Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 4

[ickky]

The Tribunal started 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.

When joining the live tribunal

On the first page underneath where you put your screen name, select the video and mic that are not crossed out (top option), this is the courts vid and mic.
On the next page select NONE on the drop down windows for vid and mic, these are your own video and mic.

You must be muted so as to not disturb the hearing.

There is also live tweeting from

twitter.com/tribunaltweets

Abbreviations:
AB: Allison Bailey, claimant
BC: Ben Cooper QC, barrister for AB
SW = Stonewall Equality Limited (respondent 1)
IO = Ijeoma Omambala QC, barrister for SW
RW = Robin White assisting IO
GC = Garden Court Chambers Limited (respondent 2) (GCC would be a better abbreviation)
AH = Andrew Hochhauser QC, barrister for GC
JR = Jane Russell assisting AH
RM= Rajiv Menon QC & SH = Stephanie Harrison QC (jointly respondent 3 along with all members of GC except AB)
EJ = Employment Judge Goodman hearing the case
Panel = any one of the three panel members (EJ and two lay members)

Witness Statement of Allison Bailey: allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Witness-Statement-of-Allison-Bailey.pdf

Kirrin Medcalf's complaint to GCC: allisonbailey.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/PH-Bundle-pp-331-2-Stonewall-Complaint.pdf

Thread 1 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4529887-Allison-Bailey-v-Stonewall-Employment-Tribunal-hearing?

Thread 2 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4542466-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-2

Thread 3 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4545725-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-3?

Martin Reuby is proving the undersung hero in all this. His cameos prove decisive. The actor playing him will probably get a best supporting actor BAFTA.

I'll go for Kenneth Cranham.

At that point it provided a distraction away from the 'here we go' comment.

I thought that might possibly be the reason, tbh. But I'm very cynical and that is pure speculation. In any case there seem to be people there as observers who just want to cause trouble, and whichever side they fall on I doubt they are those who truly care about the outcome for Allison. It was a truly outrageous comment made when Allison was giving her evidence about death threats. More important than RW being misgendered, IMO, but that stopped it being dealt with properly. The judge asked IO and RW to be more restrained, and they didn't object until the chat thing.

Think it as deliberate.

Surely no set of chambers would want to appear so unprofessional with regard to preparation

‘Sorry but why is <it> not ok?

And that is why we have Stonewall training...

Genuinely wondering how some random member of the public is meant to describe this person based on appearance alone, without knowing their name. Maybe it was malicious or strategic here as presumably most audience members are up on trans issues. But it could very easily be innocent or unthinking! I think I’d struggle to find the right words, myself, even though I know you’re not allowed to say what Starmer said.

I'm not sure if someone mentioned it here earlier, but an observer (James) wrote in the chat that someone (not TT) was live tweeting but misquoting people...

I have a feeling the judge knew who made the "here we go" comment but didn't want to waste more time on it, she must have been in a state of extreme exasperation at how much time had been wasted on extraneous BS like crappily prepared bundles and tech trouble. If it was IO and the judge can confirm that, the refusal to acknowledge or apologize, followed by the reaction to the rude comment in chat, would give the judge a little snapshot of what Allison has been dealing with.

A random member of the public shouldn’t have commented on the situation at all.

I don't understand how someone making a statement of observation can be considered offensive. We're getting into 'but I know what you're thinking - burn the witch' territory. If describing someone as 'the woman in the trousers' isn't offensive then what the chat participant said should not be. Accurately sexing someone should not result in censure. How have we got to this.

On the other hand, the chat should be disabled. They can't simultaneously be fed up and complain when people make comments and not do the very easy thing of disabling that function. Are lawyers really this useless at tech?

Having a live chat function doesn't seem like a good idea in this scenario at all.

Chat box is necessary. It's for posting links to documents and for people to ask for documents or for tech issues.

Accurately sexing someone should not result in censure. How have we got to this

Absolutely. But we all know how we got here…

Are lawyers really this useless at tech?

Yes.

Also, the tech seems particularly crappy.

Also, how often does an employment tribunal get an audience? Particularly an audience running into hundreds. Who feel themselves deeply involved, because they helped pay for it, and where emotions run high on all sides?

I chair professional tribunals. I've had the occassional distraught/supportive girlfriend or wife, the odd new staff member learning how things work, and once - ohhh moment of fame! - a journalist.

(We won't mention she got bored and wandered off mid-morning.)

There's normally no reason to police the chat because there's noone there but those involved.

This really is unprecedented.

Ach, WeeBesom, those people also believe that people can change sex, that men can be women, that you are whatever you say you are, that ordinary women are terribly dangerous, that the law says no one's allowed to disagree with them, that transwomen have periods and that a is a literal act of violence. So I wouldn't set too much store by what they think. There are two more weeks to go after this one, IIRC, and only then will BC be let loose on the GCC and Stonewall witnesses. Things will start to fall into place.

Randomly, there was a discussion on Pointless just now about Alan Turing being on bank notes.

How I'd love to see AB on a bank note.

I don't understand how someone making a statement of observation can be considered offensive. We're getting into 'but I know what you're thinking - burn the witch' territory. If describing someone as 'the woman in the trousers' isn't offensive then what the chat participant said should not be. Accurately sexing someone should not result in censure. How have we got to this.

Yes. Many people, including this site, seem to have brought into the idea that correctly identifying someone's sex is the most heinous act imaginable. When it's patently isn't.

We are told it's just about the most offensive thing possible, on a par with genocide.

In an effort to stop us doing it.

It might be something that a transwoman
doesn't want to happen, and therefore ramping up the consequences, or inflating the seriousness, is par for the course.

But that tactic is partly why we are in this mess in the first place.

Look how the mocking of threats to a woman is batted away, whilst correctly identifying the sex of somebody, is treated far more seriously. Why?

It's wrong and biased.

They should be pulling her case apart, leaving not a shred of doubt. The witness should leave the court feeling that they have been wrung out. If this is all that AH has to throw at Allison (and she is returning every serve admirably) then it shows how little they have in their defence.

Any fool can understand the logic of turning down crumbs of work so that she is available for more lucrative cases, as befits her professional level, knowledge and experience. I really think they've got nothing. Especially with everything else that is slowly coming to light.

Re: lawyers & tech. A relative ran the local magistrates court & knew nothing at all about tech, so he let his staff get on with it. He told of the time he walked into an office to find the printer going 19 to the dozen, spitting out sheet after sheet of densely-printed paper. "What's that?" he asked a member of his staff. "That?" came the reply, "Oh, that's all wrong." And the printer continued...😂

Is the tech really not something that should be wrangled by the Court Clerk or an actual facilitator so that the tribunal members don't have to be concerned with this?

They might also benefit from investigating what an appropriate TEAMS/Zoom licence would cost as they're relatively straightforward to manage and they have captions available as well as audio filter options to remove background noise.

I also thought it sounded like IO, and the following "Oh God" comment ... MR is a legend

Starmer was way out of order though.

Look how the mocking of threats to a woman is batted away, whilst correctly identifying the sex of somebody, is treated far more seriously. Why?

In the absence of a fuller exploration of the training that judges have received, and what underpinned the earlier versions of the ETBB, we may never know.

We might suspect that the earlier versions of the ETBB overemphasised the perceived needs of some protected characteristics more than others and that, somehow, the intersecting totality of AB's experience somehow lack points in an exchange of trumps?

It just seems like it should be moderated in real time in some way rather than live and unmoderated as it seems like an ripe opportunity for those wishing to disrupt the case. The apology which was rightfully due to AB was very quickly glossed over because of the outrage over RMW being misgendered.

I nominate Timothy Spall.

Indeed.

Let's face it, the top trumps has spiralled out of all rational recognition.

To the point where even repeating the comment, as a verbatim remark, on an entirely separate website, in a section which is totally based on that very premise, gets deleted!

It's totally wrong.