Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 7

[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

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The subject heading of the email request should read

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

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Abbreviations:

AB: Allison Bailey, claimant
BC: Ben Cooper QC, barrister for AB
SW = Stonewall Equality Limited (respondent 1)
IO = Ijeoma Omambala QC, senior counsel - barrister for SW
RW = Robin White junior counsel to SW - assisting IO
GC = Garden Court Chambers Limited (respondent 2) (GCC would be a better abbreviation)
AH = Andrew Hochhauser QC, senior counsel - barrister for GC
JR = Jane Russell junior counsel to GC - 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)

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

Thread 4 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4546945-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-4

Thread 5 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4548160-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-5

Thread 6 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4550451-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-6

I have sympathy and empathy for JK.

I would admire her now if she were to say, "In retrospect, I wish that I had had the time and cognitive resources to pay appropriate care and attention to a matter with substantial plausible consequences for my colleagues and chambers. I do not recollect that I did this and I regret that I hadn't made other arrangements for the handling of this matter."

JK is still asserting that she disputes the allegations. The above is a separate matter.

She still stands by the fact that there is no basis to this claim. BC probing the "abusive and vexatious litigation" allegation.

Even AH sounded a bit crestfallen then.

AH seems to be on his very best behaviour today. Would the judge ever speak to a barrister outside of the courtroom about their behaviour?

BC has a point here. JK might be willing now to say that in possession of all the facts she'd still make very serious allegations against AB, but she was also willing to make those very allegations against AB without checking at the time, suggesting that, it being Stonewall she was siding with, she was confident to take their side without understanding at its deepest level what she was supporting.

She’s certainly very sad and resigned. But AB shouldn’t have to pay the price (with her career) for JK being in a situation where she was unable to discharge her responsibilities. And I say that with sympathy for her.

It's the David Neale defence again. The person whose feelings must be put above all other considerations.

JK seems to have recovered her poise somewhat.

Woodpigeons cooing in BC's background now.

Can I once again apologise for my autistic brethren and their role in this ideology.

Empathy is a bastard, so much easier to just monster your opponents. Wish I knew the trick.

It is possible that they were just patting DN on the head because of his vulnerabilities, but I don’t think that’s any way to run a business that employs other people.

Who cares what DN thinks?? Why do his feelings trump Allison's?

Why would what Allison thought have any possible effect on DN’s family members?

Ah the Friday Evening defence.

See also Busy, Billed Hours, Murder Trials.

JK is trying to distance herself from Michelle Brewers activism in chambers. Not that surprising since she's left them in this mess.

Is this David Neale going to be a witness?

This is like those politicians who are hugely sympathetic to the T because they have a T friend/family member. Fine, but you've got to look at the bigger picture and how these policies affect everyone.

This whole thing is really sad. Something has gone really out of whack with society. I feel that in my lifetime (I'm 50) we have moved on in some ways from a very harsh, rules-orientated way of being "fair" which was quite unfair to many; to a new form of woolly, consensus-driven, emotion-driven sense of right and wrong which can be really, really brutal to those who somehow end up on the wrong (unfashionable, un-cute) side of it. I don't know which is worse (personally I find it easier to navigate rules than to be cute, so I have a bias) but I do think we really have to somehow rehabilitate reason and interrogation without it seeming cruel.
Also - was it always the case that EVERYONE was so overworked? I don't remember things being like that for my dad, or the other men of the 70s and 80s. Women were forced to work too hard and too "efficiently" to have a chance of credibility in the workplace and this has been exploited relentlessly over decades to squeeze time and resource and profit relentlessly out of the workforce. We should have maintained decent slacking off standards and been as shit as the men (but then we'd never have got in)

He's 'vulnerable'. End of discussion, apparently. 🤨

I have a trans family member whom I love very much - through them I know other trans individuals some of whom I like, some I don't like. I still manage to take a view which takes into account lots of things and is based on facts.

I doubt it, Rainbow.

Yes, LT made a lot of reference to DN.

I'm yet to understand why DN's vulnerabilities, reactions, and emotions trump AB's.

I'm currently heartsick at the running thread through all of these testimonies that highly skilled professionals don't understand non-technical documents and treat some matters of gravity without the respect that they should attract.

As for Friday evenings? I should think that, like a fair number of us, I regularly get approached to do a very complex review on a Friday evening within a tiny turnaround time. That would never give me the right to give it scant attention.

If none of GCC are willing to stand by their collective behaviour and they keep excusing it with how busy and preoccupied they all were, aren’t they kind of conceding the case? At least as far as the investigation of complaints is concerned.

I think BC is building the case that throughout the process that everybody's feelings were taken into account against Allison's. This is demonstrated by David's vulnerability (trans) trumping Allison's vulnerability [sexual abuse survivor).

And the reason for this was the need to not upset their partnership with Stonewall.

Can't wait for his summing up.