"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital have filed a legal case suing their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses object to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, “Rose”, who:

• identifies as female
• has not undergone any physical or hormonal transition and has full male genitalia
• has cited inclusivity policies
• is backed by the trust’s HR department
• has been granted access to a single-sex changing room for women.

The NHS trust’s HR department dismissed the nurses’ concerns, stating they should “broaden their mindset” and “be educated”. More details can be found at Sex Matters

The hearing is due to start on October 20th and is scheduled to last 3 weeks. To view the hearing online email: [email protected] [[email protected]] requesting remote access to the case of 2501192/2024 Hutchinson and others Vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust, starting 20th October. Also include your full name and your role in the hearing (eg member of the public or observer). Note, it is likely you will need the same full name and email address to log into the hearing, and the name will be visible to other observers.

The hearing will be live tweeted by https://x.com/tribunaltweets. An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets. Tribunal Tweets have more background to this case on their substack, including links to their coverage of the earlier hearings.

In earlier hearings reported at http://archive.today/nh5v9, the claimants were supported by the Christian Legal Centre and represented by Pavel Stroilov (solicitor) and Bruno Quentaville (barrister). The respondents were represented by Simon Cheetham KC. We do not know yet if the same representation will be in place for the October hearing

Background information from Christian Concern who are supporting the nurses via the CLC.

Welcome to the Darlington Tribunal discussion. I’ve tried to make the place welcoming, there’s plenty of phone chargers, comfy chairs, tea and coffee for the daytime discussion and alcoholic beverages for the evenings. We’ve got the temperature just right and no squeaky doors.

Thanks to other Tribunal thread hosts for showing how this is done, particularly @ickky and @nauticant for their recent valiant efforts. I will post the usual warnings about commenting on live proceedings nearer the time – but I’m starting the thread early as this is likely to be a high-profile hearing. Get your requests for online access in and let’s start discussing the case.

Of interest to me is the nurses’ legal team – Bruno Quentaville was a founder member of ProLife Alliance, and Pavel Stroilov represented the parents of Alfie Evans in their attempt to stop Alder Hey hospital from withdrawing ventilation from Alfie after the doctor’s said there was no hope of recovery. The latter was called out rather unfavourably by the judge in that case for his actions.

Of course, the personal opinions of the legal teams should make no difference to their professionalism and actions in the hearing. But this is the first time we’ll be supporting an argument being made by a conservative Christian team – will it make a difference to online commentary and press coverage?

Thank you for the thread, @ThreeWordHarpy and for your excellent discussion points. Food for thought.

I may be wrong but I rather gained the impression a while ago that Christian Concern were the only ones initially prepared to help the nurses with legal representation?

Yes, interesting bedfellows :(

Yes, I heard this too, they struggled to find representation.

Thank you @ThreeWordHarpy for creating, I have just requested access.

Many thanks @ThreeWordHarpy for taking on the mantle of thread wrangler! It promises to be a very important case.

Very useful info. Just wanted to say that I think the Claimant's name is Hutchison, not Hutchinson.

It was misspelled in another thread somewhere and is at risk of getting embedded. I used the wrong spelling myself when I emailed the tribunal and although they responded, it would be a shame if people didn't get access because their request doesn't tally exactly with the case name. One would hope not but busy clerks, 'computer says no' type stuff is the reality.

Surprising if they couldnt get representation, maybe they just didnt know where to look. I now this has been going on a long time but you'd think they'd have asked Naomi.

Very many thanks @ThreeWordHarpy for setting this up. I will be watching with interest all going well!

Thank you for the thread. Looking forward to another NHS trust having to justify their actions in public again. My thanks to the brave women who, again, have had to bring to public attention the trauma of their past to justify their need for dignity and privacy when undressing.

Aargh, I’ll update my notes, but I’m hopeful that as long as the quoted case number is correct we’ll be reet.

I’ve had the acknowledgement email too so fingers crossed.

Many thanks to the brave @ThreeWordHarpy for being thread hostess

Anybody know when we will get a list of witnesses? 3 weeks seems such a long time.

I wonder if both parties have been following the Sandie Peggie tribunal and making frantic notes. To me this case seems more clear cut than Sandie's (we have a male that identifies as a woman but makes no attempt at "womaning" and apparently hangs around the changing room waiting for women to get changed) but I don't know what to expect from the religious angle.

I can't see what defence NHS will present. I think this might sway public opinion against TRAs even more than Sandie's case.

It’s intriguing difficult to imagine what the defence is going to be!
Another NHS trust wasting public money attempting to defend the indefensible

Crazy that another trust is defending this rather than offering to settle, surely they’ve seen how the Fife case is going?

It's been said in other cases that they dont have to defend, they could just admit the error and let the judge decide compensation. If it's down for 3 weeks though, then they obviously are going to try and defend.

Thanks @ThreeWordHarpy I've been forgetting my manners!

I'm not going to be able to log on for the first few days. Does anyone know if you can gain access to an ET online part way through? I've been at most of the other high-profile ones (not Maria's last week, though) but always from the outset. I don't want to apply and then be absent for the first days as I might be taking someone else's place, which would be unfair to them.

I just hope the sound is better than it normally is.

I am right that the fragrant Rose has not been named as an appellant in the case, which is different to the equally fragrant Dr Upton who was? Any thoughts on the difference in tactics. In certain lights and if I didn't squint too hard Dr U made a decent attempt at passing, it sounds like this will not be the case with the Fragrant Rose. Thinking this might have been handy in a court room

Thanks for the thread, will definitely be following!

@Taytoface I don't think "Rose" has instigated a suspension of any of the nurses hence not being a respondent unlike the good doctor, whose claims led directly to a nurse being disciplined.

I think it's a "straightforward" case of sex discrimination and victimisation by the NHS not supplying SSS and demanding the women re-educate themselves.

That's my loose understanding of it.

Tactics:

First few days:

Five women explain why they believe they have a place in this world.

Next eleventy million sessions

Lawyers arguing they don't.

#Patriarchy

I am old, and find these cases kinda weird. If you had told me 20 or 30 years ago that in the future, nurses would have to go to court to stop the NHS inserting males into their spaces, I'd have said, don't be daft! But this is the world we live in now, and weird or not, what they are is necessary.

Well, I still think there will be plenty to look forward to. At the directions hearing in the spring, R's counsel was reckoning cross examination of 'key witness Rose' would take at least a couple of days.

The way Rose and the NHS treated these nurses is awful.

However three further points of scepticism:

• The Trust did eventually give these nurses a separate single sex changing room to change in away from Rose and renamed the women's as an "inclusive" changing facility. Although there are some issues with it, it comes across as resentful to insist "Rose" leaves the old women's.

• Arguably the fundamental problem was that Rose was sexually harassing them. I.e. he asked when they were going to change etc. That would be inappropriate even if Rose was female.

• Related to the second, it's questionable if Rose is genuinely trans. What genuine transwoman with gender dysphoria would hang ahem around with male genitals evident under underwear!? They'd want as little reminder of these bits as possible...

Just throwing some thoughts out there.

It doesn't matter if Rose is "genuinely trans" or not. The case is not about a transwoman being allowed in the changing rooms It's about a man being allowed to use them.

• The Trust did eventually give these nurses a separate single sex changing room to change in away from Rose and renamed the women's as an "inclusive" changing facility. Although there are some issues with it, it comes across as resentful to insist "Rose" leaves the old women's.

Given there is only one Rose and a whole lot of female nurses, I would argue that he should have the new room and leave the other nurses to change where they have always changed. Why should they be penalised?

The nurses have described the alternative changing room as a glorified cupboard

I agree, but for Employment Tribunal the question is whether what the NHS Trust did meet their legal obligations...

One of these obligations is to provide a single sex changing room which they did do.

It is of course also worth remembering that this case arose before the SC judgement, there's a long delay of ETs at the moment

Any blanket ban on allowing transgender employees in a changing room before then very well may have ended up with a discrimination case.