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

From NW

NC the whole subject of her speech at that event - was that women need to be able to talk about these things - 'we're being silenced, we're being shouted down and we must be allowed to speak'
MC yes

NC but you're saying that if one group of angry people is going to react to another group of people - they need to learn to shut up
MC not at all

NC your par 12 is a bully's charter isn't it
MC I was bullied at school and I work with a lot of anti-bullying charities and I find that question objectionable
NC could you answer it - is it s bully's charter?
MC absolutely not

[we have split for lunch. we are going to reconvene at 1.45pm to hear the remainder of Michele Devlin's evidence]

[break]

From NW

I'll start that on a new tweet thread. So that's the end of this one.

Morning session here (now complete).

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1988922104742334832.html

I thought it was helpful, thank you xx

Surely they would not be that stupid?

hmmmm let me think....

They think they're the cleverest of the most virtuous.

So yeah, I reckon they would be that stupid.

Just because one has been bullied and works with charities on that topic does not mean that you cannot blind yourself to your own bullying. MC is making the claim that all would be well if she kow-towed to his ideology. I don’t think there can be a more straightforward approach to bullying than that. Just because he didn’t directly, to her face, threaten dismissal does not make the case of constructive dismissal any less compelling. I think MC’s witness statement and testimony have rather shores up the claim of constructive dismissal.

Self righteous bullying, it's quite nauseating.
Ooo, it's this again:

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” Aldhous Huxley

How about -

It ain't what you said it's the way I perceive it

@MarieDeGournayOoh heck! 😧 Please don’t let me hear NC say the words

‘Please turn to page 21 of the bundle’.

Brief lunchbreak update.

Considerably busier today - legal team on both sides has expanded and the room is full, with more in the overflow.

If you saw MC in the street you'd pin him as 'something in the arts' without hesitation. He's in a black suit (slightly too short) but projects a slightly Gaimanish air of studied dishevellement. He has a self righteous jut to the chin and doesn't use 1 word where 15 will do. He interrupts both NC and the judge, goes off on mini lectures, and has a tendency to hmm hmm while being asked questions. He identifies as A Reasonable Man.

He mentions his liking for Sara several times, but can't decide on a tense. He also drops in regular mentions of his film on Mussolini.

When challenged, his body language tightens - but instead of wrapping himself in tightly crossed arms like MD he looks jerkily around the table, away from NC but as if in search of someone else to challenge.

Bananarama count = 3.

Additional note on this. He couldn't remember which orgs, despite checking at the time, because he'd made the statement 'some time ago'. NC clarified that it was dated 3 November (this year).

Actual wording here was "any orgs prepared to have argumen... discussions with in a non aggressive way"

In moments of self-reflection it may be worth remembering this, in the context of some of the more personal criticisms levelled at witnesses we don’t approve of.

You really could. NW isn't able to capture the half of it - he spun so fast on several points that I got dizzy.

Slight wording clarification. After an extended argument on terminology, which ended in NC's usual agreement that each would use their own, he parroted back her 'Men who identify as women are counted as women' as 'Transwomen arecounted as transwomen'.

Then took several sentences to get himself back on track with 'a type of woman'.

Beautiful!

Many thanks to @NoBinturongsHereMate and @YouCantProveIt for the summaries. Really helpful and informative.

Much appreciated!

In the 90s in Northern England at university moose was slang for a perceived unattractive woman. Usually in respect to one someone had "pulled". Complete with hand signal of putting hand sideways on top of head and saying moooosssseee. Delightful. Haven't thought about that in years. No idea if was common parlance in norn iron then or now.

From NW

Hello and welcome to Day 4 Session 2 of Morrison v BFF. Judge and Panel are here. Here are this morning's tweets.

PLEASE BE AWARE EVERYTHING I WRITE IS A SUMMARY AND CHARACTERISATION OF WHAT IS SAID IN COURT. NOTHING IS A DIRECT QUOTE UNLESS IT IS IN "DIRECT QUOTES"

I don't link to his previous thread on X as I've already linked to the threadreader summary.

From NW

MD - Michele Devlin BFF CEO is giving evidence
Naomi Cunningham (NC) there was a meeting between you, Lisa Barros D'sa and Marie-Therese McGivern but you can't remember anything about it
MD no

[we move on to the documents which MD said she would dig up proving that Pride on the Big Screen (PBS) had been in the planning since Feb 2023]
NC you have provided 145 pages of disclosure this morning
MD yes
NC 37 pages of that are the instruction manual for erecting your Big...

From NW

[we move on to the documents which MD said she would dig up proving that Pride on the Big Screen (PBS) had been in the planning since Feb 2023]
NC you have provided 145 pages of disclosure this morning
MD yes
NC 37 pages of that are the instruction manual for erecting your Big...

... Screen
MD it may be
[they look at it]
NC that material was never going to give the tribunal the slightest assistance had been in the planning since Feb or was dreamed up on 25 June
MD is that a question
NC I'll run it again [she does]
MD it might help people understand what we do

Isn’t ringing a bell.
MD was trying to say, Sara Palin v BFF was a light hearted joke. I tell jokes, I’m a right laugh.

Then she landed this dud and got told off by the Judge. Not so funny to be fair.