"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.

I mean has it been confirmed that he will be appearing at the tribunal on behalf of the nurses

He will be there as solicitor. I cant recall the name of the barrister(s).

Is it Bruno Quintavalle

Some of the earlier discussion about a newly qualified solicitor being up against a KC made me think that the solicitor was acting as advocate rather than a barrister being instructed. I had hoped that wasn't the case

Someone posted on a recent thread that a/the Birmingham Trust had sent out an internal message that they would be complying with the SC ruling going forward and toilets/changing rooms should be by biological sex. Can’t remember which thread it was and haven’t seen anything in the press.

Sounds like the Brummie equivalents of Isla Bumba/Kate Searle don’t fancy finding themselves under a cross examination.

Or the adults have taken over again.

IANAL but I don't believe the NHS can concede a tribunal case without being liable to substantial damages? Doing it would not necessarily save them money? Grateful if anyone can clarify.

Yes NHS is being slow. Yes the law is the law.

On the other hand at the same time the EHRC guidance has still not been approved by ministers. The direction is clear but these things take time. And they do have responsibilities to trans employees too, so may need to put in third spaces.

It costs us the tax payer a lot for these cases. Though disclaimer I am biased here: on two NHS waiting lists aged 35 and in pain.

TT lists PS and refers to him as the claimants' barrister. As a solicitor, he is qualified to represent clients before an employment tribunal. The respondent is represented by Simon Cheetham KC.

(See MyrtleLion's post of 19/10 at 20:54) (best wishes for tomorrow, MyrtleLion)

I agree

On the face if it this case is more clear cut than Peggie's. The allegations are:

a male that makes no effort to "live as a woman" behaved objectively inappropriately in a changing room

HR ignored the law (at Fife Sandie was suspended against HR advice)

I'm interested to see what defence NHS Darlington will present. Fife went all for TWAW, sex is nebulous, let's tarnish Sandie's character, with Upton allegedly making up allegations to end Sandie's career. I wonder if Darlington will be more "this is how the law was understood at the time".

If we'd caved to the fact that we had 'far right' insults hurled at us, we'd have lost everything long ago.

It's just noise.

It’s a lot easier to run a smear campaign on a single person as well.

Also can’t fall back on the ‘she was the only one who complained’ defence.

I guess we’ll find out.
Do we know how many witnesses they are calling?
Just wondering if the cast will be as wild and wacky as usual.

They could be the abbreviations from the preliminary hearings -it's not entirely clear

Sorry you’re in pain.

On the other hand at the same time the EHRC guidance has still not been approved by ministers.

That would be the same EHRC that told organisations not to wait for their guidance and to follow the law now? The law is very clear and the SC judgement was extremely well written so that non-lawyers can understand it. Single sex spaces are mandatory unless your business is so small that you can only fit in unisex toilets that are entirely self contained, like in Costa. If your organisation is larger, like an nhs hospital, you can provide unisex facilities in addition to mandated single sex facilities and accessible facilities for disabled people, because if you use a single sex facility it must be one that matches your biological sex. Employers must provide suitable alternative facilities for transgender employees that don’t want to use appropriate single sex facilities. So everyone should have the choice of using facilities that match their biological sex or alternative unisex facilities. If you’re a transman that has medically transitioned so far that your use of the ladies would cause the same alarm and distress as a biological man (e.g. by growing a beard and wearing typically masculine clothing) then you would be asked to use the unisex facilities.

Surely in the vast majority of NHS buildings, it would be a simple case of changing policy back to sex=biological sex for toilets and changing rooms. And as an example here, Rose can use the separately provided cupboard that the female nurses were given after they objected, and the female nurses can return to their proper female room.

That’s an error by TT, PS is a relatively newly qualified solicitor. At an earlier hearing (archive link in OP) the barrister for the nurses was Bruno Quintaville.

Birmingham NHS Trust:
Spectator https://archive.ph/WZwYI
"It's dreadful for you but we have to obey the law"

I've read the SC judgment in full. Though they say it's not for them to comment on Freddie McConnell's GRC, they do note that getting pregnant might not be "living as a man". If you get a GRC you have to declare you will live in your acquired gender until death. The implication is that McConnell wasn't entitled to a GRC as a result.

However they also discuss a case where a man wanted breasts and a "gynaecoid" (female shaped) body, but wished to retain his working penis. His GRC was refused but he appealed, saying he was "living as a woman" because he had changed his sex marker on his passport and driving licence and wore dresses. He was awarded a GRC on appeal.

In any case , the SC ruling makes the point that

• having the protected characteristic of gender reassignment is not the same as having a GRC
• having a GRC makes someone the opposite sex in law (except under the Equality Act)
• a GRC was important for getting a pension early and marrying the same sex but both of these are no longer true.

I find myself asking why bother with a GRC these days? Obviously they want to give GRC holders the right to use same sex spaces as the opposite sex, and I think that managing to achieve that opens the door to those with the protected characteristic the same access even if it isn't lawful, because no-one can tell who has a GRC.

And then I wondered why was this very super speshul class of people given any protection in the first place? We don't change laws for those who wish to identify as black or white, or disabled or furries.

So Rose's desire to father a child is not really living as a man in my opinion, and that's why I thought he might not have a GRC.

@MyrtleLion As you say, there's Freddie McConnell (certainly not "living as a man"), but actually I was referring to this case https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5428960-high-court-rules-that-a-trans-man

"High Court rules that a trans man cannot be denied a gender recognition certificate because he is trying to conceive". So Rose trying to father a child seems to be no barrier to a GRC saying he is a woman. Honestly, if a man fathering a child, or a woman getting pregant, can have/keep a GRC, then the criterion of "living as a man/woman" is even more useless than we thought.

Only a few hundred men under 50 have a GRC

Men like Rose are just predators

Looks like the Express is doing an exclusive.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2122419/biological-sex-trans-NHS-nurses-Supreme-Court-JK-Rowling

Thanks for the thread @ThreeWordHarpy

@SundayAfternoonTea it is open to the NHS trust to admit they got the law wrong and save the court a great deal of time - and stop public money being wasted on lawyers fees. They can still put forward pleas to try and mitigate the damages. Clearly they are aware of the need to mitigate in finally deciding to follow the law in future.

If the NHS stopped wasting money on trans "health care" that has no scientific basis maybe they could treat people who health needs do have a sound scientific basis sooner. If they stopped wasting money on incompetent advisors like Isla Bumba maybe they could treat those waiting for treatment a little faster.

I think the CLC have seen the publicity for Sandie Peggie helped her win in the court of public opinion and is going for the same approach here.

Does this start tomorrow? I haven't received the promised link from Newcastle yet, which they said would be set out one day before it started.