Natalie Bird vs Lib Dems case in court August 2024

[fromorbit]

Getting a thread ready for this case. Could have a big impact and implications for other parties and the UK in general. It seems the Lib Dems know they are going to lose see their latest gambit below to minimise blowback by admitting they were at fault.

Natalie's summary of the case. Gardening is still needed, but lots of sprouts growing now .

My crimes were wearing a Tshirt to an internal party meeting, to question why women's rights weren't central to the LibDems agenda and why trans rights were put over and above the rights and needs of all other groups.

Unfortunately following the wins by Lynne Featherstone around same sex marriage, the LibDems have allowed the LGBT faction to bully, harass and discriminate and target other members, the wider party are emboldening them instrad of holding them to account and the Libdems are currently suffering from overconfidence believing that they will gain so many seats in the election they eill not have to deal with these issues publicly or personally.

I've been in ongoing discussions with the party for many months and one of my asks have been for adequate training around the Equality act to be rolled out at all levels within the party and for all Libdem run councils, the Libdems are currently unable or unwilling to put this reasonable requests in place even thought it would benefit the women in the consistency, and would be helpful to the wider party and have no personal benefit for me personally.

I also believe a wide ranging review needs to be undertaken around the discrimination against GC people within the party and the culture that has enabled and created it, again the party are unwilling to hold a mirror up to the behaviour that has been comdoned by the highest levels of the party.

I have had ongoing targeting since 2016, with a disciplinary panel in 2018 banning me from any party role for 10 years a punishment double that of electoral fraud and akin to me actually undertaking a criminal activity, on top of this I was further targeted by the Stonewall transactivists within the party in 2021, who again used the complaints system to target and harass me and to put a suspension without a end date in place, this behaviour was condoned by the outgoing party president and peer Sal Brinton.

It is unacceptable for a working class mother to be targeted and treated in this manner and its important that Justice is served.

I hate to ask for money particularly when so many of us are struggling but the reality is that I need to raise over £30k to pay counsel to get the justice needed, discrimination against GC individuals must not be allowed to continue in the party and change is urgently needed. This won't happen unless the party are held to account in a public trial.

My case will be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice from the 19th till 26th August.

According Natalie's latest update the Lib Dems have all, but admitted their guilt in an attempt to avoid revealing the sexist bullying in the party:

We are rapidly heading towards my trial and I have a pre-trial review at the Royal Courts on the 22nd. [July?]

In an interesting development, the libdems have put in an application for the Court to award judgment against themselves stating that they have breached my contract and admitting to breaching the Equality act.

They haven't provided any details with regard to how they have breached the Equality act, for how long not how they intend to rectify it so this seems to me to be an exercise in trying to minimise my wider claims around discrimination, victimisation and harassment by party officials and activists.

This seems to me to be an exercise in entirely avoiding active scrutiny and accountability around the culture in the party that allowed discrimination against GC individuals to happen within the party, and that is still continuing within the party to date.

With your help we can ensure that justice is done and the public is made aware of what is going on within the libdems.

A win will also impact the new Amelia Sparrow case. Those pesky wims keep calling out sexism in the Lib Dems:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5109461-parliamentary-staffer-taking-lib-dems-to-tribunal

Original thread from 2018:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3399104-Times-Lib-Dem-trans-activists-hounded-abuse-victim-Natalie-Bird-Article-refers-to-Zoe-OConnell-Sarah-Brown

for peaking purposes: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5248343-unreasonably-pleased-libdems-have-had-to-pay-out-ps14000-for-discriminating-against-a-womans-belief-that-sex-matters

Ooh the lads are angry.

NB is planning to appeal so Lib Dems pay in full.

We now need to appeal
To my crowd funders
I am delighted to report that I have been awarded £14,000 in damages in my case against the Liberal Democrats. I have also been awarded 90% of my costs up to 1 August 2024. All this vindicates me seeing the case through to a final hearing.
However, I believe that there are a number of grounds of appeal. One potential ground is that the Judge ordered that I would not be able to recover any amount in relation to the crowdfunded portion, which (although there is some lack of clarity) means that my costs award may be reduced by £88,413 which is a huge amount that the Liberal Democrats will not have to pay. I don’t believe this is a correct decision. There are other grounds of appeal which my legal team will need to consider, related to the amount of the damages award.
That means I need to, unfortunately, ask for further funds so my legal team can consider the appeal and then to lodge it. At the moment my costs are still to be assessed and then paid, but that might take months and we need to appeal within 21 days. So, I am asking for a further £5k at this time which should be enough to pay for a barrister to draw up the grounds of appeal and then pay the appeal fee to lodge it.
I am so grateful for all the help, support and donations I have received so far.

Costs that cover crowdfunders would be a handy judgement to have, seeing as how the other side love to run up unnecessary expenses with endless paperwork and woeful preparation (thinking of the terrible bundles in Alison Bailey’s case here, but many others too).

Pretty sure most online crowdfunders can be refunded with a few clicks, once the losers have paid it back.

Then individual funders can redirect their money wherever they see fit (usually several worthy crowdfunders going on at any one time).

Losing Entities shouldn’t be able to get away without paying all the costs awarded just because the costs were fronted by hundreds of individuals chucking in a tenner or two, rather than one individual.

I read some of the TT yesterday. She or those who were advising her did not come across well. Complete refusal to engage in settlement discussions in good faith, for one. I think there was something about trying to insist on the LD paying damages to all GC women, something along those lines. It all came across as blisteringly juvenile (on her part) and / or unprofessional on the part of her advisers.
The crowd funding part is interesting though. An award of costs is intended to be compensatory so there is an proper basis for saying she can't recover from the LD sums where she isn't out of pocket because the crowd funding has already covered it. Who would that 88k go to if the LD paid it - her sols can't be paid twice and she's not going to refund her backers. I can't believe there's no precedent though what with the Grift Law Project et al.

They are so cross they’ve resorted to denying someone is the gender they say they are, which surely is contradictory to their whole argument?! 🤷‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I thought the consensus was that no one would pretend to be a woman if they weren’t really a woman but here we are, with accusations that the trans MP isn’t actually a woman but just doing it to avoid traffic convictions… They really need to figure out what their argument actually is.

the trans MP isn’t actually a woman but just doing it to avoid traffic convictions… They really need to figure out what their argument actually is.

So, acceptance without exception, unless a member of the sacred caste that knows? In the same way that Layla Moran can see people's auras or souls, assess their threat level and their true gender? (That last bit, I'm unclear if pansexuals like Moran have a stance on gender.)

That's hilarious.

I cant remember which case - but the crowdfunder issue was raised before and the judge refused to reduce costs because of it. That may have been Alison Bailey's case. There is precedent for ignoring the source of funds. I think Naomi Cunningham would know if it wasnt Alison Bailey.

Emma Walker is the Times' lawyer of the week:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/f9c2a034-dd59-4c7f-b223-7822722314d0?shareToken=b09e99486bdea6805df32391d4781f0e