"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.

For the avoidance of doubt, I have no online access and am only following here via TT:

I guess it's a choice of what I'd call stage management to start with the most traumatised witness. I assume that choice is from the Claimant side? I just hope that she has access to good support because this seems a very brutal first session.

SC photo (I like to know what they look like) from his chambers website https://oldsquare.co.uk/people/simon-cheetham-kc/

From TT

SC U only waited 8 days before putting in the claim and also talked to the Mail
KD Yes. I wasn't public back then so not in the article.
SC TA said she'd look at alternatives. 2 emails from TA. U wldnt have seen at the time. Is 3 days later to Clare Gregory

Image attached - with hat, glasses and pipe, it could work.

They started just as I had to head out for kids stuff. I’ll try again tomorrow!

From TT

SC She'd made contact w estates so she was following up on the issues?
KD It says that, yes, but she may not have been
SC She'll also say she shared this info with the DSU team. Is now a good time to have a 10 min break?
J describes not discussing evidence and leaving the room.

[Break]

@thewaythatyoudoit What TT quoted "J
We have no application from members of the public to live tweet so there should be not tweeting by the public. Just the press and TT can tweet. Are there any other matters?"

He or she may have intended more than tweet to cover no comment on social media but that isnt what was reported. Scottish courts are hotter on contempt even than English courts and didnt attempt to cover comment on the court sound, for example, as opposed to comment on the words being spoken in court. No-one here should be commenting on what is said in court until reported by press or TT or there is a break in proceedings.

First session here

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1980914922381852805.html

Have we had access to any of the skeleton arguments? Is SC possibly leading up to a Bananarama defence of sorts?

What a credible witness. Having to recount verbatium CSA from her father to an open court in response to a barrister telling her she made it up.

Dear barrister, she didn't make it up. Why would she want the world to hear that unless she wanted to stop ongoing abuse. She wants to stop ongoing abuse from a man in boxers parading around the women's changing room.

Boxers with holes in

Re recording in secret - it is permissible for personal use only. As KD pointed out, she didn’t know that the recording would end up in a tribunal.

Uh oh. The clerk in my room has chucked everyone out for the 10 minute break and back to WFTCHTJ. What could possibly go wrong??
Why not just turn mics off? Our only view is of the empty witness stand.

How ladylike.

@MyrtleLionthank you for your sterling work re TT. Hope you are feeling better today?

I'm not sure of the point either. The implication that she only has a problem with a man in the room while undressing because she's faulty due to trauma and therefore normal women wouldn't mind is obviously tenuous to put it mildly, as well as offensive. Not to mention that the number of women who have experienced sexual harassment, assault, CSA and trauma are sadly going to vastly out number the men with gender identities in every workplace. And that equality law has to work for all women. Not just the ones who can centre men.

Yes, but comments on manner would seem to go beyond TT

Same here

The respondents also seem to be going for a defence of - well you weren't disciplined for raising concerns, so what's your problem?

I do appreciate the Judge taking the time to explain to people what is going on and orientating the witness. And SC seems to be doing his job within the parameters of what material he has to work with. His tone has been quite even and professional. Which is just as well, the questions must be upsetting enough on their own without having them made in an aggressive manner as we've seen by other opposing counsel in other cases.

Sounds like the argument is that all the comments were made up and therefore were objectional manifestations of belief and harassment of poor Rose plus a conspiracy.

Recording for your own use to aid your memory is not an offence. You can subsequently use the recording to make contemporaneous notes (we all know they go down well).

Same chambers as the lovely Ben Cooper.

To be honest I have not yet in my life seen a woman wearing boxers, or indeed boxers with holes in them. But most men I have seen in boxers also own boxers that have holes. So Rose was living as a man.

On the balance of probabitities and on my evidence RH was living as a man. Case closed.

Is "my client says he didn't say that, so you're lying aren't you?" a normal legal approach? The previous cases we've followed have been more about company policy and processes.

OK going by TT alone, a comment on the nature of the XX so far.
If it’s part of your case that a thing never happened, and you are going to call a witness to testify to that, you MUST xx any witness whose evidence contradicts that point. and put it to them that this thing didn’t happen. If you don’t, you concede the point. The reason is that the court needs to see how the witness reacts to the challenge, they don’t want just to hear two contradictory accounts and be expected to choose between them without giving the witness a chance to explain what may not be much of a conflict after all.
So if SC is going to call RH as a witness, he has to put it to Karen that RH didn’t do whatever. Otherwise he’s cut his own throat and RH wouldn’t be allowed to speak on that point. Whether you put it to the witness that they are confused/dishonest or don’t bother to ascribe any motive at all, may be also dictated by whatever your case is, but you have to tell them they're wrong. At the moment, NHS case appears to be – ‘it wasn’t as bad as these nurses are saying it was’, so a dispute about damages (?)

Sounds like the argument is that all the comments were made up and therefore were objectional manifestations of belief and harassment of poor Rose plus a conspiracy.

As usual, ALL the women were lying and Rose was white as snow and being lied about. But why would they lie? And everyone agrees they were not lying about a man being in their changing room. So.