She'd actually been in hospital for a few days with stomach pains and they'd been unable to find the cause and sent her home. So she obviously didn't look or feel pregnant when they'd examined her and she must have been too young for them to have even considered that she might be pregnant. The baby was born at full term.

Because we are discussing hierarchy of needs, I put with on the Fife thread, though more relevant here.

If some disabled people require separate sex toilet and washrooms (details in HSE part M) and there are regulations to ensure disabled people has access to suitable facilities, and there is no hierarchy of needs, then we need separate sex toilets and washrooms in workplaces. Certain religions also require this for their faith. As do women for welfare, particularly when pregnant, because there are risks that that’s the location women go to when something goes wrong and also fainting risks. As, I would argue AGE (elderly and children more at risk and need greater supervision, which is noted as a reason to have door gaps in past British standards).
So in terms of NUMBERS that’s

1. disability
2. sex
3. religion
4. age
5. pregnancy and maternity

I had this once in a science experimental site. I also had to take a special bus to get in, that had mirrors put under it at the entrance, to check for bombs.

Slightly late to the point various PPs have raised about visitors to defence sites. I have visited a L Ltd site although not Edinburgh. Visitors are very strictly monitored. Met at reception - not head up in the lift, straight to the meeting room, when I needed the loo the guy I was visiting got his secretary to accompany me there and back (and yes it was badged as a ladies...)

To me, the vetting point in the judgment just seems a bit like

'I have decided what the outcome will be, it looks a bit dodgy, I just need a few bits and pieces to paper over the cracks so hopefully no one will notice'

So I think a big point of appeal is disregarding Pregnancy and Maternity Schedule 22 exepmtion under EqA 2010. Per Judgment. 259. Contrary to the claimant’s submissions, the Schedule 22 exception does not apply to Regulation 20 of the 1992 Regs because it is not concerned with “protecting women in relation to—(a)pregnancy or maternity, or (b)any other circumstances giving rise to risks specifically affecting women.” Reg. 20 is concerned with protecting both men and women and not women specifically. Furthermore, the Sch. 22 exception applies “only by doing in relation to a woman” and not by doing in relation to a man.

My thoughts -

This is an incorrect legal interpretation of the Regulations. The Regulations are very much concerned with the safety of pregnant woman and nursing mothers (materntity protection).

Regulation 25 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 states that employers must provide a suitable place for pregnant and breastfeeding workers to rest.

Facilities for pregnant women and nursing mothers
234 Facilities for pregnant women and nursing mothers to rest should be conveniently situated in relation to toilets and, where necessary, include the facility to lie down. Separate guidance is available on working safely with ionising radiation for expectant or breastfeeding mothers. To suggest that pregnant women should be siutation. Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations

There is no sense in interpretating that into any thing other than single sexed toilet facilities.

HSE BOOKS © Crown copyright 2002
A guide for employers
New and expectant mothers at work
First published 1994
Second edition 2002
ISBN 0 7176 2583 https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/EstatesDirectorate/UniversitySafetyService/FileStore/Filetoupload923384en.pdf

Resting facilities: Rest is important for new and expectant mothers. Tiredness increases during and after pregnancy and may be exacerbated by work-related factors. The need for rest is both physical and mental.
Hygiene facilities: Without easy access to toilets (and associated hygiene facilities) at work, due to distance, work processes or systems, etc, there may be increased risks to health and safety, including significant risks of infection and kidney disease.
Because of pressure on the bladder and other changes associated with pregnancy, pregnant women often have to go to the toilet more frequently and more urgently than others.
Breastfeeding women may also need to do so because of increased fluid intake to promote breast milk production.

Added to the list of reasons why toilets are important during pregnancy and maternity I think this is a significant point of appeal.

Also been meaning to put this on here. With the Fife case going on, I put this on that thread. It’s also relevant here.

This is an oldie but a goodie from Robin Moira White:
It is, I find, an advantage to be very old, in that I started work in the rail industry before the 1992 Regulations were in force. The rail industry was sexist and misogynistic.
Provision for female staff was 'OK' around office blocks and passenger stations for obvious reasons, but even in the middle 1980's, a decade after the Sex Discrimination Act had been passed, facilities for women were woeful at many depots and engineering facilities. A few women had been seen in the rail industry during WW2 but the return of the men from fighting had seen them displaced and not replaced. The arguments were often circular. Female apprentices were not employed because there were no female facilities and female facilities were not provided because there were no female apprentices or artisans. Such was the position in may 'traditional' industries. I vividly remember that at one train depot we visited as a group of management trainees, the male trainees 'guarding' the male facilities after checking they were empty so that our female colleagues could use them.
And this is what the 1992 Regulations were designed to deal with. This was the problem they were designed to solve, and that is why they refer to male and female facilities and the PROVISION of facilities, not their policing.
Trans people were not on the legislative horizon in 1992. P v Cornwall and the 1999
Regulations which gave protection to trans people in UK Law for the first time were a whole administration away. No-one drafting the 1992 Regulations gave the slightest thought to trans people.
He then says:
‘There is no definition of 'male' or 'female' in the Regulations. There is no 'common law' definition of 'male' and 'female' in UK Law and I challenge anyone to identify it, despite. the fact that quite senior Counsel, on occasion, have told judges with a straight face that there is.’

Obviously there’s no definition of male and female because no one was daft enough to think they needed to be defined, or as Robin says, no-one drafting the 1992 Regulations gave the slightest thought to trans people.
Also this was before the Supreme Court, so it’s outdated now.