Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 8

[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.

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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

Thread 7 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4551757-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-7

This. Also, many companies/organisations take out subscriptions to newspapers and journals so that their staff - even those whose employment status may technically be freelance, but are largely office-based in the same building, let's say chambers - can consult this paper of record when it may be useful for purposes of work for them to do so.

An online subscription to The Times really wouldn’t cost that much in the great scheme of things. You’d think.

Crumbs! I forgot about the very impressive R0...whatever happened to her??

We do not speak of our Great Ones who have been barred from the fields of FWR. (R0 might be able to return but some do not care to tolerate The Great Uncertainties and unpredictable striking of their efforts.)

We hold them in our hearts in gratitude for the great service they have rendered to us, many a time and oft in the times of strife.

So GCC hasn’t got the legalities of the protected characteristics correct as it mentions gender not sex.

Well, quite. Sadly, such inaccuracy seems to run through them in both horizontal and vertical seams.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 @EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

Cly is right the chambers see themselves as social justice warriors. I don't really approve of that. i think they should be totally neutral on every issue, eschew publicity of that kind and not have their colours jailed to any mast and rise above the fray as it were, no virtrual signalling and if they do pro bono tell no one that they do to be modest and quiet.

However I accept I am against the current trend where loads of law firms and chambers and big companies hitch a ride on every band wagon going which they feel is a trending or worthwhile cause of the day and show off to the rooftops about it.

@Zeugma yes and even I, a lowly pleb, receive 2 free articles a week from the lofty paywalled Times - as would MS, so her excuse is absolute BS

Yrs surprising. But even so she could have got allison to send a copy by reply email. Or I am sure the chambers subscribe, maybe the pr department or whatever, they will want to see coverage of their cases. Typical of the whole approach tbh.

And also, the police and the NHS. And schools. By all means support whatever as an individual. But as a public body, please be politically, socially neutral.

Would that be sex, Clymene?

SEXis missing . . .

What I think their evidence shows (so far) is that they had no idea or even interest/curiosity over what any opposition to SW law looked like. Not even from a black lesbian woman who has lived a life knowing the fatal flaws in the SW position (that GCC were uncritically promoting & happy to do so).

If we are channeling children's programmes, do you think Mr Ben(n) goes off has has costume adventures whilst BC is in court?

This is the bit I don't get. That Stonewall's philosophy, as espoused by Ruth Hunt, was - seemingly - perfect in every regard.

Did no-ones spidey-sense start tingling? Or were we all just happy, sign a cheque, EDI done!

I am looking forward to Michelle Brewer's testimony. Oh yes

Just for the new thread. Witnesses so far that are missing or incomplete in the list:

Dr Nicola Williams - Fair Play for Women
Dr Judith Green - Woman's Place UK
Lisa-Marie Taylor - FiLiA

Zainab Al-Farabi - ex Stonewall

Oh thanks that’s answered a question if MB had already appeared - I agree MB will be interesting

Yes I've spotted "sex" is MIA a couple of times with GCC. The Equality Act is so easy to understand! There are 9 PCs and they are listed. It's very simple.

Well I think it's pretty clear that they viewed any diversion from the SW view of the world was problematic.

And I agree with you @Xenia that their SJW position is problematic. The legal system is adversarial- that is the whole point of it. How do you defend someone when they are up against someone who is also disadvantaged?

Everyone should be entitled to excellent defence. Even if they're a white middle class man.

It would be very interesting to know how "sex" came to be replaced by "gender" in GC's equality policy. Who could know better that it is sex and not gender that is protected by the EA? Did they do this because they were instructed to by Stonewall?

Some times when GCC was in The Times:

2011

Legal aid cuts ‘put vulnerable at risk’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/36e6389c-9c6c-4321-b9fc-5626b7a45183?shareToken=0fac039b580c9e3b6931d7ec4f88ba45

2018

‘If you can’t see there’s a problem, you’re part of it’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d3aa4590-b0b4-11ea-839f-3d38a5cc49e9?shareToken=05bc9d2a02ee0d5895e3ee85b8d58d59

2021

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/4fe7dd16-df17-11eb-bac0-9597568b601f?shareToken=ae1ab1c71a114407acb09121fc39e01d

As I said earlier, JK omits 'sex' and uses 'gender' in her witness statement, too.

I know this is a stupid question, but LT says he was AB's mentor and took her under his wing, JK says they shared a background and she respected AB, and MS says she was a friend - so why did none of them have a chat with her and get her POV and avoid this whole messy shenanigans?

I have no idea about Ben's sexuality.

He said he was gay in the MF tribunal in March when interviewing CGD's Luke Easley, another gay man, to make an analogy (can't remember exactly about what now).

For the sake of public decency I must note that there was a lot of swearing in the Clangers.

<Clutches pearls> <Returns to lurking>

I know this is a stupid question, but LT says he was AB's mentor and took her under his wing, JK says they shared a background and she respected AB, and MS says she was a friend - so why did none of them have a chat with her and get her POV and avoid this whole messy shenanigans?

Indeed, for someone they supposedly respected and valued so much its all a bit cold for me.

From the brilliant Sarah Stewart, in 2019.

"Tonight I attended, what can only be described as a propaganda meeting on behalf of trans activism, at Garden Court Chambers.

I felt that the panel deliberately ran down the clock in order to discourage and actually stop discussion happening, as I will explain."

t.co/GjbdyfuD4n

Presumably they were mostly too busy, too abroad, too distracted, too [insert (non)activity of choice] to manifest any of the usual expressions of friendship.

Until now. Now they're expressing outrage and verbalising distress in other such heightened terms that AB should criticise the manifestation of their (in)actions.

(NB: I have no reason to doubt that LT did mentor and assist AB in the manner he outlined during his examination.)

I am deeply saddened for all of them that people with so much in common and who have been natural allies with their common interests in supporting underserved individuals and communities who are disadvantaged by power symmetries should find themselves at such odds. I realise that lawyers from the same chambers often find themselves as opposing counsel on the same case and maintain perfectly cordial relationships. This is very different. I can't think of a senior person from GCC who hasn't manifested anger towards AB and expressed it in notably hyperbolic terms.

There won’t be either liability or professional indemnity insurers involved.

Public liability policies only cover liability for claims in tort (negligence, nuisance). They do not insure against a liability under the EqAct.

Stonewall doesn’t provide professional services of the kind that come within that sort of insurance cover (architects, accountants, doctors, lawyers etc etc) so it won’t have professional indemnity insurance.

Individual barristers all have to have professional indemnity insurance but it also doesn’t cover liability under the EqAct. It only covers your liability for the work that you do specifically as a barrister which doesn’t include acting as head of chambers etc. It only covers services you provide to your clients.

GCC members will have paid for their legal costs out of their own pockets and if Allison wins they will be paying any damages too. That probably explains why they have let it go to trial. They have to throw everything at it and hope they don’t have to pay massive damages. If an insurer was paying the claim they’d have settled long before now, partly because no insurer would have let such shit witnesses get anywhere near the witness box, and partly because if someone else was paying, as a chambers it would be a no-brainer to settle quietly and avoid the adverse publicity.