Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 15

[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 Hochhause

r QC, senior counsel - barrister for GC (teehee)
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

Thread 12 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4555687-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-12

Thread 13 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556235-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-13

Thread 14 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556407-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-14

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)
David Renton - barrister at GCC (20 May, 25 May)
Marc Willers - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Stephen Clark - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Liz Davies - Barrister at GCC (23 May)
Cathryn McGahey - Bar Council Ethics Committee's VC (24 May)
Tom Wainwright - Barrister at GCC (24 May)
Colin Cook - Head clerk at GCC (24 May)
David de Menezes - GCC, Head of Marketing (25 May)
Kathryn Cronin - barrister at GCC (25 May)
Michelle Brewer - barrister at GCC at time, now left and a judge (26 May)
Stephanie Harrison - joint head of chambers (26 May)

To come:

The reason she was so officious is that she was concerned about what GI and Stonewall thought about AB, and what it meant for her pet legal project. Clearly.

Gosh, it’s funny that MB, who wasn’t in management and wasn’t a HofC and wasn’t in London and wasn’t on Twitter and didn’t remember anything and didn’t tell anyone in GI to do anything and didn’t build a case against AB somehow just….. kept…..somehow……..popping up at every single juncture.

Isn’t it?

Either EJG is dying for a wee or she's reached the limit of her poker face at the waffle so needs a break.

Yes what the hell was she doing discussing internal processes with outside organisations?

Exactly, slippery as hell.

Exactly Zeugma.

Did she just throw David Renton under the bus?

I think MB's beliefs are a double-edged sword really. It seems to have been her genuine belief that AB's conduct was unacceptable, and she has to say that because getting the ET to believe that (and to separate AB's actions from her core beliefs in such a way as to characterise her actions as unacceptable or a reasonable source of concern) is important to their defence. OTOH, the ET can read into the strength of her beliefs that it made her far more likely to seek out detriment to AB. If they come down on the side of freedom of expression, GCC will probably lose. If they come down on the side of separating core views from actions in defence of those views, and conclude that AB stepped over a line so that MB's concerns were reasonable, they will probably win.

Spot on @Zeugma

The bundle says that MB prompted Shaan Knan (of Stonewall) to invite those present in a meeting at GCC to write to GCC Heads of Chambers to complain about AB (the meeting was LGBT Consortium’s Trans-Organisational Network Roundtable about the Office of National Statistics census; those present included Stonewall’s Head of Policy, Josh Bradlow, and members of the Stonewall Trans Advisory Group).
So that IS MB suggesting to ppl to make complaints....

I think my ears are bleeding

😂

This seems painful. I honestly at this point don't care what MB thinks about various different things and whether they are offensive. I want to know about what she did and whether it amounts to direct or indirect discrimination against Allison for her GC views.

"I thought I was doing the right thing (for my vulnerable, traumatised clients or otherwise)" is not actually a justification for discriminatory behaviour towards junior colleagues.

He/she/I am not decision makers is one of her go-to deflects. [as though decision/results are only effected by people on some corporate decision-making structure diagram. Barrister's chambers are a specific, and perhaps unusual, business model.]

Also MB: If I had wanted to do x, MR Cooper, I would have done it. My email doesn't show me doing this. [as if there is only one obvious way of getting something done]

MB: I'm not on Twitter - in case BC might have forgotten this in the fog of MB stuff [that I am losing the will to live typing out]

DidntKnowItWasAParty

In her witness statement she denies that.

yeah she seems to have conceeded a lot of the points BC wanted to get her to make, so far as I can tell, because in her heart of hearts she still believes the "all decent and good people believe this already" line that got us so far into this quagmire.

wow

Ah thanks @tabbycatstripy

Poor little Shaan Knan goes right under the bus.

I don't understand how they can think this is a good legal strategy? Or is it that they would rather lose the case than be heretics.

The way it works is broadly that AB makes her claim, GCC and SW make their responses, there's disclosure of evidence, such as emails, and then to support the respective cases and deal with tricky things coming up in disclosure, witness statements are submitted by each side.

The allegations relating to MB and the disclosure looked damaging to GCC's case and so she provided a witness statement, it would have been risky not to have done that. Because it's a key witness statement then she had to make herself available for cross-examination. Had she not her witness statement would have carried far less weight.

To answer a question that comes up from time to time, this is why Alex Sharpe is nowhere in these proceedings. Sharpe seems not to have exerted any influence over the significant things that went on and wouldn't have anything relevant to say.

MB's face when she said AB's tweets. 😮

lots of emphasis on he said Allison first to do with tweets

Indeed. It sounds as if someone's told her to calm down and stop making her woeful position ever worse.

MB outright denies suggesting SK encourage others to make complaints against AB.

Woooo, caught up now :) Thanks everyone.