Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 10

[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

Thread 9 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553181-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-9

Allison Bailey - claimant (4-9, 11-13 May)

Witnesses for the claimant:

Dr Nicola Williams - Fair Play for Women (29 April)
Dr Judith Green - A Woman's Place (29 April)
Kate Barker - LGB Alliance (3 May)
Lisa-Marie Taylor - FiLiA (4 May)

Witnesses for the respondents:

Stephen Lue - barrister for GCC (3-4 May)
Zainab Al-Farabi - ex Stonewall (10 May)
Kirrin Medcalf - head of trans inclusion Stonewall (10 May)
Leslie Thomas - barrister at GCC (13 May)
Sanjay Sood Smith - Stonewall (16 May)
Shaan Knan - LGBT consortium - on STAG (16 May)
Rajiv Menon - joint head of chambers (16-17 May)
Maya Sikand - barrister at GCC (17-18 May)
Mia Hakl-Law - HR senior for GCC (18 May)
Judy Khan - barrister at GCC (19-20 May)
Charlie Tennent - clerk at GCC (20 May)
Luke Harvey - clerk at GCC (20 May)
Louise Hooper - Barrister at GCC (20 May)

To come?
David Renton - barrister at GCC (20 May, to continue on 25th May)
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge.
David de Menezes - GCC, Head of Marketing

Yes they all are

We could send you a support virus, to enable you to stay home.

Thank you

I'm finding it hard to follow this morning as I've got stuff going on here. A quick observation (maybe innaccurate) - minimising/denying rape culture and coercion and showing a woeful lack of understanding of those things may be expedient in getting GCC off the hook here, but surely it won't serve them well in the long term? Unless they aim to become the go-to chambers for sex pests and abusers. They might need to change their motto though.

I've not been in a court for about 20 years, but there used to be somebody typing away furiously on a weird typewriter thing, not quite verbatim (but pretty close). As a client it was very useful.

You could try looking on what they suggest here to see whether there is a recording:

www.gov.uk/apply-transcript-court-tribunal-hearing

Just to say I'm still on page 6, having spent the morning cleaning up a kitchen-diner flooded with mucksville washing machine water. <sigh>

Will be catching up asap. Thank you so much for the posts.

He wasn't very clear. I think he was trying to say that thr cotton ceiling is not coercion as it doesn't involve physical force. It was against BS for AB to say that it is part of rape culture. And that rape culture means the physical act of rape only and that's what the reasonable person understands it to mean.

The key to the discussion Xiaoxiong was "coerce" and the source of it was this tweet by AB:

twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1175739790181974017

They might need to change their motto though.

They already need to, honestly. 😃

Do right unless you're too swamped, fear no one except angry mobs (mob herein defined as 7 people or more) on Twitter.

Can anyone who was watching explain what MW was trying to argue ("break it down for me" haha) - I'm only following on here and on TT and I'm really unclear on what MW was saying about rape culture (and TT isn't helping either).

Was he saying that because AB said that the cotton ceiling was rape culture, that was then in breach of Bar Council standards...because the cotton ceiling doesn't involve coercion? Or because rape culture doesn't involve coercion?

Earlier GCC witnesses were, like MW, saying (with reference to Allison's tweet about the infamous Toronto "Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling" workshop), that the word "coercive" was unacceptable. One of them (Maya Sikand?) kept saying that Allison was accusing the Cotton Ceiling Workshoppers of sexual assault. Typical TRA word-twist-and-mangelry, so surreal in this setting.

I doubt if they even care enough that they think women/lesbians should be happy to live and experience those things. They just seem to want them to shut up and play along that they do. Only because if they don't, it causes irritation to the people that really matter; males.

Just coming back after pesky work - thanks for Twitter advice, it really helps

Aargh, had to take DS3 to the GP and it sounds like I missed the real attack phase. And there I was thinking BC had him just on Twitter incompetence.

a weird typewriter thing

A stenograph device. They are awesome to see in use. However, it's been made clear there will be no transcript of this case available from the court and there could be legal problems for anyone doing their own.

How can these QCs have no knowledge of coercion in a non-violent sense? The concept of 'coercive control' is common knowledge now, and doesn't need to involve any violence, it can be non-violent act such as threats, insults, humiliation, intimidation.

Did I dream that Nancy Kelley would be making an appearance on the witness stand? (I think I must have... Probably getting carried away with imagining the film version.)

If rape 'culture' is only applicable when a rape takes place. why do these learned people think the word culture is used at all.

I'm just wondering now how they approach those groups of people whose rights they ostensibly champion. There can never be structural inequality, I presume. No inbuilt cultural biases. No contexts. Only black and white deeds/misdeeds.

So no DDM then?

Ahh, I see - thank you all for the explanation.

I have to agree with @WinterTrees that this complete misrepresentation of the meanings of words like "coercion" and "rape culture" are going to come back to haunt them.

Is anybody else amused by the quotes that accompany each barrister's image? I've been using both to try to work out what they're like, before they appear.

I tried this with DH's company website & managed to do a Sherlock Holmes on one guy just from his photo, getting his previous job & the circ's in which he did it spot on (later confirmed as correct) - though I still reckon he has chronic back pain & that's unconfirmed at this point in time.

Lurker here. These threads have been brilliant.

Two points:

1. For a profession that relies on good memory, the GCC lawyers seem to be relying rather a lot on "I can't remember.".

1. Re coercion. Alex Sharpe is a door tenant and has written rather a lot saying rape by deception should not be a crime.

DDM has to appear, surely? Does anyone recall if his statement has been referred to i.e. he's submitted a statement in GCC defence's bundle?

Am I right in remembering that the stenograph device has Shorthand Keys and you needed to have a shorthand speed of 160 words per minute?

Not read full thread yet as catching up on this morning's TTs -
yet ANOTHER intelligent professional who repeatedly says they "didn't understand nature of debate". Gosh!

Also how hypocritical are they to argue that being accused of transphobia ISN'T coercing/forcing anyone to do anything - in the context of cotton ceiling lesbians - while at the same time saying their own actions on Twitter etc were specifically to counter accusations of transphobia?!

More than anything else TERF is a falsehood - rad fems include transmen as they are female so TERF is just daft.

But they are hardly likely to call us the more accurate MERF are they - because TABE (Trans Affirmation Before Everything).