Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 9

[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 please choose a non inflammatory/offensive name, everyone can see it in the chat - This is a court room, please behave accordingly.

The court chat function is there for official court purposes, not for observers, please don't use it unless you have a technical issue.

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, 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

Thread 8 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4552521-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-8

Allison Bailey - claimant

Witnesses for the claimant:

Nic Williams - Fair Play for Women
A Woman's Place
FiLiA
Kate Harris - LGB Alliance

Witnesses for the respondents:

Stephen Lue - barrister for GCC
Kirrin Medcalfe - head of trans inclusion Stonewall
Sanjay Sood Smith - Stonewall
Shaan Knan - LGBT consortium - on STAG
Leslie Thomas - barrister at GCC
Rajiv Menon - joint head of chambers
Maya Sikand - barrister at GCC and in charge of writing report on AB/complaints
Mia Hakl-Law - HR senior for GCC
Judy Khan - barrister at GCC

Current Witness - Charlie Tennant - Clerk at GCC

To come

Luke Harvey - Clerk at GCC
Louise Hooper - Clerk at GCC
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge

Surely 'too busy' just does not cut it with due diligence? Lawyers do not get to be too busy as an excuse for mistakes.

Haven't caught up with the thread yet but thought it worth mentioning that I was curious enough to check the Old Square Chambers website and the equality policy link on front page leads to this statement:

Old Square Chambers are leaders in all aspects of and are committed to equal opportunities and have been trained in and adopted recruitment methods designed to prevent any discrimination on grounds of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age or other status. Our premises in London is accessible for disabled users. By its constitution, Chambers has adopted the Bar Standard Board’s Equality and Diversity Code. The importance it attaches to this subject is reflected in the fact that the Code forms part of Chambers’ objects in the constitution.

We also have a staff policy in respect of Equality and Diversity.

He certainly comes across as someone I wouldn’t want to be alone with

Definitely someone who’s going to get a private office from now on…

The danger of the "too busy" claims, is that it suggests the detriments were a result of the senior barristers' general crapness at responding properly because they were too busy, travelling, murder trial etc, not as a result if their dislike of her beliefs. There has to be cause and effect. I don't know of it will wash but I think that might be their plan.

I was just thinking that maybe, instead of arguing about policies, we should just ask those on the other side, "So you don't think women should have any rights, then?" & make them state the basis of their (bigotted) views.

Yes, well said. It's not so very far removed from - and on the slippery slope towards - the beliefs of the Taliban.

Traliban is absolutely perfect.

I have no problem with 3rd spaces for trans people, as long as single sex spaces are retained.

The only possible reason for not campaigning for 3rd spaces and going all in on male bodied people having access everywhere they want is if you think women aren't entitled to the same rights as men and women aren't entitled to say 'no'.

I think David Renton drove a coach and horses through that plan, if that was the plan. His dislike of her beliefs was plain.

I wonder if the post-evidence recriminations have started yet at GCC and SW, or if they're all congratulating each other on a marvellous job well done blah blah on Planet Batshit? There may even be two separate camps forming - which would be interesting, as all the barristers are liable.

I know DR can't discuss anything, but the others will have seen his performance.

I really hope BC is going to do this with DR on Wednesday.

I realise BC is way cleverer than me and has been performing at an outstanding level for days and I couldn't do it.

Having said that I was screaming at my computer yesterday saying 'just ask him if he really thinks the opinions of women who've experienced sexual assault don't matter - yes or no'.

All he needs to do is ask DR in clear language if what he's saying is true - yes or no.

'So you think women who've experienced sexual assault and who want single sex spaces do not have a right to those spaces' yes or no.
'You think your opinion about the need for single sex spaces is more important than women's / CSA survivors opinion' yes or no
etc etc

Don't let him bring 'trans' into it, just ask yes or no questions.

It could go on a long time and would be very illuminating.

Apologies to all those asking for context for comments. I wrote one of those 'Oh wow!' type posts the other day & was conscious that even in writing about my reaction to it, I couldn't remember what had actually been said.

Sometimes the tribunal moves quickly, sometimes really slowly. If it's quick, I find it difficult to listen, understand where things are going & the implications of what's being said/not said AND type reaction posts on MN, because I'm already listening to the next thing. Doing context ones as well are beyond me.

Its just nice to know there are MNetters out there all watching/ listening to the same thing, hence the reaction posts. I thought of us the other day as being like those people (I used to think them weird) who would queue up to be in the public gallery of a courtroom.

I appreciate that it's frustrating for anyone not seeing the original.

I don’t think that would work, because they’ve bought so heavily into the ‘they are oppressed’ belief. If transwomen are an oppressed class and it’s a protected characteristic like race, then any attempt to keep them out of female spaces is simply bigotry.

Women say ‘we don’t want males in our spaces’, it must be like, say, white women not wanting black women in their spaces. Likewise, the statistics about male pattern violence must be misapplied because it’s a very common racist trope to misapply the statistics about violence to make some ethnicities seem dangerous.

It reminds me of CS Lewis and The Last Battle, where he had a bunch of dwarves who’d bought so firmly into their beliefs that they literally could not see the beautiful countryside in front of them. As a child, that was just funny and sad. Now, I think we’re seeing that locked-in version of ‘truth’ played out in front of us.

Whatever comes out of our mouths must be bigotry, and they can no longer hear the truth.

I know this is a off topic but the judge in that case disbelieving the phrase “rape mode” was used.

Referring to the "shocking" ‘rape mode’ expression, the judge said, "it is so obviously appalling that one has to question whether it is really likely that a solicitor would use it, especially in a restaurant where others might overhear".

I was once in a meeting with 30 people, I was one of only 2 women and the most junior. The marketing director was getting everyone fired up and said “we are going to rape the competition” and most people cheered.
I was so shocked I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. I had to check in with other people in the meeting to check he had really said that. I complained afterwards and was told I was making a fuss over nothing and it was meant in the meaning of plunder so it was fine. Nothing was done about it, (but the director was sacked a few months later for falsifying figures).

The point aIm making judges get a lot of stuff put before them and have to wade through a lot of lies.

I have sudden onset global amnesia is obviously a lie

I heard him say, “I’m in rape mode” sounds so outrageous you’d want to believe it’s a lie, but it could very well be the truth.

The judge did accept he'd said it, on balance, didn't he? The 'rape mode' remark? A bit further down in the ruling.

I wondered if the judge's comments on how it is to believe that Gerrard would say it were some sort of faux naivety, given it's actually incredibly common for men to talk like this, at all levels of society.

As we're talking about C. S. Lewis, this is one of my favourite essays about human behaviour. It's written in a very dated style, but the principles hold true on how people who consider themselves to be "good" can be led to do great harm to others:
www.lewissociety.org/innerring/

These paragraphs seem of particular relevance to various GCC witnesses:
The prophecy I make is this. To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. It will be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which “we”—and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure—something “we always do.”

And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.

That is my first reason. Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things. My second reason is this. The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule. As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.

how hard it is to believe

sorry

@InvisibleDragon and @Anactor Thank you for the reminders of C S Lewis's writing. Very underrated and due some new critiques after being consigned to the wilderness for so long (other than dubious film treatments).

That's a great quote, InvisibleDragon

Ah ok. Thanks for the explanation @Manderleyagain (11:19)

www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/qc-wanted-shag-head-rape-crisis-scotland-just-have-something-over-her

Yet another example on why men shouldn’t be in women’s toilets. This time a judge sending explicit pictures of himself aroused in the men’s toilets. I wouldn’t want that going on in the cubicle next to me. He got away with it by 60 seconds as it was one minute after court work time officially finished.

@Anactor I often think of that scene in The Last Battle because it has had so much resonance over the last few years when trying to understand how people are caught up in an ideology that distorts what they see and makes them impervious to material reality or outside influence (shades of Lifton's 8 Criteria for Thought Reform).

The dwarfs are sitting in a tight circle nearby. Lucy and Tirian approach them, and it is quickly clear that the dwarfs believe that they are sitting inside of a dark stable, not basking in a sunlit field in an open country. Lucy and Tirian try different methods to show them where they are, but the dwarfs are too convinced that they are in a dark stable.

Aslan appears and greets everyone, and tells Tirian that he has done well. Lucy asks Aslan if he can do anything about the dwarfs. Aslan goes to the dwarfs and makes a beautiful meal appear before each of them. The dwarfs only taste bitter, nasty food--and eventually start fighting one another about whose food is better. Aslan says that the dwarfs refuse to allow themselves to be helped.

narniareflection.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-last-battle-chapter-13-how-dwarfs.html

Yes I agree. Everyone who obviously does hate her beliefs doesn't help their case, but if there is enough doubt about whether people actually making the decisions and making things happen had any opinion on her beliefs, and whether the cause of the crappy treatment was actually 'too busy', that might be enough to tip the balance of probabilities. I hope not, but that's what 'too busy is about imo. IANAL!

Somehow feels relevant to the behaviour of some lawyers (from the story above).

However, he was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct for passing on the "distasteful and base" comment reportedly made by the other QC, who was only identified in proceedings as 'Mr A' and described as a "high profile criminal advocate". The Faculty said McConnachie demonstrated "disloyalty" to his fellow QC by sharing the remark, which could have harmed the reputation of Mr A and the Faculty if it had been circulated

www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/qc-wanted-shag-head-rape-crisis-scotland-just-have-something-over-her

New thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553754-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-10

Helpful new thread set up by ickky:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553754-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-10