Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Tribunal hearing Thread 16

[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

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

Thread 15 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4556803-allison-bailey-v-stonewall-employment-tribunal-hearing-thread-15

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

Closing arguments for AB, GCC, and SW (20 June)

A lot of legal profession have WhatsApp groups and whilst they can't watch directly (due to their workload), they've been following the case with dropped jaws.

I wonder if there are WhatsApp groups full of lawyers like the ones we've seen produced as GCC witnesses who believe they've put up a jaw-droppingly good case.

I have been amazed at how many say they are GC (and how often I got it wrong and people I assumed would be TRA turned out to be the absolute opposite)

This is preference falsification in action. Emma Hilton says that the number of athletes who speak to her individually and say that they can't risk speaking up would more than fill the huge hall that we had for WPUK's A Woman's Place in on the Podium. They just don't risk talking to each other so they don't know.

And, Havel captures it perfectly in his greengrocer's sign essay, Power of the Powerless.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?

-----
Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

You're not missing much. Sadly, I'm excluded from India's nuggets of wisdom due to the fact he's blocked me.

I think she has basically read the GRA in terms of Stonewall and takes the wording which is something like 'has transitioned, or intends to, or says they will' equals an immediate legal sex change. She mentioned sex change when describing it. So a man says words and immediately needs to be taken as if he has changed sex.

But she is unable to see how this will affect women, or if it does affect women, doesn't care.

So she was furious about the Morgan Page tweet, but not furious that lesbians are being co-erced into sex with men, because once a man says he is a woman he must be considered a woman in all circumstances. So there is no co-ercion because lesbians are attracted to women.

Completely unable to understand that the GRA is just a legal fiction.

@Emotionalsupportviper thank you! I'll be having a wee look for the Borders biscuits today

Awkward, you are clearly not a Big Brother fan:

Is one of several clips that come up if you google Willoughby and Big Brother. Ann Widdicombe's face is a picture.

Completely unable to understand that the GRA is just a legal fiction.

And little can demonstrate that legal fiction more fully than the case of Matilda Simon.

Matilda Simon was this week given permission to contest the next by-election for one of the upper chamber’s remaining 92 hereditary seats.

If she wins, she will doubtless become the envy of peers’ daughters across the country, because the vast majority of titles may only be passed to a male heir.

However, because of a legal loophole, the candidate, born Matthew Simon in 1955, has inherited and retains the Barony of Wythenshawe, despite being in all other legal respects a woman...

"...Lady Simon winning a future by-election - which will take place upon the death or retirement of a hereditary member - would be likely to reignite the debate over the persistence of primogeniture among the aristocracy.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4553555-first-trans-peer-a-step-closer-as-hereditary-candidate-claims-seat

I am also interested to know this.

The narrowness of the information sources, and the lack of curiosity amongst supposedly intelligent and educated people is astonishing

This shouted out to me, and has done throughout the tribunal. I’m just an ordinary woman, educated to degree level but not someone who's attained the rarefied heights of a QC or a judge. We've kept hearing that, for example, they don’t read The Times. Well, I don’t have a subscription either, and I don’t - wouldn’t - read Pink News regularly as a matter of principle, but I follow what they say when it’s important, by using share tokens or free articles, or just generally familiarising myself so I can be up to speed. I read other newspapers and journals too, because….well, I just like to know what’s happening in the world.

I read a lot of tweets - I very rarely tweet myself, but I’m quietly browsing on there all the time. Yes, I’m GC, but I listen to the other viewpoints and see what others say and what they believe. I know enough about the arguments and the issues, on both sides, to know where I stand and where I believe, having weighed up the facts, that it’s right to stand.

Do I now feel confident, after the last few weeks, that the very privileged and hitherto-respected people we’ve been listening to can say the same? When they ‘can’t recall', ‘don’t know', 'aren't sure', ‘weren't aware', 'hadn't read', 'hadn't been told'……and so, endlessly, on?
No, I do not.

Thank you & well done Allison. I raised a glass to you last night.

I followed on TT and here. Well done TT, excellent work. Thanks to everyone on these threads. The thread maker, whoever posts the bio's & explains the witness's involvement and everyone. I have laughed out loud many times.

I hope the mumsnetter who was so enthralled her toddler handed her a surprise poo will feature in the film.

Your wish is my command.

They were very nice, although some chunks of orange could be a bit hard.

I want to know if the surprise poo was in a potty or... er... direct into her hand.

One was a man, and I wish I’d made a note, but she said he had something like 30 years' call. The other was a woman with something like 20+ years.

Yes it was in a potty! I can't remember which thread it was on.

I was at an event which took place partway through the evidence. A senior lawyer following the hearing (to be clear, not one with any part, involvement or mention in the case) told me they thought AB was making a good case against GCC, less sure about SW. They thought SH would be one of the most crucial witnesses. I think that was prescient. I doubt they have changed their view.

I watched the proceedings most days. I saw numerous legal names not connected with the proceedings in the observers' list. And I expect there were plenty more watching anonymously.

Yes, this is being talked about in legal circles.

The problem with Twitter is as soon as you post anything GC your blocked. I have never interacted with Nancy Kelly. LOJ, RW, IW, Stonewall - the list is endless, but I'm blocked by all of them. So I don't see hope people say we won't listen to the other side - when they will not engage.

I was at an event which took place partway through the evidence.
…
Yes, this is being talked about in legal circles.

I wonder how many senior people quietly applauded EJG's equanimity in the face of the surprise requests for support animals/people, the frayed tempers around 4pm, and everyone's general lack of IT competence and their lack of care for how poor their audio stream was.

One thing that's been interesting is how this organisation basically 'captured' itself from the inside. There were a few true believers, others who were enthusiastic bit didn't actually understand the underpinning beliefs, a large number who were naturally inclined to support the oppressed minority and didn't look at policy positions beyond that, more who didn't know anything about it at all, and a small number who disagreed but mostly couldn't say anything once the trans rights positions had become the dominant position. It is an interesting case study of organisational culture and a shift in the dominant beliefs/values. Most people imagine thet are agreeing to a Liberal 'live and let live' stance, but are wrong about that. The underlying position has become more authoritarian.

Only a few months or a year after stonewall added the T, this chambers were organising trans / gender identity events. They were 'captured' at about the same time as stonewall was. I'm putting it in quotes cis I dint really like the term, but it is a short hand for something that has taken place in many institutions.

On twitter the TRA's who talk more sensible about maya and Allison's cases often view it in terms if an organisation having certain values, and the right to discipline employees who stray from those values or cause reputational damage by going off message by being (in their view) transphobic. But in fact the chambers hasn't argued that at all. Instead it"s denied that the genderist position was a corporate position or value, and denied that they thought Allison was transphobic. Its a really odd rewriting of history. I hope the panel see through it.

I was thinking about this case last night. In Mayas tribunal one of the witnesses said they had been trying to limit reputational
Damage and BC said something along the lines of - it would be unkind of me to ask how that worked out. The implication being that the tribunal was wrecking their reputation far more than being associated with Maya.

So, if GCC saw that - why did they go ahead? Surely they must know other law chambers are laughing at them now? Not to mention the damage done by exposing their madness to the world?

@Needmoresleep I know little of IW, never heard India's voice or seen India walking...just...well!

Thank you for the extra information on the biscuits @ifIwerenotanandroid, I'd been desperate to know. But I will might give the Border ones a go too.

So relieved (irony?) @Manderleyagain to learn the poo was in a potty. I had visions of a Munsnetter distractedly taking something their toddler gave them. Oh, the horror!

Astonishing that such allegedly intelligent, experienced, etc. Professionals were unable to keep a better handle on their emotions.

Thank you so much to everyone for these threads, and ickky for being so organised.

I hope the judgement is very detailed and summarises what the witnesses said. I am looking forward to the section on the Cotton Ceiling.

I realise there is summing up before then.

Me an' all - we must be doing something right.😁

IADNAL

I followed mainly via these threads, with an occasional excursion over to Twitter.

So my interpretation/conclusions may be different than if I'd been online listening/watching. However, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that so many of the GCC people being cross-examined were:

• lying (no banter/gossip, except for football) OR
• lazy (didn't bother to think critically or in any depth about the issue) OR
• inconsiderate of one of their colleagues (rather believe others than Allison) OR
• actively hostile to one of their colleagues (notes/reporting her) OR
• incompetent/inefficient (too busy/travelling/on holiday) OR
• dim-witted (can't remember/not sure/can't say) OR
• prejudiced themselves (analogy with apartheid/racism)

... or any combination of these.

And yet - these are highly intelligent, very well-educated people. As demonstrated by the skill shown by Ben Cooper.

I just don't understand it.

DH fielded one like that many years ago when he selflessly threw himself between to product of our 2-year-old's bottom and a new carpet!

😂

So, if GCC saw that - why did they go ahead?

I can understand why they wanted to fight the allegation that the clerks had denied her work. It is basically saying that the clerks and senior lawyers have acted very dishonestly, and if they really dont think they have it would seem like the right thing to do.