Kelly v Leonardo Employment Tribunal Thread 3

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Ms BM Kelly v Leonardo UK Limited Employment Tribunal – hearing Case number: 8001497/2024

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Abbreviations:
C or MK - Claimant, Maria Kelly
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for C
KW - Katy Wedderburn, solicitor for C
R or L - Respondent. Leonardo UK
ST - Susanne Tanner KC, barrister for R
J - Judge
P - Panel member
GC - gender critical
GI - gender identity
AL - Andrew R Letton VP People Shared Services Leonardo - respondent witness

Tribunal Tweets coverage here

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/kelly-vs-leonardo-uk-ltd

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?page=1

Thread 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420656-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-thread-2?page=1

I have never come across men chatting about work in the bogs. Conversation is frowned upon, as a general rule.

Yes, she's very brave. There will probably be a lot of woman at Leonardo who are not so brave, I would be among them. Many who will just leave and work elsewhere without complaining because look what happens when you do.

I think it's important that Leonardo get mail - it doesn't have to be to Maria.

And the fact is if someone on this thread can look up the office address obviously TRAs will also be able to without too much difficulty. So if we don't send mail in support of Maria the only mail they'll get is TRA threats, which will probably make them think they're doing the right thing appeasing abusers. Especially given how cowardly and willing to break the law on behalf of men who want to violate women's boundaries they are.

Can I just save, save your sympathy for Andy, tholis is literally what he gets paid for.

If he genuinely didnt know about Maya's case, he doesnt deserve to be in the role.

Sorry posted half way through...

The other thing is The Slow Newscast (tortoise) had a good podcast about Unite this week. Not about this issue, but disfunction to a massive level. They haven't posted their accounts since 2020.

Women's progress depended on us not being different. Yes we had separate toilets but that was it. Everyone took that for granted. The reality of women’s needs was hidden, partly for reasons of personal dignity but also to convince men we could do the job.

Yes, I've worked in male dominated environments for 30ish years now. I well remember the ladies loo being basically my personal space - never met anyone else in there! for better or for worse the way I did it was by largely just ignoring sexism and pretending I was the same as the men.

I'm quite uncomfortable about all the current wanging on about menopause, particularly when people start going on about 'brain fog'. I'm not sure if it's ingrained sexism on my part, but my very strong reaction is 'I've already got enough prejudice to deal with, this is private, do we have to talk about it at work?'

but then women's bodies are different from men's and that does drive some different requirements from our working environments. We should be able to talk about it. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I avoid menopause awareness work stuff like the plague.

I agree about the menopause stuff. It does seem to be an invitation to “oh women and their hormones, they’re slaves to them” type comments but was pleased I had my own office with a window I could open and close as I wished and minimal dress code so easy to remove a layer if hot sweat.
I think apart from easy access to loos the ability to layer clothing and windows/ fans nearby there is not much to it though

I found Davina and her brain fog nonsense insulting.

I still don’t believe that Andy is an ideologue. GI clearly has him confused and he doesn’t seem to know the lingo other than his repeated assertions about having to respect Ls trans community. I suspect he knows fine well that TWAM but he has been ‘educated’. He’s still confused despite the education so he just goes along with what he’s being told by the union and Equalise without applying any critical thinking of his own.

His lack of knowledge knowledge of relevant recent sex based rights cases made him look foolish as did his lack of preparation for his testimony.

He is however a company man through and through. The only times I found him in the least bit passionate was in his defence of Leonardo and the company’s actions. That might be self preservation but as he has been with them since 1977 I think loyalty has a big part to play.

The comments from Andy and a PP about the relationship with the union I thought were interesting. Maybe he himself is a strong union supporter or maybe he just knows what dude his bread is buttered and doesn’t want conflict with the unions.

I hope he gets to the GP and gets that cough looked at.

Wow. Just wondering about conflict of interest there.

I work at Leonardo (not Edinburgh office) and will be making sure all of my colleagues are aware of the tribunal. I am also going to write to HR to put my own complaint in about self ID access to our toilets, as I was previously unaware of this policy (how could I as it hasn't been communicated to staff?). I will also encourage my colleagues to do similar.

Yes this is very important:

Women's progress depended on us not being different.

I was explaining to some friends this afternoon what I’ve been doing this week. They hadn’t heard of the case, asked me to summarise it and I didn’t do a very good job. I think I will send them links.

However. I remember Leonardo rebadged the secret toilet from Ladies to WC and left the men’s toilet(s) as they were. This reflects particularly badly on them. But it wasn’t the only Ladies toilet on that floor iirc, it was just one that men didn’t know about. Did their signs change?

I understand that the WC sign meant the women had no reasonable expectation that men would not be in there.

The posters on Reddit all seem to be delusional to the point of insanity. One compares treatment of transpeople to the treatment of Jews in 1930s Germany - someone slightly more sensible points out that this is not a good comparison and is grossly offensive (the only sensible comment btw).

They have a web page with contact addresses. Apparently it is against the rules to put the address on MN.

You are an absolute star. I was dithering about whether to tell a v senior Leonardo person how I felt and I will put on my big girl pants and do so..

There was a good summary by NumberTheory · 02/10/2025 04:18 (on Thread 1 page 32) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?page=32 :

"MK felt disadvantaged because her employer failed to follow the law and provide the legally required number of toilets for employees of her sex. By making what MK had thought were single sex toilets mixed sex, they forced her to use less easily accessible toilets that were less likely to be used by men while the male employees had better access to closer and more easily accessible ones (because men are less disadvantaged by mixed sex toilets than women and because, as far as MK was aware, there were no trans identified women using the male toilets).

She was frustrated by the way her employer failed to answer her attempts to clarify what their position was for a whole year and humiliated and distressed by their handling of her concerns when she challenged the illegal policy as she had to explain her perimenopausal symptoms to a room of men in some sort of attempt to make her justify her request for them to follow the law. She was also made to feel as though she was in a precarious position raising the issue in other situations because of statements made by more senior people.

On top of this she was concerned that the company made the toilets mixed sex but did not tell female employees. So women were unaware that some men had company blessing to enter the women's toilets at any point when they were in there without warning. MK herself was surprised by a man entering the toilets as she was leaving (which is what made her use the other, less convenient toilets) but might have been mortified if he'd entered a few minutes earlier as she was washing blood off her hands."

[The statements by senior people included a "joke" that might not have been a joke that her views were now a hate crime - all the men in the meeting went quiet after that.]

Oh yes, and after all that they re-badged the less convenient ("secret squirrel") women's toilets as "mixed sex" and - I think - did some weird stuff with door locks to make them single user that didn't work properly.

I agree with a lot of your post, BUT NOT your opening 2 lines. That's snobbery. My son has an spld; we are in a grammar area. Despite his spld he has just started his 1st full time job as a young adult, in the field he has aspired to most of his life. He needed at least 5 GCSE passes at grade 4, he got more. He is intelligent, just not naturally academic. The 6 local similar age grammar school young people are all suffering; either failing to get appropriate work after university or to get suitable placements as part of their university courses. Dreadful for them. They are working in coffee shops, retail and the local pubs. Sorry not ever jobs I would associate with intelligence or a uni degree. Sorry now my snobbery coming out. But please dont judge this witness on their academic quals. His lack of intelligence is shown through many other mediums.

Excellent, @AmaryllisNightAndDay , thank you.

I’ve also found summaries from the BBC and The Times from links on here, so I can pass those on, too.

I was a trustee for a charity for a few years. My particular remit was data and MIS. Our Edi trustee came to us as CEO of a small charity that totally supported ethnicity diversity. He couldn't cope with the thought of any other sort of DEI. he was useless as an EDI Trustee, because he couldn't extend his thinking to other groups.eg disability in all its guises but that was necessary. Fixed thinking occurs in many ways.

One thing I could not follow, was whether the rebadging of the women's toilets had made them entirely mixed sex. I.e. was there a risk that the regular men there would start using previously female toilets because signage had changed?

As a general comment, as someone who works in an almost entirely male environment. I think the fact that her male bosses made her sit and spell out why women need single sex toilets, and why she particularly needed them, was intentionally spiteful and humiliating. I can only imagine the visceral sense of shame to have to point out biological issues that highlight us as femals when women in our kind of workplaces try so hard to just be people.

I remember the double whammy of having to tell my boss that I needed to take leave after a scan discovered a missed miscarriage. Firstly, that it made me a woman, rather than just another person, and secondly that they then were basically expecting me to go off on maternity leave from that point forward. It 100% changed how he treated me, even though he was a good bloke. I can't imagine how it would be with a boss that had a vendetta against you like MK's boss did.

Don’t pass those on, I haven’t read the Times one as it’s behind a paywall but the header for the BBC is outrageous, the suggestion being that the tribunal was because Maria was going to “out” trans colleagues. Bastard BBC. The Times header is similar.

Nothing covered about Naomi’s assignation of the respondent’s witness, nor his comments about Naomi’s understanding of the law being an opinion. Nor anything Amaryllis has succinctly summarised.

The problem is that menopause hits people very differently, so I find the 'oh, it's a fate worse than death and everyone must make allowances' mob as annoying as the 'I sailed through it so you're making a fuss' brigade. NOT, NOT, NOT saying you belong to either group.

I also don't like the 'women's stuff' dismissal which also includes care of children and elderly relatives.

I'm hoping that people here have experience of how other countries handle this, because I have a sneaky feeling that it isn't a universal thing. It suits men for women to do it and shut up and not complain because then they don't have to do it. Which is fine, as long as there's a pension credit, and some appreciation that there are issues women have that men don't (and not even pretend ones. Although that does leave me with a happy little thought that someone somewhere should invent a drug that makes you sick and gives you violent stomach cramps and a heavy and unpredictable nose bleed for five days a month so those who believe they're women get to enjoy the full experience)

The problem is that menopause hits people very differently,

It's not just menopause though. Which woman on these threads has not had an occasion when her period has started inconveniently and she's had to dash to the Ladies to sort herself out? I would guess 100% of us have had this experience.

Although that does leave me with a happy little thought that someone somewhere should invent a drug that makes you sick and gives you violent stomach cramps and a heavy and unpredictable nose bleed for five days a month so those who believe they're women get to enjoy the full experience)

Don't give them ideas - they would be revelling in it.