Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 11

[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

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

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)
Marc Willers - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Stephen Clark - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Liz Davies - Barrister at GCC (23 May)

To come?

Tom Wainwright - Barrister at GCC (24 May)
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

Quickest game Bingo ever!

Another day, another barrister whose evidence is incredulous. Never read a reply on Twitter? Mariah Carey?
Barristers are officers of the court. The legal profession make a big deal of this. Something like your duty to the court is equal to your duty to the client.
There are serious consequences to lying in court, but I imagine they are greater if you are an officer of the court? Do they think EJG is an idiot? A layperson observer surely wouldn't be convinced by these explanations.
These barristers have to go back into court and lead trials in front of EJG are her colleagues. Why are they all messing up their reputations?
I don't get their strategy. If your going to fib, do it better than this!

If you appear as a witness are you allowed to view the testimony of witnesses that went before you?

If you appear as a witness are you allowed to view the testimony of witnesses that went before you?
yes

Might it be because it was quoting from the tribunal?

I’ve been listening to this on and off over the last few days . Today I heard a lawyer say that coercive control was only operational in the presence of violence of the threat of violence. A few days ago we heard another lawyer David Renton say he didn’t agree that women would feel unsafe with trans women in their spaces, so that’s alright.
There’s a lot of trans-activists thought and philosophical debate about trans women are women but I’m beginning to think that this is all noise, they are justifying their decision-making they are justifying demonising Alison and LGB alliance and women’s rights because they want the work that Stonewall and transactivists can provide.
main problem is that legal aid work was drying up they need to find a new income stream, trans rights and by association Stonewall could be a lucrative source of work they badly needed. Allison was putting a spanner in the works and needed to go.
A GCC member posting about Palestine wasn’t a problem, because that wasn’t going to lose them Work.
Ive worked in a prison and every single inmate can justify why they did what they did, they may have known it was wrong But, there’s always a But.
This is what’s going on here, “I’m going to remove the rights of women to single sex spaces, BUT, it’s to help those marginalised trans women.”
We need to investigate Allison, BUT, it’s to defend the good name of our chambers .

I think they finally jumped the shark with the Mariah Carey reference.

I genuinely feel sorry for some of the GCC witnesses. I think they found themselves in a non win situation and made really bad decisions but are probably good humans underneath that.

The rest of them are just.... blah... though.

It’s money, jobs and being part of the incrowd

This is exactly what YHA wanted to know, in order to "grant" a woman a single sex dorm room.
Proof that she "deserved" to be in a single sex space, by virtue of previous sexual assault.
No concern that the Woman just didn't want to share with a penis haver, whilst asleep and vulnerable.

At this point, to me anyway, it looks like GCC really are in hot water, so I don't understand why they don't throw stonewall under the bus.

Should they lose, they can't then sue stonewall for fibbing or leading them astray - because they've affirmed everything now.

Strategically, I don't understand.

Surely, no one can believe there was NO gossip in an open door chambers? And that the only stuff talked about in the clerk's office was FOOTBALL.

The judge can't possibly believe that the media guy at stonewall and Stephen Clark, member of TAWG at GCC, talked about Mariah Carey and drag race as the "TWITTER STORM" and "REPUTATIONAL DAMAGE" was going on, while they were chatting around in the swimming pool changing rooms, whilst outside of work?

Do they think the EJ is dense?

It's just an unbelievable yarn.

I mean, if this is unacceptable for TQ+ people to endure then it's unacceptable for females too.

If only that eminently fair suggestion were true. The whole TRA movement is based on women being lessers (you know the normal XX kind of woman). If everyone believed that women were equal and what was unacceptable for the TQ+ was unacceptable for women, then we'd have had third spaces in about 2015.

It's basically taliban-like ideology in rainbow colours - women are lessers. It's one of the central beliefs. Women have to budge over, budge up, their trauma doesn't matter (or if it does only if it's really bad and a man gets to decide what counts), their lived experience and self identity doesn't matter.

That was really clear in what a number of the witnesses have said. Truly depressing. How awful for Allison to have had to work with people who think this. What a horrible atmosphere for the women remaining.

ASmallCat - your right, Ben Cooper seems to be doing just fine.

Support Twixes
Dinosaurs
Literal Violets
Man Friday

gotta love FWR

TRA purity spiral in action... Garden Court cared more about appearances than actually standing up for trans people apparently.

Be warned, everyone. However hard and often you pledge your allegiance it will never be enough@

I hadn't seen this article before, written at the time of Allison's 'public shaming'. Sorry if it's a repeat but thought it worth posting again

uncommongroundmedia.com/garden-court-chambers-and-the-public-shaming-of-allison-bailey/

Sorry if it's a repeat but thought it worth posting again

I do vaguely recall reading this at the time, but it's far more meaningful now after having seen this mess, and endless claims of ignorance.

Next up was Michelle Brewer of Garden Court Chambers and the Trans Equality Legal Initiative (TELI). Brewer started by pronouncing that chambers is a safe space: there would be NO DEBATE about trans rights existing. TELI, we were told, was a group of human rights lawyers and trans rights activists, set up to educate the legal community and to support grass roots organisations. We need to be educating ourselves – in court at the moment there is apparently misgendering and deadnaming. It is the responsibility of lawyers not to use ‘cis-normative’ language. It needs to be safe. There is a hostile environment. The example was used of the appalling deaths of trans people in prison, including one just last week. [...]

[...] There was then a Q and A which was mostly used up by requests for Bex Stinson to talk about transitioning at the bar, and for Bernard and Terry from GIRES, who were in the audience, to stand up and speak about their work. My companion that evening, Julia Long, kept her composure long enough to ask a question about the changing meaning and definition of ‘gender identity’, and Michelle Brewer answered with an assertion that ‘what gender means to the individual’ is the best way forward for trans people to explain themselves, so this is the definition needed in legislation.

The rights of women were never on the table. [...]

[...] it would appear to be a pre-requisite for trans allies to deny that women even have existing rights. It is astonishing that this wilful ignorance is seen as a matter of pride. It would seem that, against the backdrop of their overwhelming support for trans rights, in Garden Court Chambers even one person standing up for the rights of women is one too many.

I missed yesterday but will try to listen for a bit of today. I'm in the actual office on Wednesday though 😫

SC has two brains, apparently. Perhaps they all have two egos?

Probably just a very big head.

Thanks for that article @Pyjamagame - makes the testimonies seem even thinner.

Incidentally, there was a link to the investigation tweet responding to the 'twitterstorm'

Dennis Kavanagh wrote this about Stonewall going after Dr Az Hakeem but it feels relevant here to the performance of several witnesses. (NB: remember when SW reassured everyone that it was a fiction that they'd consider a therapeutic conversation by a clinician to be part of the sort of conversion therapy that they were opposing?)

Beyond this, no debate, unfettered access to the corridors of power and cancelling people leaves the gender borg pretty arrogant and ill equipped for adult society.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-accidental-vindication-of-doctor?s=r

Even easier to simply say no to all men.

How would an avant-garde idea like that grab DR and his woke bro pals??

I know that, to him, the world is made up of men and other people, who are utterly inconsequential.
I should be used to it by now, but the brazen misogyny is something to behold.

And two faces, it would seem!

Next witness:
Cathryn McGahey QC - Vice Chair of the Bar Council’s Ethics Committee (barrister at Temple Garden Chambers)
tgchambers.com/member-profile/cathryn-mcgahey-qc/
Role in the case: My understanding is that GCC (Stephanie Harrison QC on behalf of Maya Sikand QC, Marc Willers QC and Judy Khan QC) approached CM in her role as the Vice Chair of the Bar Council (regulatory body for barristers) Bar Standards Ethics Committee for informal advice as to whether AB's tweets violated the Bar Standards Board (BSB) Code of Conduct; CM decided that two of AB's tweets were "probably" in violation of the BSB Code on the basis that AB would not be able to substantiate their truth. However, GCC did not disclose AB's 32-page explanation/substantiation of the tweets to CM. I think it is alleged that later some of CM's words may have been used in subsequent versions of GCC's report on AB (without citation).
(I believe the tweets in question are (1) AB's 22 September 2019 tweet about the 'overcoming the cotton ceiling workshop': “Stonewall recently hired Morgan Page, a male-bodied person who ran workshops with the sole aim of coaching heterosexual men who identify as lesbians on how they can coerce young lesbians into having sex with them.” and (2) I think the other is a tweet that thanks the Sunday Times “for fairly & accurately reporting on the appalling levels of intimidation, fear & coercion that are driving the @stonewalluk trans self-ID agenda.”

CM/s bio: "I specialise in immigration, national security, prison law, public inquiries and inquests. I was junior counsel to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry from 2000 to 2010. I became a special advocate in 2008 and was appointed in 2012 to the Attorney General’s A Panel. In 2013 I became a member of the Welsh Government’s A Panel. I was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2016..
I have appeared in some of the leading immigration cases in recent years, including the Detention Action challenges to the Detained Fast Track system for asylum seekers and in a number of cases relating to the rights of Gurkhas’ dependants to settle in the UK.I have a particular interest in, and wide experience of, judicial review challenges to government policy.
I have represented both the Ministry of Justice and the Youth Justice Board in inquests into deaths in custody, including several murders and the self-inflicted deaths in custody of three children.
As a leading special advocate, I represented the only successful appellant in the Operation Pathway Manchester bomb plot case before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. I also, as junior special advocate, appeared in a successful challenge to the Government’s proposed Deportation With Assurances of an Ethiopian national.
I represented the Secretary of State in a challenge by three individuals, alleged to be leading members of the proscribed organisation Al-Muhajiroun, against the decision to impose TPIM notices on them. The Secretary of State’s decision was upheld.
I have extensive inquiry experience. As well as being junior counsel to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry for ten years, I represented “whistleblowing” soldiers in the Al Sweady Inquiry and was co-counsel to the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry, which investigated physical and sexual abuse of children in the care of the States of Jersey. In 2016 I acted as counsel to the Bulk Powers Review conducted by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. I am currently leading counsel for the Department for Education in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and leading counsel for the Home Office in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry."
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS INCLUDE: Human Rights’ Lawyers Association