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

Re the paperwork that today's witness will be looking for tonight...

My head is a little foggy today (migraine)

If the paperwork doesn't turn up tomorrow does that mean today's witness lied on the stand? (She came across in NWs tweets like she was lying)

If the paperwork does turn up tomorrow does that mean they didn't disclose all the info they were supposed to disclose?

So, is this a case of this witness being fucked either way?

I think that's likely .

That's actually very helpful; I don't feel quite so stupid now. Even if I'm no clearer about the event in question, I feel better about myself.

I am missing the point entirely (and apologies if covered earlier), but I am just wondering what a £100k screen might look like and why BFF wouldn’t just buy a fancy projector, a white screen and some sort of rig to put the projector on?

The “most marginalised and oppressed” do seem to be busy bees when it comes to doing the oppressing, don’t they!

It’s only half the day but yes it’s accurate of some of the evidence.

Michelle Devlin is angry, defensive, challenging and not presenting herself in a good light.

Toward the end of today’s evidence it looked like her barrister was about to start cut your throat action to her to stop speaking. She was in a hole and kept digging.

She’s in very dangerous territory.

Naomi doesn’t ask a single question she doesn’t already know the answer to and Michelle might her find her Moose is well and truly cooked.

What Naomi has been weaving her way towards is as follows (in my humble opinion)

• MD is aware of the LWS speech on 18 April - takes no action
• MD has a board meeting on 4 May - doesn’t brief the board or put the matter on the agenda
• A board member turns up late to 4 May board meeting and says did you hear about Sara’s speech. Her trans friends are horrified so we must act.
• MD is ‘frustrated’ it was brought to the board under AOB. Still takes no action.
• End of June (25th?) Mark Cousins gets the pitchfork out and says something must be done.
• Secret squirrel phone call with incoming Chair Lisa Bars D’sa (sp). No notes or record.
• Around this time there is a email to say the need to rewrite contracts and policies (so inference is they don’t have anything with which to sack Sara)
• Very next day MD urgently needs the LGBTQIA+ email list. Chases it. Wants Sara to send an email to them all. She doesn’t want to send it. So MD sends it with Sara and owner of a local LGBT bar in the To: field. She includes the world and its uncle in the cc field.

My take - they knew Sara has gone to police over harassment. So they knew their list of folk would go at her again. They had phoned the Equality Commission and they said it’s a balance of rights. They get legal advice so have a plan to re-do employment contracts and update policies. But at the urging of the board and under pressure - MD wants to set the hounds on Sara - and set her up in the To: field for the hounds to chase in a pack.

Naomi is saying this event was just made up to provoke a confrontation to get Sara out. Your two employees hadn’t heard of the event. MD says there was loads of stuff planned. Naomi says prove it.

Cue MD in a hurried rage trying to reverse engineer her lie by finding some documents tonight.

I’m humming liar liar pants on fire to myself.

The barrister for BFF (Sean Doherty) is possibly the defence barrister mentioned in this story.

https://reduxx.info/trans-activist-who-secured-pre-trial-transfer-to-womens-jail-is-convicted-after-threatening-neighbor-with-a-knife-for-misgendering-him/

I think it's a freestanding LED screen. So unlike screen-plus-projector it only needs to be put in 1 place, rather than 2 with line of sight between them; it's sturdier and more weatherproof; and it's possible it might be able to show films while on the move. Also much brighter than a projector, so better for daytime showings.

Ooh! You're good!

JFC…look at the size of those hands!!!!

The idea that the neighbour was only aware that this unit was male after the TiM confided in him is utterly farcical unless of course the neighbour was blind and several other senses were also not present.

Michelle might her find her Moose is well and truly cooked.

I'm not sure whether this is autocorrect, regional variation, or indication of a predicament significantly larger than a goose. But I fully intend to steal the phrase - it's marvellous.

Was there something earlier about a joke the witness made about Moose hunting when they were on the Sara Palin email

Ah, possibly. There was a part of that exchange I didn't hear.

Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 places a legal duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity across nine specific "marginalised communities" or equality categories

Section 75 requires public authorities to have due regard for the need to promote equality of opportunity between:

• persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation
• men and women generally
• persons with a disability and persons without
• persons with dependants and persons without

The promotion of equality of opportunity entails more than the elimination of discrimination. It requires proactive action to promote equality of opportunity and encourages public authorities to take action to address inequality among the groups listed above.

Public authorities must also have regard for the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group. The Commission emphasises that the good relations duty embraces and extends beyond the religious / political dimension of ‘community relations’. Consideration of the needs and interests of all minority ethnic groups is also important in this context. Public authorities must recognise the inter-dependence of equality and good relations.

So this was a nasty piece of business from MD.

She was sharing WhatsApp with her Chair saying ‘Spoke to Barristers today. Sarah Palin v BFF.”

She was denigrating Sara but in her evidence tried to make it sound like a ‘wee joke’. It sounded disingenuous in the room.

NC said so you’re saying the only thing they have in common is they’re large, ebbulient characters?

MD said - well they also go Moose 🫎 Hunting and laughed. Everyone was silent. She said that was a joke but the whole room was flat. It was very off.

It was so inappropriate and so out of context. She was clearly suggesting Sara was right wing. She thought she was on the left. In fact she sits firmly with the Gestapo thought police. If you don’t say 2+2=5 and stand by your trans then you’re up for slaughter.

This was interesting. She says we’re only about film - but she steered clear of the movie screening of Adult Human Female - knew there was a boycott of the Errigle pub which screened it and didn’t give a rats ass.

I am only about outreach to marginalized groups if it’s only about film.

Except when it’s films 🎥 screens by women wanting to say true things - then we let our Trans mates boycott film.

Yes we don’t like bad lady films.

Only trans friendly movies for us.

MD really got annoyed here

Her cognitive dissonance nearly got the better of her here.

If she’s pro trans all the way to the hate rallies - then she dare not say I don’t want my 7 year old to look at men’s penises in the ladies changing rooms. But she clearly felt the fear factor at the thought.

For context MD is a lesbian. Not sure how often this subject is made real for her.

This one did my head in.

You are a registered company taking government money to show your VERY EXPENSIVE SHINY SCREEN and you are SO XTRA MEGA VERY ULTRA BUSY- except your volunteers are in fact LEGAL DIRECTORS who have these pesky things called duties under Companies Act 2006.

This was so silly. The document was redacted, it shouldn’t have been. There was no privilege.

Calls into question all the redactions offered by BFF.

Well the evidence showed you were making it up MD.

Liar liar pants on fire 🔥.

https://belfastpride.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BP2022.pdf

Sara rented out a room to a third party organisation who held a screening. She arranged it and remembered they’d been late to pay their fee.

There was no Pride 2022 for BFF. Actual outright evidenced lie.

She definitely an evidenced liar.

It’s actually great to read it back having been in the room. It brings clarity.

So she’s saying LGBTQIA+ is A BIG THING. Except they didn’t do a thing in 2022. She lied about that. That’s in evidence.

And in 2023 when trans groups were abusing her employee for saying beliefs that are WORIADS, after months of ignoring the issue, and at the urgency of the board to DO SOMETHING, suddenly MD says get me the LGBTQIA list urgently I want to talk to all the people who harassed you. Oh and I’ll put your name in the To: section.

NC knows she has nothing.

There was no Pride 2022 for BFF. Actual outright evidenced lie.

And she couldn't keep her dates or story straight at all on that bit. We'd discussed it during the pandemic. We started in 2022. We were picking it up again after the pandemic. It wasn't the room hire, it was a different event. It was the room hire but we didn't just rent out the room. It was in the programme. We use our own channels instead of the programme.

Not just busy - "incredibly busy" 😂