Sara Morrison vs Belfast Film Festival

[NorthernIrishFeminist]

Employers seem to be slow learners when it comes to women's rights! There’s another employment tribunal case being brought by a woman who attended and took the microphone at a Let Women Speak event in Belfast last year and has been treated very badly by her employer Belfast Film Festival as a result.

Looks like we’re going to have to keep gardening until they get the message.

disclaimer. I don’t know Sara and have no connection to BFF I’m just a woman who likes donating to causes that make a difference

Just to.point out, Parker Posey is an entirely different person to Posie Parker !

More apologies. I wrote this during the break but didn't post it.

I hope to start pasting again after the lunch break, but I may be called away again.

Many thanks to @BettyBooper for picking up the pasting.

Brief break to shovel down lunch so not going to go through everything yet, but just a note on this:

NC if she's done something like this - wouldn't you tell her to stop
MD she told me she wouldn't

My note of thus is that NC asked "wouldn't you speak to her and tell her not to do it again?"
MD she told me she wouldn't

Rather different meaning. No disrespect to NW - it's an incredibly difficult job. Witness is facing away from us and both she and the R's barrister can be mumbly. And they go at quite a pace. Pauses are mainly for barrister squabbling.

No probs. Hope all is well.

I'll pick up if you need.

Additional note. There have been quite a few exchanges of this type. Phasing: polite. Tone: irked.

Judge is keen to keep questioning focused and not waste public money by using the whole of the time allocated for that case if it can be avoided. She's not fond of the hypothetical.

Witness word of the day: busy. Answers vary between gun-jumping interruption of the question and long pauses.

Catching up, thank you all. Myrtle sending best wishes.

It's obviously hard to get much information from the back of someone head, but there are points when she has very defensively crossed arms. This was one of them, the others were non-emotional points but when she was being challenged or appeared unconvincing. Often long pauses appeared at the same time. At this particular point there was no change in her voice.

Definitely no sign of a live peaking.

Addition to NW's coverage of this point - one of the few bits I got near verbatim. First thing back from break.

NC: para 9 of your witness statement, you say: " I asked her to help me understand what it was all about." So you asked and she was doing what you asked.

Thanks! It's so interesting to hear from someone who is there watching live. You do only get a vague idea, even with wonderful NW and TT. Any updates appreciated!

Have the resident mnetters found each other?

From NW

Hello well come to Day 3 Session 2 of Morrison v BFF - we are approximately half way through the evidence of Michele Devlin BFF CEO.

From NW

This was MD leaving court yesterday with BFF co-founder Laurence McKeown.

From NW

tbf it was relatively good humoured - she told me I'd already got a phot from Day 1 and and I told her it wasn't very good, hence my second attempt. Anyway - court is sitting, MD should now have the unredacted sentence from the previously redacted legal "advice" which NC argues cannot attract privilege and which J and SD are sort of conceding.

NC Afternoon MD. So looking at the unredacted version it says: "This advice has a number of implications for us, these are basically around the balance of rights as employers and rights of employees" - this could hardly be more generic...

... can you tell us what he said
MD his advice was quite generic
NC did he say what you should do next
MD probably something around seeking legal advice
NC I won't ask you about the content of that advice - did you do that
MD I did

So when LMT says to MC "She was straight on to the Equality Commission and got good advice which
we are actioning." - what was that advice
MD get legal advice
NC so after that nothing much happens in the story till after 25 June
MD yes we continue with our business

From NW

NC it's odd isn't it that SM's speech was so terrible you had your head ini your hands, nothing happened
MD it's not odd at all - I have a duty of care to people and I had a huge event coming so I decided to park this till after the event

NC isn't a better answer to that puzzle... in LMT's email to LBD "Overall I think that we need to do a couple of things - firstly we need to review our
contracts of employment just to check that they are in keeping with our value
framework and also we need to review and update our employment policies - the world
of HR moves quickly especially on certain issues and we just need to make sure we are
creating a workplace that aligns with our stated aims around diversity and
inclusion. My view is that we should get these pieces of work carried out by individual/org with
competence in these quire technical area. I further think this should be tied in with a
piece on potential pay rises. I know this all seems a little bureaucratic"

NC and that's what happened isn't it
MD yes
NC and there's no implication in that email that there's any intention at all to investigate SM's conduct
MD no
NC what about your intention
MD my intention was that it had to be something to look into
NC and I am going to suggest...

From NW

the EC's advice was a bit disappointing in that they told you you couldn't really do much. But if you wanted to start controlling your employees speech, you need to tweak their contracts to tie them down more tightly
MD no
NC no?
MD no

From NW

MD our contracts of employment had not been updated since 2013 and they still haven't been done as our resources have all been drained dealing with this
NC in his email to MD on 25 June MC relates his conversation with SM in a bar in which she states her views on sex realism...

... and MC finishes the email "“I therefore feel that we need to accelerate the process bv which this is sorted,"
NC what process is this
MD investigating what happened
NC not the process to remove her from the BFF
MD no

All of Nick's posts from this morning's session:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1988549918919622871.html

From NW

MD to talk to her about it
NC if there's any doubt about MC's intention, MC says "We can’t have an inclusion/diversity officer who,
many weeks after making such an ill-advised speech, is still standing by her actions completely."

NC he wants to remove her from the BFF
MD no he's saying we need to take her off the Heart (?) project
NC at the end he widens it out though, doesn't he?
MD no - he's talking about taking her off that specific project.

"We can’t have an inclusion/diversity officer who,
many weeks after making such an ill-advised speech, is still standing by her actions completely."

This was totally about getting rid of her completely! 😳

From NW

NC After the end of the Docs Ireland festival you had a meeting with [possibly the co-chairs] - was it minuted?
MD don't know
NC was there a follow up email to confirm what was agreed
MD I don't recall
NC we don't have any record of it

NC meeting on 28 June. On 29 June you ask SM to send through the BFF's list of LGBTQ contacts, which she doesn't immediately respond to and you chase and you she sends you the list
MD yes she did
NC I have a few questions of the Pride on Big Screen event - you say you were...

... planning this since Feb 2023.
MD yes
NC yet there is no doc trace of this in the bundle of any planning of this event prior to 3 July
MD there are minutes from support and supervision meetings and in SM's end of year appraisal

From NW

MD and we had a lot of convos in the team about the use of this new large LED screen we had acquired and were keen to showcase and to use to encourage people to hire it - effectively a mobile outdoor cinema unit which cost in excess of £100k

... and an explicit use of that was agreed for the Belfast Stories site and for a project with IntoFilm which SM and I had had a number of meetings about.
NC but I was specifically asking you if there was any documentary trace before 3 July 2023 about Pride on the Big Screen...

Missing docs alert!!

They 'acquired' a 100k Big Screen TV? 🤨

I feel a trap coming... 😬

From NW

... where would we find it?
MD a number of documents - before the pandemic we had screenings at Pride and in 2022 we re-initiated it and SM was part of the delivery of that and this was going to be the second of those.

NC so you say somewhere in the possession of R there will be docs which specifically mention the use of the big screen in Pride on the Big Screen.
MD yes
NC you say in par 18 of your WS a screening had been discussed for Belfast Pride - that sounds like maybe one day...

... you'd do this
MD "no we had a specific plan to do something at Pride and this was going to be the second year of it"
NC what happened at Pride 2022
MD screenings at a [local] cinema
NC and when did that happen
MD around Pride
NC and the 2022 Pride brochure is still online?

From NW

... MD I don't think we did it in time to make the brochure
NC yet you were planing the 2023 Pride event from Feb?
MD [answers]
NC in 2022 the Belfast Rainbow project asked to hire a room
MD no that's not it

NC so what happened in 2022
MD I'll have to go and check this
NC you're making this up, aren't you
MD [laughs] No! I actually find that quite rude

From NW

NC so you met with Pedro Donald the sponsor of Pride on the Big Screen and he was worried he might get boycotted because of SM's association with an anti-trans event - so he's saying on 5 May he'll be worried his bar will be boycotted
MD yes
NC you didn't do anything about those

... concerns
MD she told me she'd not do it again
NC was that enough then
MD I hadn't had a chance yet to sort it out
NC but you did report it back to the co-chairs

NC we've seen this already - you sent "I was at a meeting today and Pedro Donald the owner of the Sunflower said to me ‘what is
going on with Sara Morrison' - that a number of people had said to him, "what is the BFF Inclusion
Officer doing speaking at a rally with this far right-wing crowd.” He added that the reputation of BFF
as a progressive LGBTQ supportive organisation was at risk."