Maya Forstater Tribunal March 2022- Thread 2

[Sophoclesthefox]

Forgive the presumption, @Mforstater, but you’re probably busy in the pub right now, or passing on all of the fan mail to you legal team so I’ve made a new thread to carry on the fascinating discussion.

Round up your cats, rabbits and weasels, and let’s go!

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From thread one, here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4498167-Maya-Forstater-hearing-starts-Monday

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your support: emotional, intellectual, financial, spiritual(!) reading the Mumsnet feminism board is where this all started for me!

The case starts tomorrow.

It is all online. If you want to watch you need to email the tribunal for a log in to [email protected]

It kicks off at 10am - the first bit will be "admin" between the judges and the lawyers working out the timings, issues and any reporting restrictions hmm.

Once that is all sorted the judge and the panel will go away to read (probably for the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday)

I will most likely give evidence Wednesday and Thursday.

@tribunaltweets will be tweeting the whole thing (assuming they get permission from the judge)

Links to papers will go up throughout the case at www.hiyamaya.net.

Any other questions I am happy to answer them (apart from the ones where I have to say "that is for the tribunal to hear"...)

I have made a spectators guide with FAQs etc here

Lots of love

Maya

@MrMrsJones

This looks fascinating

How do you join?

email [email protected] and ask for a spectator login for Forstater v CGD

@CoupDeGrass

This is very interesting!

Is BC's line going to be that MP was reasonable, saw no big issue with Maya's tweets, and engaged constructively her, but then the decisions about Maya were (deliberately) taken without MP's involvement?

It does look like he was excluded for having been too tolerant of her and measured in his reactions!

Hang on, @drwitch - you say Anya Palmer made mincemeat of Luke Easley (LE, yes?) the first time round and here he is, still presenting himself to be made mincemeat of a second time?

Will Luke never learn?

So now they are arguing that she was let go because her work did not fit in. This is really not how these things work. - As a think tank you might have a general strategy that you might want to move in a particular direction but in the short term you would go where the money is

They send you joining instructions as a pdf at the end of their reply. Open them, click on ‘To join by web browser use this link’ and add the pin no. on the same document. Then TURN YOUR MIC OFF AS SOON AS YOU GET IN!!!!

Wasn't she handing out leaflets re her political views which her colleagues found offensive? Similar to what a group of gender-criticals (including Marion Millar) did at an Edinburgh restaurant which the staff called the police on them to get them to leave?

Ben Cooper's brain must be like the tardis. Looks from the outside average in size, but it's many magnitudes larger on the inside. He's about 3 steps ahead of MP and you can see he's anticipated MP claiming illicit tax flows weren't important - Ben listing several reports which says it was.

It's like he can see inside their souls 😬

[quote drwitch]@PoshPyjamas no she had Anya Palmer (who was excellent, also made mincemeat of LE), the issue in the first one was that the judge had been benchbooked[/quote]
So hang on here just a moment. LE had ALREADY been examined and cross-examined in an earlier hearing, and he STILL came across as totally unprepared and unable to understand the issues? Sheeeeesh.

And you would probably work out whether work in one area complemented or detracted from work in another. In most cases having an extra staff member who is self financed is beneficial providing their work is of good quality even though they might do stuff that is unrelated to other work you are doing

Wasn't she handing out leaflets re her political views which her colleagues found offensive?

This is untrue.

@MargaritaPie

Wasn't she handing out leaflets re her political views which her colleagues found offensive? Similar to what a group of gender-criticals (including Marion Millar) did at an Edinburgh restaurant which the staff called the police on them to get them to leave?

If you haven't bothered to listen to the evidence, please don't expect anyone to engage in clear misleading claims that the cross examination has shown wasn't the case.

@MargaritaPie

Wasn't she handing out leaflets re her political views which her colleagues found offensive? Similar to what a group of gender-criticals (including Marion Millar) did at an Edinburgh restaurant which the staff called the police on them to get them to leave?

You've been corrected on your erroneous interpretation previously, MP -it's good form to read back and ascertain that rather than just repeat statements/questions.

My impression is that you don't trust or agree with what people here tell you. Your best possible source of information, should you wish to be appropriately informed, would be to consult the document bundles that contains witness statements and timelines from all the parties.

I was thinking BC is like Erin Brockovich - where she starts listing telephone numbers and stuff!

Similar to what a group of gender-criticals (including Marion Millar) did at an Edinburgh restaurant which the staff called the police on them to get them to leave?

You are obsessed with MM this is about Maya Forstater, please pay attention.

From the submission I read (from Maya) she brought back one leaflet from a demonstration or meeting or protest (sorry can't remember which). ONE leaflet, which she offered to lend to people.

Marg, that's been covered.
I imagine you'll get kicked off if you keep writing untrue things about an ongoing courtcase on here.

I don't know why you'd want to, but that's on you.
You do believe a lot of untrue things, and you seem ok with that, but to use this forum to publish them isn't really in the spirit of decent debate.

Was she, Margarita? I expect the tribunal judges will have all the evidence in front of them.

Oh yes - the evidence that she left a single leaflet on a single desk she had been using on a single occasion - an admitted one-time violation of the clean desk policy. Off with her head!

BIWI no need to try and argue reality. It's all listed in these threads and in the tweets and in the linked documents in the OP and on Maya's website.

This is all they have.

Wasn't she handing out leaflets re her political views which her colleagues found offensive?

No, she wasn't. Read the live tweets and the witness statements.

Does anyone know why some complainants aren’t to be named?

I do like the effectiveness of the BC question, which he's using all the way through: Can you tell us any other example when a decision was taken to [do what was done in the case of MF]?

I guess it's a useful question in Employment Tribunals where a key issue is discrimination.

TRA Twitter are claiming that Tribunal Tweets are biased and therefore not following them 🙄

They have requested and been granted anonymity.

Oooh, Ben just accused MP of being texted about the case, but it was actually the judge’s phone that went off!

Cringe!

BC: COnsistently, all the way through, until MF tweets on gender and sex, her area of expertise was a core area, wasn't it?

MP: In London because she was working in that area but we were developing a broader programme and it was part of that work.

BC: Consistently, all the way through until MA and EM intervene in October, there was to be an active push for funding, yes?

MP: For taxation, yes. But that is my work as well. It's MA I don't think EM.

BC: Sequence of events is: you say, we need to decide whether to make her an employee...

MP: I say we need to understand options.

BC: Then you are told a decision had been taken not to push for funding for this work that you had been pushing for months?

MP: Message I got was that MA didn't realise the extent to whch we were pushing for funding in that area and he saw the amount in the Gates grant was sufficient. Other priorities.

BC: That's not the explanation you now seek to give - the latest - that the claimant hadn't met the two conditions MA had sought to impose, is it?

MP: The two parts are separate. One was funding, the other was the set of work she could do and she had a more diversified portfolio.

BC: Deliberate decision to stop fundraising for her work (so she can't meet the first condition, is implied).

MP: I don't think the tweets resulted in that decision.

BC: She had diversified her work - commercial confidentiality.

MP: It was one large grant that was coming to a close.

BC: There was to be a follow on project.

MP: That was a year behind schedule and there was a discussion about it.

BC: But there was to be follow on work?

MP: That was the extension [in other words, no work for MF here].

BC: But Mr Kenny was keen to have MF do that work. So she had diversified her work?

MP: Whether it was sustainable is in question.

BC: Commercial confidentiality also a strategic area all the way through.

MP: That's because we had that grant.

BC: And at the least, there was to be a follow on piece of work and Mr Kenny was keen for MF to do that.

MP: There was the option but it was a year late and it wasn't clear the work would happen.

BC: Back to bundle. Mr Conry (?) replies MP I understand will be meeting complainants 3 and 2. You could reinforce with complainant 3. If this was a genuine refocusing of CGD's work, it would not be being done in this way, would it? There would be a proper record of the review of priorities, wouldn't there?

MP: Not necessarily.

BC: Do you generally treat your consultants and VF like this? Secretly and without discussion?

MP: I do tell the claimant about this decision so...

BC: Normally, you'd have an open discussion?

MP: That is a discussion I do ultimately have with MF.

BC: Puts question again.

MP: No, not necessarily straight away. In due course.

BC: You wouldn't go to the fundraisers and secretly brief them, would you?

MP: It's the fundraisers doing it, so they need to know.

BC: But they are working with MF, aren't they? Close contact.

MP: Yes.

BC: So again, what you are doing is stopping the fundraising in a way that is not going to be explained to her?

MP: In immediate moment, yes, but ongoing discussions.

BC: I will put it one last time: you wouldn't usually secret brief people without telling the other individual on their team, would you?

MP: I might tell them not to pursue it pending that conversation.

BC: An example of you doing this at any other time?

MP: This was my first grant.

BC: Back to bundle. Mr Conry to MP: spoke with claimants, they understand decision and 'appreciate the sensitivity of the issue.' Now, complainants 3 and 2 are aware - can I check that nobody is communicating with you about this case? I heard an alert noise...

MP: There's nobody here.

EJ: Alert noise came from inside my pocket...

BC: My misunderstanding. MP, complainants 3 and 2 know about the issue concerning the tweets.

MP: Yes.

BC: And where Mr Conry refers to 'sensitivity', that indicates, yes, that this decision to stop the fundraising is because of the tweets?

MP: I don't believe so. I think it indicates that it has to be clear to MF that it is because of the work, not the tweets.

BC: You are telling us that the decision was to do with reprioritisation of work and not at all to do with tweets?

MP: Correct.

BC: Long long pause.