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

Like Davies looks nice. I hope she doesn't turn out to be the rest of the GCC lot.

They seem to busy setting the world to rights to look after their own. I wonder what their reputation will be like in legal circles after this is finished.

Aghh.. Liz Davies. Bloody phone auto correct.

Not sure EJ is accepting it all at face value. After one of AH's interruptions, EJ said something like the witness was an intelligent person i.e. they could understand the question that AH seemed to be alarmed was so unclear.

Indeed. It's enshrined in legislation. Or is their argument that they're too busy to keep abreast of current affairs outside their narrow areas of interest?

I can see someones settee that's even more untidy than mine, which pleases me greatly.

Anyone having camera issues? I can hear but not see. Am on iPad- worked this morning

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.

I think it may be because there is an extremely wide range of behaviour that would be classed as "being a total arsehole" socially, but which either doesn't actually cross the line into being illegal, or otherwise can't be proved to be illegal.

I'm guessing that barristers only get involved once you are at the "prove something happened that was against the law" stage, and we all know that 90+% of abusive and controlling behaviour never makes it anywhere near a court.

Are we back in? I've got a blank screen

yes, it's started, try again.

Yes back in

They apparently don't read the papers (well not The Times, anyway.)

Although they are seemingly more abreast of goings-on in 'mainstream media', i.e. Pink News... 🙄

Yes, Four - just give it another try. That often sorts it out.

🤣🤣🤣
Dramatis personae 😆

(although I like your version!)

Exactly.

In roughly the same time period, trans author/barrister/academic Alex Sharpe, also of Garden Court Chambers was writing "Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity 'Fraud': Reframing the Legal and Ethical Debate
1st Edition

From the Amazon blurb:

This book is a legal and political intervention into a contemporary debate concerning the appropriateness of sexual offence prosecutions brought against young gender non-conforming people for so-called ‘gender identity fraud'. It comes down squarely against prosecution. To that end, it offers a series of principled objections based both on liberal principles, and arguments derived from queer and feminist theories.

Thus prosecution will be challenged as criminal law overreach and as a spectacular example of legal inconsistency, but also as indicative of a failure to grasp the complexity of sexual desire and its disavowal. In particular, the book will think through the concepts of consent, harm and deception and their legal application to these specific forms of intimacy. In doing so, it will reveal how cisnormativity frames the legal interpretation of each and how this serves to preclude more marginal perspectives.

Beyond law, the book takes up the ethical challenge of the non-disclosure of gender history. Rather than dwelling on this omission, it argues that we ought to focus on a cisgender demand to know as the proper object of ethical inquiry. Finally, and as an act of legal and ethical re-imagination, the book offers a queer counter-judgment to R v McNally, the only case involving a gender non-conforming defendant, so far, to have come before the Court of Appeal.

About the Author
Alex Sharpe is Professor of Law at Keele University. She is also a Barrister at Garden Court Chambers, London

Gosh, I wonder how a "non-disclosure of gender history" might impact on women and (most particularly) lesbians' "concepts of consent, harm and deception"???

He doesn’t understand ‘endemic to’?

Come on.

Because "I didn't understand" the issues.

If you take this as true - they didn't understand at the time - they did by the time it went to court, so why didn't they settle.

They are saying they now know that they were discriminating. So why go to court to try and defend it?

Now he doesn't understand what 'very common' means?

Love how BC just handled the request for putting the question more simply as apparently QC doesn’t understand the meaning of « endemic », (given that we’ve spent the last 18months hearing variations of « covid will become endemic » I refuse to believe that), and went with « very, very common », very slowly, like talking to a small child.

the pause before the answer was indicative, I thought, of not being able to / wanting to answer the question, rather than a comprehension problem.

Doesn't understand coercion, but understands complicit?

I don't think he wants to answer any of the questions now Fingon, the pauses are getting longer and longer.

He's on a very sticky wicket and he knows it.

I mean, I don't know if this is their argument but it is reading a little like it is: that "being accused of transphobia" led to GCC acting in a way they now regret to some extent because it wasn't completely in line with their policies.

And yet, "being accused of transphobia" can in no way pressure anyone to act in a way they'd rather not, if they're lesbians in LGBTQ communities.

ipsaloquitur.com/criminal-law/cases/r-v-mcnally-justine/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNally_v_R

More on 'gender deception'.

eeeeerrrrrrmmmm.....

WallaceinAnderland

Because "I didn't understand" the issues.

If you take this as true - they didn't understand at the time - they did by the time it went to court, so why didn't they settle.

They are saying they now know that they were discriminating. So why go to court to try and defend it?

There must be more to it than I am seeing, but the best explanation I can come to is that GCC has behaved badly because -

(1) Stonewall told it to!
and
(2) As a firm of barristers it could not be bothered to confirm the legal understanding of the issues and relied on Stonewall.

Were they in a position to settle if Stonewall weren't willing to settle? Is the GCC plan to say "we trusted Stonewall and didn't feel the need to verify that they're the good guys... so now we - with Stonewall - have lost this case we are going to sue Stonewall for mis-advising us."

I would love to see a firm of barristers explain why they felt it appropriate to take legal advice from Kirrin Medcalfe and not do their own reading!

A nice long section of BC reading a Simon Fanshawe article to support that there's fear, intimidation, and coercion involved the promotion of the Stonewall agenda.