Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 12

[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

Thread 11 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4555145-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-11

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)
Katherine McGahy (24 May)
Tom Wainwright - Barrister at GCC (24 May)

To come:

Colin Cook - clerk at GCC (24 May)
David de Menezes - GCC, Head of Marketing
David Renton - barrister at GCC (20 May, to continue on 25th May)
Kathryn Cronin - barrister at GCC
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge.

I was thinking the same. They publicly sided against her and distanced themselves from her. That had to have an impact on her reputation as a barrister.

Now that everything is coming out, I'm sure her reputation is restored. GCCs on the other hand seems destroyed. Homophobia, lies and, above all, everyone saying that Allison is not transphobic, LGBA is not transphobic and women defending sex based rights is not transphobic. Exactly what they were trying to avoid in the first place by sucking up to Stonewall and throwing Allison under the bus. It's clear as day and the sunlight is astonishing.

"rapists often employ subtle coercion or bullying when this is sufficient to overcome their victims".

I note the use of 'overcome' which can equally be applied to cotton ceilings, boundaries, etc....

"I don’t know the answer. Evidence given in court is privileged against a defamation claim. If the BSB does agree to consider any of it in a regulatory complaint, I assume it will take its established approach to the exercise of freedom of speech by barristers and Core Duty 5"

Really interesting, @GrumpyMenopausalWombWielder - thanks!

There’s persuasion and there’s persuasion. If someone says, ‘I’m going to give you three good reasons why you might want to sleep with me. One: I’m excellent in bed...’ and they go on in a genuinely persuasive vein, that is one thing.

But if their starting point is that your stated preferences are illegitimate bigotry and (as in this case) there is a prevailing atmosphere of intimidation to support them in getting away with ignoring the boundary of your stated preference in favour of their own preferences, then that is coercive, not persuasive.

I have just googled "Cathryn McGahey" and filtered by last 24 hours. Ignoring images, two results have popped up - Navratilova's tweet and something irrelevant. What is going on?

Just catching up with today's events - Fucking Hell! as 'someone' aptly commented.....
Many thanks to all the contributors.
And one question - there are several references to the WTF report - I naturally read this as the 'What the Fuck?' report but suspect it might have another name - can anyone elucidate?

In brief, it's about women being discriminated against in Chambers and not getting as good work as the men.

Women's Task Force.

I recommend reading/skimming Allison's witness statement if you haven't already! It is long though...

And one question - there are several references to the WTF report - I naturally read this as the 'What the Fuck?' report but suspect it might have another name - can anyone elucidate?

I think What the Fuck sums up the whole thing perfectly.

Just catching up on today’s happenings with steam coming out of my ears!

Oh my fucking God.
What the hell.
This is gonna be an epic movie, definitely will need three or four sequels
We should be thinking of names for sequels surely.

What a ride.
Aa you were peeps.

I'm starting to think a ten part drama series rather than a movie would be better, there's so much material and enough shocks to have a cliffhanger at the end of every episode.

That is a very clear explanation of why the Cotton Ceiling is utterly vile. There really is no room for doubt.

Great, thank you.

Excellent idea, but if one of them is a musical, I will give that episode a miss. 😁

I've just googled Cathryn McGahey, imagining her to be a junior barrister. Wow. I wonder if she has any idea how homophobic she is? She's a QC, not some junior. Can't imagine that that's going to have done her career any good. Ooooof.

I'm guessing that she won't be quoting Martina Navratilova on her online profile, that's for sure!

This is why they really needed someone impartial, CM has clearly been stonewalled. Also they needed to be knowledgeable about the whole debate and I don't mean a quick google.

But there's a tap-dancing Mr Hochauser . . . 😄

Looking back on tribunal tweets it reads like Tom Wainwright had some input in amendments to the bench book, did anyone else hear that bit?

I came on here to post that thread - someone got there before me!

It's an excellent summary.

GCC are such sports fans I suppose it must be of some comfort to them that Martina Navratilova now knows who they are. GCC and even the Vice Chair of the Bar Standards' Ethics Committee.

Strange old world, eh? Maybe they planned this into the overall marketing impact of this action.

That must be it. Some fiendishly cunning marketing strategy that would have eluded even Baldrick.

See, I don't see how "Allison's allocated work dropped more than any other barrister's, and that's got absolutely nothing to do with the way half of Chambers were seething with rage at her" is more likely than "Actually, there is a connection between the extreme animosity against Allison and the drop off in work she received."

But I do appreciate it's hard to see the exact mechanism.

A key point. One wonders if the evidence of Michelle Brewer might throw some light on that.

Thanks everyone for your contributions today. I can't even muster a comment about it all, I'm so shocked.

What a ghastly bunch of unpleasant individuals poor Allison has the misfortune to share chambers with.

It begs the question were they all always this objectionable or have they become toxic as a result of their enmeshed association with Stonewall?