"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.

JKR's fund didn’t exist at the time.

They could have crowdfunded, but that's not guaranteed to raise enough. Especially when.you have no idea in advance how much the costs will end up being. It's perfectly logical for them to choose the guaranteed option.

And they have the right to choose whoever they like. Perhaps they align on other beliefs, perhaps they don't. Doesn't matter. We might prefer.somone with better optics but they have the right to legal representation of their choice just as they have the right to single sex changing rooms.

At a directions hearing in the spring R's counsel anticipated Rose 'a key witness' would be cross examined for 2 days. The whole of September was ruled out because of his unavailability.

He'll be there.

Interesting. After Upton and all the sunlight, I wondered if they’d “spare” him.

They can choose whoever they want to represent them - but their chance of success was likely to be greater with acknowledged experts. Hopefully their lawyers are fully informed about other similar cases and now we have the Supreme Court judgement it will be easier to win.

I think that a significant proportion of the general public still wrongly assume a transwoman is a man who has had surgery to remove his penis because of his terrible dysphoria.

Surveys show that attitudes to sharing spaces with men who identify as women change depending on whether they have had this surgery or not.

It will be very helpful for the general public to hear that Rose proudly had his penis clearly visible in his holey boxer shorts.

It's a good opportunity to make it clear that only a tiny proportion - around 3% - of transwomen have had their penis removed.

on paper Cheetham is the more experienced lawyer and seems to have a good reputation so I'm not sure if we'll see JR style behaviour.
But the Darlington Nurses case is strong even with a less experienced team.

@CriticalCondition

They don't want to use the space, they want to use the women in it.

This is the vital distinction.

"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"

I may have misremembered but I thought it had been said that the cupboard space wasn't even single sex so "Rose" and any other TIM, would be able to change there too, if they so chose.

The Trust did eventually give these nurses a separate single sex changing room to change in away from Rose...
They did not. A cupboard is not a changing room. Facilities have to be sufficient. As good as those for the opposite sex and sufficient for their needs.

..and renamed the women's as an "inclusive" changing facility.
Unlawful - staff must be provided with separate male and female changing rooms and loos according to the 1992 Workplace Regulations. Additionally, women and men have the right to privacy and dignity away from the opposite sex when changing and using the toilet, and women are indirectly discriminated against if forced to use unisex spaces because they are more greatly disadvantaged compared to men.

Although there are some issues with it, it comes across as resentful to insist "Rose" leaves the old women's.
Why? "Rose" is a man.

Also, it's not strictly relevant in this case, but I want to point out that there was no need to provide a special separate area even for "Rose". He is no different physically to the other men and even if he was, he could use a cubicle for extra privacy.

I must say I am also surprised that he is not a respondent, because his remarks about getting changed could easily be construed as sexual harassment, even if they don't meet the threshold for a criminal offence.

It's an absolute gift of a case for Christian Legal Centre. They lose a lot of cases. Pavel Stroilov seems to have trained as a solicitor while working for CLC. He received v strong criticism when he 'represented' families as a 'consultant' for CLC in the Alfie Evans hospital case.

The CLC does seem to have instructed barristers for the case though. They tend to send much weaker representation for most cases.

I agree, I doubt the Darlington Nurses had any other offers at the time they were heading into tribunal.

“Ultimately this ‘locker room’ still falls under the same policy as any other changing room facility in the trust and, therefore, if a male identifying as a female wanted to access it, they could.”

From here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/24/female-nhs-nurses-changing-rooms-trans-row-darlington-five/

Barging in to the comfy observation room (I'm "multitasking" at work), just to vent.

Why oh why do publicly funded bodies - especially the apparently cash-strapped NHS - waste OUR money defending these kinds of cases, after the Supreme Court - highest legal authority In.The.Land say that women are women.

And what the NHS is doing is illegal, and constitutes bullying of its female staff, and I'd say is creating a hostile environment in the workplace, in the light of the protected characteristic of sex.

I may as well scream at the universe about how the world hates women.

Arrrrghhhhhh

If the CLC team do manage to make an absolute balls-up of the case and lose, and I’m not sure how because at this point I think even I could do it, then there is always the option for appeal using the JKR fund and one of the more experienced solicitor/barrister combos.

I think they are representing that other nurse too - jennifer? with the sex offender patient?

You have to have grounds for appeal such as tribunal making a legal error. I don't think you can appeal just because your legal team are a bit rubbish

Fair point. I’d forgotten that was the case for Employment Tribunals.

I agree - I think he will be more on the lines of ST in the Kelly case. He won't have much to go with beyond the cupboard (especially as he won't be able to run with the "she's the only one who's bothered" argument here) but I'd feel a lot happier if there was an NC level counsel for the claimant rather than a CLC tame barrister.

do we know what pronouns will be used?

On pronouns I suspect that Dr will be doing a bit of heavy lifting....

I have a sort of longing for this one to be a case for Charlotte Elves - I can just hear her going through all the solutions Darlington could have adopted to accommodate "Rose" before finding that they adopted the "xth" best option.

Plenty of so called “trans women” aren’t so hampered by gender dysphoria that they can’t display their male bodies in public and for many that’s going to be at least part of the attraction.

It's a well-known fact that hanging around in a state of undress in women's changing facilities doesn't trigger gender dysphoria in transwomen. Apparently the only thing that can do that is having to treat other transwomen as if they were literally female, for instance by including them in their dating pool.

I agree. I hope the nurses/CLC/their solicitors aren't complacent or reluctant to bring in some big guns late in the day for reasons of either pride or cost. It's a bit concerning that just a few months ago they saw fit to send a pretty junior solicitor along to the directions hearing where he was up against a KC.

On the one hand it looks like a pretty slam dunk case for the nurses and the Respondent doesn't have much to work with. On the other I really hope the Claimants have instructed a shit hot counsel who knows their onions in this particular area of gender identity, rather than just AN Other 'employment law specialist'.

I want someone who can do a Naomi or Ben forensic takedown of every single issue. Who is completely on top of what's been happening and has followed every twist and turn over the last few years. A lesser counsel might get the nurses the win they deserve but the judgement could be rather thin unless every point is teased out and hammered home in front of the panel.

I suppose it goes to what the nurses want to get out of this. A simple admission the hospital was wrong, says sorry and Rose uses another suitable changing room (ie the men’s or a mixed sex facility)? A scorched earth Take Every Fucker Down approach like Sandie Peggie? Or something in the middle?

We might relish another forensic takedown in the style of NC, BC or AR, but the CLC may well be good enough to achieve the aims of the nurses here.

I would have thought that at this point, any barrister capable of speaking would just say, "The Supreme Court has defined the law of the land in this area, and it makes the NHS Trust's policy entirely illegal". Cases like this should be open and shut quickly, these days.

I'm from Darlo originally and am so proud of these nurses. I wish them all the luck 🤞🤞

I fear that if the legal team are not au fait with gender ideology they might overlook the slam dunk of the SC ruling and instead overegg the pudding of the religious belief angle.