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.

There has certainly been evidence of 'rallying' presented @ickky ; but where the legal line is crossed into incitement or conspiracy I do not know. Perhaps if Allison can demonstrate that the two parties acted in concert to cause her a detriment, that will be enough?

I think that was in an email from SK - not sure we have MB's side of it...yet!

Yes, this is why MB's evidence is going to be so crucial. Ben Cooper QC needs to use it as a silver thread to tie everything else that we've heard together.

It's been a masterclass, how BC has built layer upon layer of testimony, carefully ordering it, stripping it right back, and reassembling it.

I think Allison must have been the topic of conversation when she started the LGA, I sent a tenner when it was first set up, and I’m a random hetro woman in the suburbs with a bit of use of AIBU. So if at the very beginning of LGA, I, (the woman on the omnibus) was aware, the people closer to the workplace would have been fully aware of the shit storm gathering round Allison.at that point.

‘I may be wrong, but didn't Michelle Brewer ask Shaan Knan to rally the troops and then they posted on the Stonewall Wall to get complaints sent to chambers?’

Yes.

I’m saying this because no one at GCC seems to remember anything

That’s what has been in the testimony anyway. I’m not sure there is written evidence so she might say they’re lying about her.

Going to put the kettle on and rally enough support biscuits to get me through this morning.

I never fully appreciated until now how much attention to detail Barristers need, my knowledge of them hitherto mainly coming from court dramas where the main qualification always seemed to be powerful rhetoric. The way BC is assembling a complicated jigsaw is impressive.

I really hope they sorted out the broken links for the bundle and statements, I want to read MB's statement.

To be fair this will be the whole legal team not just BC, I think the relative contributions differ between cases but I think it would be rare for the barrister to construct the whole argument by themselves

Gah, set my day up to actually access and observe, and child three is now at home vomiting, fucksake! (I mean, 'poor dear' obvs).

But they were busy. Travelling or abroad. Or it was a Friday, or an email sent at 01:38.

They were buying Christmas presents.

They'd been on Twitter for > 10 years and didn't know how to read replies.

They'd never heard of used Twitter.

Perm any [X] from [Y].

@Scorched nb. It's the LGBA. LGBA explicitly includes bisexuals.

How come Ben doesn't have a support human? Or does he but they're just not in the same room?

Are we 09:30 start?

Just pimbling about online before it starts, I was googling Mr Hochauser. He's a trustee of the National Aids Trust, who do much good work and fundraising.

The Trust doesn't seem to have formal direct links with Stonewall, but some indirect ones are evident eg joint statements. I like this one from 2017 calling for 'same-sex SRE to be made compulsory in schools':

www.nat.org.uk/press-release/call-same-sex-sre-be-statutory-all-english-schools

However by 2022 they were saying, The Government’s decision to exclude trans people from the ban on conversion therapy is completely unacceptable. Trans rights are human rights – progress without or at the expense of trans people is not progress. We stand together and will not be divided. As HIV charities and community groups we stand in solidarity with Stonewall ...

(I think this is a case of a marketing person jumping on a SW press release and tagging along with it, word for word. No idea if the Trustees saw it or signed off the Trust's 'solidarity' statement, but it's still on the website.)

Hmmm. I wonder if AH feels the solidarity with Stonewall quite as passionately today?

😅Just give them a bucket and some flat lemonade (bless my nan and her flat lemonade cure all) and tell they must stay in their bedroom until they feel better. 😁

Right! I have a whole day off work so I'm going to watch this from my laptop in bed. I have support biscuits, chocolate, and actual popcorn downstairs which I might break out depending on how the day goes.

The amount of shit Allison has had to deal with is staggering. I am in awe of her.

Yes, I do appreciate that - but BC is very good at remembering the detail from earlier and drawing on it later on. I think that requires a very good memory and ability to cope with lots of detail. I'm sure he is receiving prompts at times from the rest of his legal team, but he is also clearly on top of the detail.

Mind you all the GCC barristers can't seem to remember anything much so maybe it's just BC.

A PP yesterday said they didn't understand how the cotton ceiling workshop didn't fall under the definition of conversion therapy if they were trying to persuade lesbians out of their same sex attraction (which is the legal definition of lesbian IIRC). I hope this is something that will be brought up if it gets revisited today.

I'm beginning to think the woke version of being against conversion therapy is only applicable to men. Trying to convert women out of their sexual orientation is apparently OK according to CM.

Yes. 9.30 start. So make yourself a tea/coffee and we should be good to go.

How long does it take to get online access? Do we think there will be lots of requests today? I sent my request after they finished yesterday, not sure if I should send again this morning.

Just picking regurgitated rice crispies out of the landing carpet, FML. I've not been sent the pin yet anyway. Best laid plans of mice and women etc etc

Just placemarking.
Kettle is on and biscuits on standby.

I got mine within 10 minutes, but that was last week. It shouldn't take very long at all.