Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing

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The Tribunal will start on 25th April at 10am. If you would like to view online you need to send a request for access as early as possible.

Send an email to

[email protected]

The subject heading of the email request should read

“MEDIA OR PUBLIC ACCESS REQUEST – Case number 2202172/2020 - Ms A Bailey – 25th April 2022.

Then ask for the pin for the online access.

You will be contacted with instructions on how to observe the hearing.

I have sent a request but haven't had anything back yet. Hopefully nearer the time.

I can see the chatroom but no one on video

Hochhauser QC is very cute.

Brilliant news that Allison is better.

Interesting start to the discussion with Nicola Williams. Without seeing the context of the witness statement, I don't understand where AH is going.

For very rare clinical conditions, there will not be a substantial number of people to recruit to trials. This will never be a (gold standard) randomised (placebo) controlled trial. So, observing the impact of an intervention is all that is feasible.

It's maddening not to see the statement because I can't get to the context.

Did anyone catch the pseudonym?

Dr Nic has a brilliant brain, and glad she's up first. Agree that it's confusing without context though.

Why are people saying it's impossible to mute oneself? Isn't it the buttons in hte middle bottom of the screen? <paranoid>.

Is it perhaps harder on a phone or tablet because it seems v similar to Zoom for me but worried I've got it wrong.

I think he's trying to undermine the basis of the discrimination claims. AB needs to show her gender critical beliefs are aligned to being female and being gay.

Yes, I'm not sure what this is about as haven't seen the witness statement. It seems as though the barrister is saying qualitative research is bad and wrong?

He's saying (I think) that there is no quantitative evidence that gender critical beliefs are more commonly held by lesbians and women than other people.

NW witness statement:

doyleclayton.sharepoint.com/sites/ExternalSharing/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx?id=%2Fsites%2FExternalSharing%2FShared%20Documents%2FBailey%20v%20Stonewall%2FPUBLIC%20%26%20REDACTED%20%2D%20Bailey%20v%20Stonewall%2FRedacted%20Witness%20Statements%2F2022%2D04%2D11%20%2D%20Witness%20Statement%20of%20Nicola%20Williams%2Epdf&parent=%2Fsites%2FExternalSharing%2FShared%20Documents%2FBailey%20v%20Stonewall%2FPUBLIC%20%26%20REDACTED%20%2D%20Bailey%20v%20Stonewall%2FRedacted%20Witness%20Statements&p=true&ga=1

Thank you to those tweeting and posting on the thread. It is very helpful indeed.

Man alive - i'd go to pieces. I'm such a wuss. I admire Nicola so much!

He's a tosser.

Ahh, that opens when I click on the link within the chat of the stream but doesn't open when I click the link above.

Reposting helpful info from pp for anyone new joining today.

Abbreviations:

AB: Allison Bailey, claimant
BC: Ben Cooper QC, barrister for AB
SW: Stonewall Equality Limited (respondent 1)
IO: Ijeoma Omambala, barrister for Stonewall
RW: Robin White, assisting IO
GC: Garden Court Chambers Limited (respondent 2)
RM: Rajiv Menon QC & SH Stephanie Harrison QC (jointly respondent 3 along with all members of Garden Court Chambers except AB)

Respondents 2 &3 are in practice indistinguishable: GC Chambers are respondents both corporately and as the set of individuals that make up the Chambers

AH: Andrew Hochhauser QC, barrister for GC
JR = Jane Russell assisting AH

EJ: Employment Judge Goodman hearing the case
Panel - any one of 3 panel members (EJ and two lay members)

Thanks to Tribunal Tweets for this information.

Qualitative and quantitative research are different - is AH trying to say she should apply the principles of the one to the other?

I've seen the statement now. It's just a short thing, no research at all. It's about NW's experience as GC woman and through FPFW.

Her observations are reasonable and semi-verifiable. She is relying upon her status with FPFW as some degree of authority but that is to be expected.

And, in the name of all that is holy, why don't the Court have a separate technical facilitator to handle the muting.

GGC and SW questioning Nicola Williams of FPFW on her witness statement. Focussing on research and data with, I suspect, the intention of trying to discredit her as a witness.

Questioning her statements that women are more likely to be GC than men and lesbians are more likely to be GC. Therefore 'our supporters' are more likely to be women rather than men based on the population as a whole. He's now questioning that lesbians are more likely to be supporters of GC feminism. So from here I imagine the line will be that AB isn't representative of lesbians.

Dr Nic saying that in her experience a high proportion of lesbians are represented in the GC community. He comes back: lack of supportive evidence in her statement. She agrees

Now, sadly, I have to go. I'd cleared Weds and Thursday but have things scheduled today. Good luck all.

It would appear so. He's trying to discredit her statement. Desperation I think

I don't think he's got much there. MF's reference to FPFW resources was the reason the CEO of CGD (eventually) took the decision to sever their relationship. Remember the 'red evil hand'?

It strikes me as a bit desperate too.

When I appeared as a witness in a case that arose in my work capacity the rather desperate barrister resorted to criticising the punctuation of my thrown-together-at-the-last-minute statement. We won.

I think he might regret going down this road.

Really, Pluvia??

That is clutching at straws in the extreme!

Yes he started with her statement should've been worded "these" instead of "this". 🙄