"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.

They really need to have the identification of sub-parts of the bundle present not only on the spine of the folders but also on the front.

From TT

respond? Sister Q?
BH - she went and spoke to senior managers and escalated up chain of command
[bundle shuffling]
SC - there's an email, 17 Aug, you are not recipient, may not have seen, so Matron of theatre has written to Leslie Smedley
BH - have been in touch with her

They should have different coloured binders and big numbers/ references on front. Its basics.

Difference is from experience Judge and team are looking at a digital bundle so not the same challenges.

From TT

but wouldn't recognise her, she's in HR
SC - email indicates convo going on, do you see that
BH - others have obviously raised concerns here
SC - yes, but there's a response, and now another email, you can see in 2nd para, 'its a minefield', can you agree that issues hadn't

Colour coded binders. Now, I like that.

From TT

been resolved, but that it was being dealt with.
BH - well it looks like they were discussing it but no one was talking with us, we didn't know
SC - email 19 feb email from ward manager, Claire Gregory, by this point were you receiving legal advice
BH - no

From TT

SC - this email, several upset members of my team in day surgery unit. This follows a meeting, how many were at this meeting
BH - 15 maybe
SC - were they all nursing staff
BH - nursing staff, housekeeping staff and nurse assistants.
SC - purpose of meeting was to raise concerns?

From TT

BH - yes
SC - and people were able to speak freely
BH - yes
SC - you secretly recorded that meeting
BH - yes
SC - why
BH - I wanted to have an accurate record, I thought that CG wanted me to raise concern and I thought we should do a collective complaint

From TT

SC - did you get agreement to record
BH - no
SC - why not
BH - it didn't cross my mind, it was for my personal use, I wanted it, I didn't know we would be in legal proceedings, only person who came back to me was CG, none of colleagues there complained

From TT

SC - isn't this an underhanded thing to do
BH - I had no malicious intent
SC - I'm not saying you had a malicious intent,
BH - I have spoken to most of them, none of them had any problem with it, I'm a busy person I finished the meeting and then went right back to work, I needed

BH is incredibly impressive.

From TT

something to help my recollection.
[discussion between J & SC about current doc]
SC - transcript, you say 'is this more about feeling uncomfortable or do we have to have an incident'
Wasn't that your concern in this meeting
BH - Yes, concerned that there was a man in the female

From TT

changing room,
J - there are two aspects, was RH there and what did RH do
SC - so in this meeting, concerned about RH presence rather than what he did, quoting 'its more about that it poses risk to women' its how you were approaching it, as a risk to women
BH - yes

SC - was CG sympathetic to your concerns in that meeting
BH - yes
SC - made no attempt to stop you from expressing your views
BH - yes
SC - she emerges from that meeting as your spokesperson
BH - she had similar concerns to us, so yes.

concerned about RH presence rather than what he did,

Misgendering from respondents' barrister.

She's bloody brilliant.

From TT

SC - so she is relaying concerns to management, reports back specific concerns about conduct and more generally that RH was using CR, do you accept that she conveyed substance of meeting
BH - she did her best to convey that
SC - subsequent to this that you approached CLC

From TT

BH - yes
SC - you approached CLC, with their help that the letter is drafted and sent to director of work force. We'll look at that letter now.
SC - 27 March letter, do you agree that as a summary it does 3 things; makes allegations about RH, refers to trust policies and

points to CG as liaison.
BH - yes
SC - now on to RH has stopped female hormones, how did you know that
BH - it was common knowledge, I asked a number of people, some of whom were friends with him, they confirmed
SC - so you're saying that you spoke with friends of RH

😂I love her even more

Come on. Brilliant.

From TT

BH - yes
SC - who were they
BH - I don't want to name them, they were afraid of retribution, some were bank workers, would not get any more work
SC - has anyone lost their job
BH - no, it was a climate of fear, everyone was afraid that they might face disc procedures, people

Thanks @MyrtleLion

Does anyone have the court details for access? Late to this... Thanks

I am so so angry listening to this posh privileged bloke questioning how working class women could possibly be afraid for their jobs if they complained. BH is handling this marvellously.

It's in the OP but the deadline for applying has passed and as I understand things requests now are not being permitted.

@BettyBooper It's too late for remote access, you could attend in person.