"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.

My two cents:

The nurses didn’t follow procedure - didn’t know about it - management responsibility to inform surely. Implication - they did not complain in the right way. Pesky women.

Trust writing directly to her - is harassment. CG (and me) would be scared the Trust were trying to to get her to implicate herself in some way

Letter sent to CG re possible disciplinary - implicit threat - obviously scary.

RH being upset about the complaint - obviously didn’t expect to be called out on his boundary crashing.

Intimidating visits to the ward - can just imagine him swaggering in, giving it large. Just like he did in the changing room. Insufferable male entitlement.

Being on her own in the changing room - every woman knows that feeling, first instinct to scope out how safe you are. And then to hear RH - and turn and see a big man in his revolting boxer shorts, OMG. And not only that, this big man then asks when you are getting changed? My danger radar, as a CSA survivor myself, would be on red alert, with the hairs on the back of my neck rigid. My fight/flight/fawn response would have been debilitating at the very least.

Regardless of all of the above - the Trust still had to provide a single sex space, so the defence is all smoke and mirrors.

Also, RH/the Trust could have said sorry, reverted to the single sex space and none of this would have happened.

Finally KD did a great job - remained calm, stated when she didn’t know something, and came across as a down-to-earth nurse who is obviously an asset to the hospital. And she worked through COVID. Respect✊

@MyrtleLion - hope you can get home and cut and paste from your own comfy bed!

Just catching up.
Regardless of the outcome of this case , the experience for this witness is so awful, having her childhood CSA referred to in open court in a work tribunal because she (and other women) want a female only changing room. Really hope she has good support around her.

All this about Rose trying to get his girlfriend pregnant, apart from the fact that it does highlight how ridiculous it is that he is viewed as a woman, but how relevant is it really?

I mean, we know he's a man.

I must have missed something (stupidly busy day) but was the significance of the signs on the doors that were referred to? (I managed to get in for the last hour. Hurrah)

From TT

against colleague or employer before
KD - no never
NF - involved in a tribunal or court proceedings
KD - No never
NF - last issue, signs on the door - sign on the inside door, to put that sign up would that person need to come through the main door

KD - yes, they would need the pin code to get through the main door.
J - that concludes your evidence.
J - NF, who are having tomorrow
NF - BH, her husband, naming other potential witnesses,
SC - I may not have any questions for BH, will let you know tomorrow morning

Court rises, end of afternoon session

Final session

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1980998539477242235.html

Waiting on pharmacy. Should be discharged before 7.30pm.

Hope youve got support at home

Yes, amazing DH who already does all the cooking and washing.

Thank you so much for posting TT @MyrtleLion - such a help! And am very pleased to hear they’re letting you out soon. It’s good to be in the hospital and getting the right attention when you need to be, but it’s so much better to be at home - especially with a DH who cooks for you (I speak from experience on both fronts!).

So it looks as though the Trust are going to say that all this has been inflamed by lawyers interference and nurse antipathy towards RH. As to the changing room policy, maybe they'll say we were wrong but folowing advice, and the nurses got carried away and made it all seem worse than it was. But the remarks of HR telling them to be more inclusive? are they going to deny that was said? Is this why we have the Hutchinsons tomorrow morning? if not, it may mean that it's in the witness statements and the Trust are not disputing that it was said.

My DH says the whole case is about whose job's on the line at the Trust

Marry him! Oh.... 😁

As I understand it the signs were of a 'this is an inclusive CR' nature. KD said she didn't know who put them up. One was on the outer door and one on the front of the inner door. In re exam her counsel got her to clarify this and she confirmed that the person putting them up would have to use a PIN code and come through the outer door to the inner door of the CR.

If it was RH, and we don't know, but it's reasonable to think it might be, I would regard putting signs on outer and inner door as intimidating. Really pissing to mark his territory stuff.

I'm glad NF came back to it and emphasised the point.

I think if you want to take the position it was never said, you have to put that to the witness (I might be wrong though)

I'm amazed to read that the trust's barrister is using he/him for RH. It's been quite an important move by barristers on the GC side in variois cases to not use opposite sex pronouns. I would have expected the pro gender side to use gender identity based pronouns to create a feeling around the person and the story being told. I suppose the trust's case now (post SC ruling) cannot depend on the idea that RH is female in any way so that's not as important. Or maybe the barrister is just a normal human being who finds it difficult to keep up the discombobulating language.

I assume the talk about signs was this:

A rainbow-coloured sign labelled “Inclusive Changing Space” was placed on the changing-room door and the nurses advised to use either the Ward Manager’s office or a patient discharge room which opens onto a busy ward corridor.

Yes it also seems irrelevant whether Rose is trying to get his female partner pregnant, as last week the court ruled a woman who says she's a man and is trying to get pregnant can still have a GRC saying she's a man (but will be the child's mother as per the GRA and her biological sex remains female).

The courts have totally separated sex (reality/ biology) and gender (inner fantasy/ identity beliefs), getting a GRC doesn't alter your status as mother (if you gave birth) or father (if you provided the sperm).

So the issue is that Rose is a man, so I don't understand why this case hasn't been settled already.

My understanding is that there were one or more slips of he/him in an afternoon of counsel for the Respondent tending to use "Rose Henderson".

Yes, that’s right. Otherwise the witness for the NHS will not be allowed to say that when they are called

The sign:

I'm amazed to read that the trust's barrister is using he/him for RH.

I've been observing and didn't hear R's counsel use he/him for RH at all. He mostly said his name in full, occasionally 'Rose' and generally structured his remarks to avoid any pronouns at all. I didn't notice any 'she /her' at all and I was listening out for it. There was one occasion when he referred to 'other women' in the rest area but he may have been quoting RH's witness statement, I'm not sure.

TT do a cracking job but their tweets do not purport to be verbatim. Although the sound is generally better in this tribunal, it's not perfect.

I did - twice!

(legal ceremony and humanist wedding)

Am I right in thinking that for the last 6 years, Rose’s idea of transitioning has been a name change and a need to use the female changing room?

Apparently RH has denied that he stopped using hormones for transition. But it's not clear whether that means he continued to use them or was never using them in the first place.