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?

Sounds like she understands they are a political statement.

’It’s your cross-examination, Mr Hochhauser.’

Boom.

'Have you finished?' RUDE!!

'have you finished?'

Jesus.

and then AH says Are you finished?

AB replies Thank you 😁

AH patronising style really isn't working with Allison.

This is AB's twitter account:

twitter.com/BluskyeAllison

Not very active recently, which is sensible.

Who's saying what now?

I can't log in to it today - got too much bloody work on and I just get angry and distracted.

How dare he! Especially given the masses of time-wasting from his side. And their crap bundle.

I do love his expression of bewilderment. Very well honed over decades.

AH questioning seems a bit out of order to me. - Asking her for almost legal judgements and opinions rather than statements of fact and belief (but I am not a lawyer)

He berated her for her wide-ranging answers to his questions. To paraphrase:
AH: Can we have some structure please?
AB: its your cross examination/your responsibility
AH: if you give a speech in answer to every question this is going to take forever
AB: if you were to ask yes/no qs I’d give short answers but you’re asking qs requiring longer answers (actually she said something longer than this)
AH: have you finished?

Patronising cock.

In terms of the substance, I think he’s been trying to suggest that the trans interest group (can’t remember proper name as multi tasking) at GCC was a loose collective of individuals rather than a formal collective with any actual influence.

Just started on whether she’s a founder of LGB alliance - semantic difference of being a founder or helping set it up. Not sure where he is going with this.

Jess Bradley just got a mention, in the setting up of TELI.

The collective attitude of their counsel appears to be derision.

It's not working with me either Signalbox - when he started again today I wasn't sure I had another day of listening to him in me. I know he's just doing his job but good grief it's unpleasant to hear someone being so abrasively patronising.

In complete awe of how clear-headed and calm Allison is in the face of his endless hectoring.

Ooh someone has logged in as Here we go she/him and is being berated by the judge!

An observer with the name "here we go, pronouns she/her" was just asked to log out and change their name as it was provocative.

But what about the person who actually said it!!!! About the claimant talking about death threats.

Oh, I wondered if the offensive name was "Women have rights too".

It's why, I think, this case is so important. As a barrister herself, Allison is used to and understands this process and also is fiercely intelligent, eloquent and clearly very resilient. I'd be in pieces by now if it were me (I'd have been in pieces at the end of day 1).

It's made it even more clear to me, however, that justice is out of the reach of normal people. Not only because of the sums of money involved, which most don't have, but also because of the mental resilience required to bring a case. How many days has she been subject to this treatment now? Let's not forget she was in hospital not that long ago. Hardly a recuperative environment. I'm in total awe of her.

I hope she knows that her support Mumsnetters are fully behind her, even if we're not actually under the table.

It seems to be me it shouldn't be beyond the scope of technology to have the court assign user names (e.g. observer 1, observer 2 etc) so people can't make up their own names. Also stop the chat, people aren't allowed to talk while a normal court's in session.

And the judge really needs to stop wasting time with this if they're not going to do even basic tech management.

Why do QCs dislike it when the person they're questioning gives a detailed answer? I'd understand if they're waffling on about irrelevant stuff, but I've seen it a few times in cases I've followed, they don't seem to like the person elaborating.

Is it a time thing, or is it that it makes it harder to back them into a corner?

I think there are a number of possible reasons. You’d want to keep a sensible witness to your own points, so they can’t make their own. But also you want to make them out to be as rambling, unstructured, illogical as possible. The more times you can say ‘That wasn’t my question’ the more bamboozling you can be.

It's because the questioning is designed to produce an impression of a certain thing and the person adding their own nuance stops that. It's like saying "were you holding a spade?' and me saying "it was actually a shovel" - this is a problem if he wants to make out I'm about to dig a hole

It's because cross-examining counsel like to present their questions as "yes/no", so called "closed questions", but often slip in a proposition that can be disputed, and are hoping to get an inadvertent agreement from the witness to the disputable proposition yourhairiswinterfire.

They then don't like witnesses giving expanded answers in which they seek to reject the disputable proposition.

On the other hand, if you've got someone not as switched on a Allison, who rambles on, then they may say something that can be used to pick apart their evidence.