"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.

This^

IANAL but surely there is no defence? They let a biological male into the female CR. Call witnesses who saw Rose in the CR. Written evidence in bundle the Trust sanctioned this and numerous nurses complained.
Case over!

Isn’t the most extraordinary aspect of this case that Wes Streeting - who is supposed to be in charge of the NHS - has told Darlington Trust to sort this out, has met the nurses and said he supports them, has said nurses shouldn’t have to take their employers to court and has said the NHS should implement the SC ruling, and still the tribunal is going ahead.

Truly extraordinary.

Government ministers have no control over unaccountable public sector workers.

Imagine how this might be being repeated all over the public sector.

No wonder the government appears useless.

The tories set up NHS England in 2013 so the government would have less control over the NHS. Labour are abolishing it but taking a couple of years over it. Hence Wes cant tell them what to do. Not sure if he can cut their budget on the grounds that they have wasted some of it but probably not.

Maybe their defence will be the nurses were nasty to the poor trans person, if they havent realised yet all that changes is the amount of damages they will find out the hard way.

Well, I don't think trans-identified men such as "Rose" are dysphoric. I think they're AGP, in which case showing off their male body in a space for just women is part of the perversion.

Well, it kinda is being repeated all over the public sector. The law is clear, and public sector bodies, be they schools, or heath boards, or anything else, are ignoring the law left, right, and centre. And I doubt that politicians like Wes Streeting really have an appetite for properly going after the wrong-doers.

I’m hoping to get up there too @FarriersGirl but I haven’t actually booked any leave yet 🙈

Rose and his dad are a lovely pair of people.
It will be interesting to see how the CLC and the nurses play it.

Not wishing to derail the thread but is it possible that there is a correlation between men’s entitled approach to toilets/changing rooms and the appalling state of the NHS generally?

Government ministers have no control over unaccountable public sector workers.

Government ministers, quite rightly, have no control over the courts. And the case is about what happened before Streeting got involved.

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

For those who don't have a GRC, the law was clarified in 2022.

His Dad? What have I missed, what has his dad got to do with the case?

His Dad was also a nurse at the hospital but isn't any more ....

I saw something on twitter that his dad sexuallly assaulted a young girl

Let’s not speculate on Twitter/X rumours - are there any credible news reports?

His father is said to be this Dale Henderson https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/dale-henderson-acklam-indecent-assault-32256935

but I dont know if that is true.

Is this the Challenor case all over again??

The NHS could concede the case, either settle if they can make an offer the nurses will accept or offer no defence. Wes Streeting can’t instruct the tribunal, but he shld be able to instruct the NHS.

Sadly there was also a different man with the same surname and a similar age who was convicted of CSA in Teeside this summer.

It’s not an uncommon name, it could be a coincidence or it might not be. Either way, it shouldn’t detract from the tribunal because it has no bearing on the nurses’ case. “Rose” isn’t on trial here, even if we find Rose’s actions objectionable. Although I’m very much looking forward to hearing Rose give evidence as a witness. I heard some of Dr Upton’s evidence before online access was withdrawn and that was, er, eyebrow raising.

Streeting has limited powers to instruct an NHS Trust. They are legally independent and have a significant degree of autonomy.

A settlement would be sensible if the Nurses would agree.

But even if Streeting could instruct the Trust, if the Darlington Nurses want more money than the Government lawyers think they’d get at the tribunal*, they would be acting improperly, for a public body, not to defend themselves. That’s the point of a tribunal. In the absence of agreement, it’s supposed to evaluate both sides and put a value on any unlawful harm caused.

(*With some fudging to take into account the costs of defending an action on one side and the potential for encouraging unreasonable claims on the other).

I do.

The only way these organisations will do anything sensible is if the option of keeping shouty men happy through virtuous posturing is made more expensive than the option of safeguarding and treating women with dignity through following the law.

@ThreeWordHarpy Yes it's not an uncommon name. There are people with the same name committing similar offences in other parts of the country.

Generally I'd prefer to leave discussions of family members out of this, people are not responsible for their parents. However you did ask.

i agree on the not speculating on family thing - and none of the news reports has confirmed a link anyway. I’d rather we regarded it as an unconfirmed rumour for now.

Link here has a couple of pictures of the fragrant rose. He's pretty well built - I'd feel really quite unsafe alone in a changing room with him asking me if I was going to get changed. grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/nutmegs-week-66c

Oh

Right

Thanks for sharing @Londonmummy66

I am tall and solid and not afraid of defending myself physically. But I would feel very intimidated in a changing room with the person in those pictures.

Glinner confirmed about Dale in the above link. If you choose to believe him. But the sins of the fathers and all that.