Prof Jo Phoenix vs The OU - Employment Tribunal Thread 4

[ickky]

Started on 2nd October at Watford Employment Tribunal (Radius House, 51 Clarendon Rd, Watford WD17 1HP 01923 281750)

You may attend in person or remote viewing has been quite limited but you can request log in details from

Email [email protected]

Header should read

URGENT CURRENT CASE - Public Access Request - J Phoenix - The Open University - 3322700/2021

Ask for access link and pin and please give your name and address in the email as they check when you connect to the tribunal.

The clerk will ask you (in a private remote room) to put your camera on to verify, this involves looking at you, but no ID is needed. You may turn off your camera after this pointless and unnecessary process.

Abbreviations

JP - Jo Phoenix, Claimant (C)
OU - The Open University, Respondent (R)
J - Regional Employment Judge Young
P - Panel or panel member
BC - Ben Cooper KC, Counsel for C
JM - Jane Mulcahy KC, Counsel for R

OU Departments & Networks:

HWSRA - Health & Wellbeing Strategic Research Area
FASS - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
SPC - Dept of Social Policy & Criminology
KMi - Knowledge Media Institute
GCRN - Gender Critical Research Network

OU witnesses

PB - Dr Paraskevi Boukli, Former Senior Lecturer Criminology, Deputy Head SPC 2021-22
IF - Prof Ian Fribbance Dean of FASS
MW - Prof Marcia Wilson, Dean EDI, 2020-23
CM - Caragh Molloy, Group People Director 2019-23
LD - Dr Leigh Downes, Senior Lecturer in Criminology (in SPC), Academic Lead for EDI FASS 2019-21
DD - Dr Deborah Drake, Senior Lecturer Criminology, Head of SPC 2018-21
CT - Catherine Tomlinson, Senior Student Advisor
LW - Louise Westmarland, Prof of Criminology, Co-Deputy Head SPC, 2018-21, Current Head SPC
JD - John Domingue, Prof of Computing Science, Director KMi, 2015-22
PK - Peter Keogh, Professor Health & Society, Member RSSH
CW - Dr Christopher Williams, Senior Lecturer History
SD - Shaun Daley, Head OU’s Resourcing Hub. Head Strategic Resources, Co-Chair OU’s LGBT+ Staff Network
HBC - Helen Bowes-Catton, Lecturer Social Research Methods
NS - Nicola Snarey, Assoc Lecturer Eng Language
NatS - Natalie Starkey, Outreach & Public Engagement Officer Sch Physical Sciences, 2019-22
CT - Cath Tomlinson, Senior Student Advisor
SJ - Samantha Jacobson, Employee Relations Case Manager
RH - Richard Holliman, Prof Engaged Research, Head School Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences, 2019-22. Member of Investigation Panel investigating the C’s grievance

Witness for JP:

SE - Sarah Earle, Professor Modern History Uni of Oxford, Founding member GCRN

Tribunal Tweets - https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets

TT coverage so far https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4905118-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-2nd-october-whispers-ben-cooper?page=1

Thread 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4913946-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-2?page=1

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4917480-prof-jo-phoenix-vs-the-ou-employment-tribunal-thread-3

😂

It may be some time before I can look at a bowl of custard without collapsing in giggles.

Identifies as non-Newtonian fluid 😄

Love it! Another, much older one, from the same Twitter Account😂
https://twitter.com/mar2vickers/status/1452650355557273606

for the heroic reporters, from a grateful lurker.

I know the Leigh Downes personality type. Next time LD is at her OU office, she will be wailing and crying about feeling “unsafe” at the tribunal. She will be flapping and screeching to her line manager and will threaten to put in her own grievance (I bet she’s lodged heaps of grievances before) she will claim OU threw her to the wolves and they are transphobic, whatever that means in her brain. She will demand endless days off for psychological damage. OU will have to pull the plug on her but I bet she won’t go quietly. They deserve her screeching into the void though- should never have kowtowed to this insane bully in the first place.

Also a lurker de-lurkung with thanks for the updates and commentary. Have been catching up on the day's progress and am equally agog at the revelations. I mean, how do these people function in everyday life? It strikes me that although these witnesses are giving a poor account of themselves today (not reading the grievance, ffs!), they don't exist in a vacuum; so why hasn't the wider university organisation picked up on them acting in the manner they have and pulled them up on it? Is the whole of the OU hierarchy equally as captured and lacking in critical thought?

There may be batshit ahead,
But while there’s custard, and Cooper, and witnesses with no nous
Let’s face the tribunal and shout “House!”

Thank you all so much for running these threads.

There must have been a few choice words said last night by JM to the law firm representing OU. They were presumably one of the ones also involved advising OU about JP and possibly the other 3 grievances JM and BC hadn't heard about.

Ben has another 10(?) witnesses to get through, hasn't he?

It’ll be interesting today to hear the conclusion of the other grievances.
Judge said once she hears about them, she may still put in the order for them to be disclosed

Loving the humour from this whole thing and the songs, I've finally caught up to date. Hoping for more brilliantly stupid witnesses to come. Out of 10 more, I reckon 8 will be batshit, 1 will fall very very I'll and one might be normal.
I'm sad I'm always catching up, but not sure I could take listening to it (not that I have a choice, work dont understand my need for two weeks off, the bastards.
Right see you all about 3pm

Good lord. Has the poor man the strength for all that custard?

The valid=exist thing is lacking the key factor you have to remember in all of this: every phrase and mantra used always means in the head of the speaker 'I win and you lose'. Your trying to make it make sense would mean that sometimes others would have an equal balance in the debate and outcome.

If you read around some social dysfunction common behaviours and perspectives, this one is found under the 'it doesn't matter that I said this and then I said that, and that makes no sense and the two things are contradictory, because regardless of the content the feelings that drove me at the time were my truth, and both conflicting statements were serving my actual goal which was to get you to do x as I wanted. So they are coherent'.

The relationships board are good on this kind of thing, but the only possible means of engagement is very strong boundaries. You can't be reasonable with someone who doesn't have that capacity.

How someone with this level of dysfunction has multiple academic qualifications and got into a position of responsibility? I suppose social and emotional intelligence, and social functioning, is a different kind of intelligence to that needed to gain an academic qualification.

Bugger I have a sick child off school. That'll teach me for having taken so much time off to listen to court cases......not sure I'll be able to listen in today as small ill child has my non work laptop for TV in bed and I also need to somehow do actual work as am behind. Am hoping I can somehow set up a phone link with headphones so can listen in whilst simultaneously tending to sick child and doing some admin.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Otherwise will be relying on you all.

sorry for the sick child, hope they bounce back soon.

others have dialled in on their phones, but it seems to be trickier to check that you’ve turned off your camera as we’ve had some good prolonged views up people’s noses. I suppose it depends on which phone you have.

This is genius! Thank you

Can sick child go on the sofa to watch tv with headphones?

Musing on LD's evidence from yesterday: during one of these cases, I really want Ben (or Anya, or whoever) to walk a TRA witness of LD-belief proportions through exactly what they mean by "harm" at the hands of those who live in the real world.

Have they been subjected to physical violence for speaking about being trans? No

Are they being threatened with physical violence for speaking about being trans? No

Have they been followed down the street by a jeering, chanting mob for speaking about being trans? No

Have they been locked up in a prison with a convicted rapist of the opposite - and I'm sorry to have to use this triggering word - sex? No

Have they been raped on a supposedly trans-only hospital ward and then gaslit by the nurses that there are no non-trans people of the - again, sorry - opposite sex there? No

Have they been refused trauma counselling following rape or other sexual abuse because they wanted a trans-only space? No

Have they lost their job for speaking about being trans? No

Have they had their publications, presentations and films de-platformed for being trans? No

I mean, we're pretty much left with "feeling aggrieved and upset that this person is proof I haven't yet been able to force the entire world to bend the knee to my religion", aren't we?

I’m a semi-lurker (I surface occasionally then submerge myself again) so will just reappear briefly to say thank you to @ickky and everyone for your brilliance and intelligence.

Special thanks to @BenCoopersSupportWren for the utter genius that is the Lehrer-alike-ium 😊

Given how much LD struggled to clearly answer some pretty basic questions yesterday without launching into speeches, I’d say this will never happen as a KC simply doesn’t doesn’t have the time to waste with the witnesses he or she has to get through. It seems timetabling is always an issue. It would be an entertaining watch though.

@HellonHeels good suggestion. I usually have a "if you're sick enough to be off school you need to be in bed for most of the day" policy but I might just bend the rules for this......I can set up a bed (sort of) on the sofa.

we're pretty much left with "feeling aggrieved and upset that this person is proof I haven't yet been able to force the entire world to bend the knee to my religion"

that is precisely the issue for the Leigh Downes of this world

it’s not confined to gender identity believers

one of the most striking examples I’ve seen on here are the far left wingers who identify as ‘gender critical’ (whatever that means these days) and are drawn like moths to a flame for any discussion of KJK.

she has lived her life in a way they disapprove of or don’t understand and they JUST. CANNOT. DEAL . WITH. IT

So, so sadly true. Given the choice of destroying gender ideology or destroying KJK, they would destroy KJK then write endless substacks on it and accuse anyone challenging them of being irredeemable right wingers.

Is it 10 pm start today? I really want to get a slot as yesterday I was logged in five minutes before the flippin' end.

marking place

Yes 10am (ish)