"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.

From the information available it looks like they might be spending 2 days doing case management to kick off a 4 week ET hearing.

Does this mean that someone involved in this tribunal has been following how previous ET hearings involving gender identity have gone?

I'm sure most follow similar cases closely and discuss amongst themselves.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15205245/NHS-bosses-Darlington-nurses-schooled-trans-woman-complained-allegedly-commented-breasts-female-changing-room.html

Not sure how the journalists know this is going to be brought up but concerning if true.

This “schooling” by the trans person is built into most NHS transgender staff/patient policies. Generally the suggestion is that if a person raises a concern about an incorrect sex patient/staff member in a single-sex space, they should be gently educated not to be so bigoted, and that the injured party (ie the trans person) should be asked about the best way that they think the other person should be educated.

(eta - source: the NHS audit)

What could possibly go wrong with that? Here's hoping that the Daily Mail are as tenacious as they were with the Stephen Lawrence case.

Ready and poised for the week.

Lessons have been preplanned.
Biscuits and gin have been purchased.

DH is off out in the evening twice, so I have time to catch up.

Sorry to be hateful but i am praying for rain as i work outside.

I am in hospital this week and it will probably be difficult for me to live copy and paste Tribunal Tweets. I get interrupted by food, observations and medication. And it's noisy and not calm on the ward.

I will be following and commenting, but I hope someone else can live paste.

Alternatively I can try and live paste, but the service might be patchy for the reasons given above.

Also.Allison Bailey's appeal is being heard this week and submissions for Maria Kelly vs Leonardo will resume on Wednesday.

From TT

Darlington Nurses v County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust will start on Wednesday (Monday/Tuesday are reading days) and will be on @tribunaltweets for the duration.

Information can be found here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/eight-nurses-v-county-durham-and

Though it’s a busy week generally for me, I have Wednesday and Thursday off (I’m semi-retired). Pleased!
Best wishes Myrtle.

Hi all
I have a busy week so won't be able to follow this case closely. I can't log in to X at present nor nitter.poast.org - would it be a server/ browser problem do you think? It says TT is 'rate limited'- anyone know what that means ?
If any one can post across links to TT on here to catch up with later would appreciate it. xx

All the best, Myrtle!

I am worried about the nurses' representation in this one. I do hope their counsel is on top of the actual issues. I hadn't understood there to be a religious aspect to their disquiet and the CLC don't always show themselves in court to their best advantage, shall we say.

I’ve just Googled him, and i’m not feeling it either. 😬

I hope I’m proven wrong.

https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2018/04/on-the-naughty-step-the-questionable-ethics-of-the-christian-legal-centre/amp/

Yes @MyrtleLion hope all goes well and please don't worry about posting whilst you are ill! More important to R&R..

Thanks @ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews for that info re CLC. I hadn't realised any of it and it's very worrying as this is such an important and high profile case.

I assume at the time the nurses were just so relieved to find someone who would represent them at no charge when they were stressed and distressed, and being threatened at work, they couldn't see any further.

Not good news.
However, I suppose if they lose, they can approach the JK Rowling Fund for women for an appeal and get better representation 2nd time round?..

You’re welcome.

I saw another article from the Law Society Gazette dated February, which states he’s actually a trainee.

I don’t think he’s got the right cojones for this case. But i really hope he proves me wrong.
Those poor women have been through enough already.

As I was corrected myself on this upthread, appeals in employment tribunals are only permitted if there was an error on a point of law in the judgement, not because your representation was sub-par.

Having said that, the facts of the case that have been made public seem strong enough to me that any competent barrister should be able to win this for the nurses. Unless there are other facts we are as yet unaware of.

I checked the SRA register recently (because of this thread) and he is a qualified solicitor now

He qualified as a solicitor in December 2024. May be the CLC is going for the David v Goliath angle because a newly qualified solicitor v a KC is going to be nail biting.

I hope he won’t be out of his depth.

"More important to R&R"

Read and Rage?
That's what I do anyway.

Myrtle, take care, hope all goes smoothly and that you get home soon feeling much better xx

I also have concerns about their representation but we'll just have to see.

Its possible others I.e Sex Matters didn't want to take on the case because it was flawed. Will have to see what emerges...