Quite - the events prior to Xmas eve (not being friendly; asking Dr to do observations with a time-pressured case; not making eye contact while speaking to a colleague/potentially ignoring) could add up to signs of a strained relationship but its hardly hateful. It comes down to the event on Xmas Eve and what was discussed.
DrU confirmed that SP had mentioned men in women's prisons and had not directly said Dr U was like the Isla ? case which if referred to directly would have implied Dr U was potentially a rapist. For that SP would be on shaky ground but as she didn't actually say those words or mention Isla ? by name, it is circumstantial at best. It is a fact that in Scotland TW are not to be placed in women's prisons and while Dr U might not like it, that is the situation. So for me this doesn't meet a standard of hate speech. Nor did the other items mentioned which I didn't manage to get full notes on.
Dr U referred to SP calling them a man/male and how they considered this to be an insult in the context of the CR. However again given that it is meant to be a female only space and the pre-trial hearing docs comfirm that Dr U is at the self ID phase of transition (no surgery) then they are currently more biologically male than female. How could SP have used any other language to explain this? I don't think it is fair to assume this is an insult as what other words could have been used to describe her discomfort and embarrassment - albeit by her using them she caused Dr U similar feelings.
If SP asked about Dr U's chromosomes then that is a personal and intrusive question. It is a "he said she said" situation. I imagine if this was said it followed on from Dr U saying something like "I am a woman". It was maybe misguided but again having been told by the E&D team to take it up with Dr U herself what language would be appropriate here? I am not sure how I could navigate this convo myself (while also wanting to deal with a menopausal flood in full flow - which is frankly horrible when it happens away from home).
When talking about the bullying policy JR asked Dr U to confirm how Sp's actions had met the criteria. They said she demonstrated "non acceptance" of their EA protected characteristic and this was a "deliberate behaviour". That it was the CR convo on the 24th that was a "hate incident" even though SP's behaviour overall "can't be described as consistent".
I was under the impression that problem behaviour had to be a consistent to be considered bullying. On the other hand Harrassment can be a one off incident of "unwanted behaviour" related to a protected characteristicr which:
- violated the person's dignity
- created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the person
So it seems that SP was suspended for saying Dr U should not be in the CR against hospital policy, for "non acceptance" of Dr U as a woman and for allegedly asking about chromosomes and creating a hostile environment - constituting harrassment (allegedly).
SP also alleges harrassment as Dr U used the women's CR when she was there 3 times which she alleges created an intimidating environment such that she felt that she had to remove herself from the CR on 2 occasions. She then followed D&I advice to speak to Dr U on the 3rd - which as we might expect was really bad advice and didn't go well
I get both points of view. NHS Fife messed this up big time for them both.
If someone makes a harassment claim to an employment tribunal, the judge would consider whether a 'typical' person would see the behaviour as harassment.
I am not sure "typical people" take detailed notes about colleagues from first meeting or if they do I didn't get that memo. It gives me the sense of someone who is hypervigilant and much more sensitive than the average person. Humans upset each other all the time - it is relatively unusual to launch a harrassment claim against a colleague so the threshold for whether it is harrassment has to be quite high. In the context of SP's protected characteristics the non acceptance and referring to Dr U is not unreasonable to the typical woman.
So based on today's evidence it possibly hinges on whether the Judge believes she did ask about chromosomes. And then further whether that was derogatory - maybe it would be from a member of the general public but maybe not so much for a nurse? I don't know - this is scrambling my brain. I wonder how the Judge sees it.