"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 2

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Link to Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, evidence from KD (Day 1) and BH (Day 2).

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. 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 and at Christian Concern who are supporting the nurses via the CLC.

The hearing started on October 20th, with evidence starting on October 22nd and is scheduled to last 3 weeks. To view the hearing online, requests for access had to be made by October 17th. The hearing is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have background to this case on their substack. An alternative to X is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

The Judge made clear at the start of the public hearing on Day 1 that only TT or press have permission to tweet. If online observers see/hear something in the court that isn’t reported by TT, we don’t mention it until the next time there’s a break. This is a very cautious approach to avoid any accusations of “live reporting” on MN. Commentary on the content of TT tweets is fine as soon as they’re posted on X.

Key people:
C/Ns - Claimants, the Darlington nurses
R/T/Trust - Respondent, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
J/EJ – Judge/Employment Judge
NF - Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for claimants
SC - Simon Cheetham, KC, barrister for respondents
RH - Rose Henderson, trans identifying nurse
CG – Clare Gregory, ward manager
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, second claimant to give evidence
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany

Other abbreviations:
WFTCHTJ – Waiting For The Conference Host To Join
ET - Employment Tribunal
DMH/H – Hospital, Darlington Memorial Hospital
CR/CF - changing room or facilities
IX - internal investigation
XX – cross examination

Ah right. Thank you.

This 'fully transitioned' line is really pissing me off, why wont one of the witnesses or lawyers highlight this is physically impossible.

SH has “misgendered”” “Rose” a number of times. It’s complete nonsense isn’t it?! If even the Trusts own legal team don’t view him as she.

The practice of this panel seems to be that you get kicked into WFTCHTJ when there's a break.

You get kicked out after an hour of WFTCHTJ.

It's enraging isn't it. I keep wanting the witnesses to ask "into what exactly?".

@dimsiaradcymraegI'm beginning to think this is part of RH’s harassment claims and the fact even his barrister says he is contributing to to the poor Rose argument. He’s not “seen” as female and suffers for it. He’s obviously male and when he turns up in the tribunal everyone will see that so this is going to be the back up plan. I find it almost worse than Upton!

From TT

SC you say it was uncomfortable but what was the risk
CH a man in the CR

SC can try and spin it any way he likes, he wasn't doing anything bad was he, but what if he passed, what if he fully transitioned, blah blah blah. The above cuts through all of that, he's a man, end of. Well done CH x

CH's plain speaking over the "risk" point was really effective. But, as ever, will the panel get the significance of what she said?

In particular, will her counsel get it and know how to present it persuasively to the panel?

At my local swimming pool where there is a changing village - there are signs everywhere, you are not allowed to have your phone out.

Gisele Pelicot received the Legion of Honour on Bastille day this year.

Thank you I did not know that. She deserves it.

Yes, I think this is the risk with an all male legal team and a male judge. NF is sitting with the newly qualified male solicitor from CC (whose name escapes me for the moment). There's no Charlotte Elves or Margaret Gribbon at his elbow. Sometimes even the nicest men just don't get it. Do we know if either of the other panel members are women?

The bundle bod is Mr Hutchinson! What a lovely man :)

Sometimes even the nicest men just don't get it.

This is so true. And you can't really blame them, after all they have lived male lives and only have male experiences as we have to keep on reminding some of them.

From TT Substack:

NF - Niazi Fetto, KC, barrister for claimants
MP - Michael Phillips, solicitor for claimants
PS - Pavel Stroilov, C’s solicitor, preliminary hearing

I think MP is andrewstorchsolicitors.com/faces/phillips-michael/. I didn't realise the claimants upgraded their solicitor for this hearing.

On what grounds would he be able to cry harassment do you think? Forstater case stars that holding gender critical beliefs is a protected philosophical belief under the equality act.

There has been no evidence of any discrimination or harassment, unless his counterattack will be based solely on the nurses complaint. How dare they hurt his poor feelings!

That's CH done. Next up is J Peveller.

It's Pavel Stroilov sitting with NF. We know because he was name checked earlier in assisting Mr Hutchison with the bundles.

Watching another employment tribunal, i ask myself this question.

All THIS because one man won’t accept ‘no’ for an answer?

It’s worse though - it’s not clear to me that “Rose” was told no, at least by his employer, so it’s more “all this because we’re scared one man might not accept no”

This is apparently the pushback that has to happen. We explained nicely what the problems would be, then why we were upset, then why we were angry. All ignored. So now we sue the ba@£”reds and suddenly we have their attention, because now there are consequences for them, not just for women and now they have to answer our concerns, not wave them away.

That’s true.

Just a reminder of this excerpt from an article by one of the Scottish Human Rights Commsisioners during the sandie P case:

'Requiring women – or for that matter men – to expose their naked bodies before members of the opposite sex as a condition of accessing employment, education, other public or private commercial services is without shadow of a doubt a breach of privacy, dignity, decency and human rights. No putative right of individuals asserting transgender identities negates this, whatever lobbyists may claim. '
from https://www.holyrood.com/comment/view,peggie-v-nhs-fife-more-casualties-to-come

There was a bit of "if you averted your gaze you can't have seen anything to upset you".

What claims? This is the nurses' case; he doesn't get to make claims.