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?

I’d agree.

There is also a problem of people attempting to self id their dogs as assistance dogs. The Daily Mail writer Liz Jones has described her dog as a hearing dog much to the annoyance of organizations that provide trained assistance dogs. Dogs that are not trained properly should not be given access to places like courts etc because whatever assistance or support they may give they are likely to be a nuisance to others.

Just checking in on this thread, KM's testimony today was something else.

Is there anywhere that does a good daily summary?

My head is spinning at the moment

Yes, I can see how that would be a problem zanahoria. Trained assistant dogs are completely different kettle of fish than random support animals.

I suppose I always assumed that vulnerable adults under cross examination would have a system in place for assessing the vulnerability and determining to what extent (if any) they could have support with them on the stand. Surely part of giving evidence is having to give your account independently and so I’d only expect support people on the stand (as opposed to in a viewing gallery) in very limited circumstances.

Placemark for tomorrow

Thanks for the new thread.
I was annoyed at the gales of laughter at "if you're experiencing other people's bodies in the toilets you're doing it wrong." That's the kind of snappy, sassy (as my kids would say) soundbite which is just a cheap joke.
What BC was in the middle of saying (from memory) was something which began "when you are in the toilets and you experience others' bodies -" which I believe was going to be something to the effect of: when you share a space with people, they have a presence to you which you will experience from your own POV, so their gender identity (their inner experience) is only part of what matters, because your experience of them matters too. Anyway that response was an interruption; and was a crass over simplification. I'm annoyed about it but I can see why BC felt he had to let it go.
Apart from anything else, he spent a significant part of his cross examination being pressured about time. Snappy little gags like that don't help.
Of course - it's not just a joke. Wilfully misunderstanding / misrepresenting the meaning of "to experience someone else's body in a shared space" (and making it smutty-joke-worthy) is kind of at the heart of all this - the refusal to see that women experience the things that happen in our spaces and the people that come in there, it is not neutral and our POV matters

There's an article in the telegraph but I don't subscribe

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/10/stonewall-witness-brings-dog-mother-allison-bailey-tribunal/

Telegraph article dog is mentioned.

archive.ph/35M1Y

Great minds Molly!

Thanks so much for the new thread.

IIRC, from her witness statement, Allison was making £39k when she was being given the clerking cold shoulder.

Apart from anything else, I'd always assumed that barristers made a lot of money. Allison's witness statement was very eye opening in that respect (as well as everything specifically about the case obviously)

afaik she did basic criminal defence work, known for not being lucrative (though I suppose I'm at least mildly surprised that the number isn't a shade higher).

With all those mouths to feed (him/theyself; "mother" - maybe being able to bestow that title on your birthing person is a perk for sufficiently important SW types; emotional support person; apparently different emotional support solicitor; emotional support dog; any secret lurkers in the camera's blind spot) 44k doesn't go far, you know...!

I just read that out to DP, he's literally creased up with laughter at the farcical nature of it all.

A few people have asked how old KM is. Someone on Glinner's Subsrack said he's 34 (I know!!) but I don't know where that comes from.

Crime is notoriously underpaid. I’m quite sure BC is earning a LOT more than that.

£500 per hour, 1200 hours a year?

Clymene, criminal barristers have to do a lot of legal aid work and until they can climb the ranks and do the really big juicy murders or complex cases they earn so little that many drop out. The Secret Barrister dished the dirt on the inadequacies of the system and the difficulty of making decent money in his book.

My partner and I were going through some of the highlights of the third thread. Having seen KM in action, Tabby posted:
'All these big Important companies and government Departments have been taking direction on how to manage their employees.... from these guys?!'

The shame of it. This organisation has been 'advising' the MoD.

When we came to this my partner (not always the most perspicacious of people) said: 'This is where 'be kind' gets you.' So many of us, aware of the judgmental, racist, sexist, homophobic times we grew up in, do try to be kind. So ruddy kind that sometimes our judgment goes out of the window. How many people in influential positions met Kirrin and thought 'Not sure about this?' but decided to be kind and gave him the benefit of the doubt. That's how this has happened. Over and over again.

Who started Be Kind?

Today was definitely a day I shall never forget.

IIRC, from her witness statement, Allison was making £39k when she was being given the clerking cold shoulder

I think I recall her making the point that, from that money, she then had to pay 21% to chambers in fees. I haven’t gone back to check but that’s the figure that sticks in my mind. So it’s not a great deal when all's said and done.

I thought in one year, AB only made something like £20K. A far cry from the kind of wedge she'd need to be trousering to buy all those designer handbags she was accused of collecting by that Times reader the other day!

I managed to listen in a bit at work today and it even engaged a few people into gc conversations with me - people I'd never have thought would be gc. The veil is falling

Thank you for the new thread, Ickky.

Well fuckin ell.
That took quite some reading. But was well worth the time it took.

It seems all full of holes, the ideology I mean.
Heres my mother as support, but women are just bodies.
Surely mother should have been birthing parent/person. So now KM has misgender theys mother, so many people misgender KM it was insane but nothing was said when theys own side misgender they/them.

Itll all make a fabulous film one day, d'ya think ooh I dunno the Hemsworth brothers can be in it?

If I was going to make a complete tit of myself, I'd definitely want my mum and the cat there to witness it