"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

It's also sounded so far as if the judge needs a clear bit of information feeding that women are equal humans with needs regarding privacy, dignity and not to have to undress in front of a man for the man's benefit. It should not have to be a case to prove to the last decimal place that risk is absolutely definitely involved (and then negotiated that it's ENOUGH risk and what's acceptable risk) when the bottom line is that non consenting women should not be forced as a condition of their employment to undress for the gratification/validation/whatever of a man. Or to participate in his belief system by providing their undressed body to him.

I don't honestly believe I've had to type those sentences. Wtf has happened to the UK.

Unbelievable isn't it. For predatory values (insisting that men must be allowed to watch women and girls undressing) to be the priority for the NHS - of all institutions.
No wonder there's so much cynicism in society.

It blows my mind, and not in a good way.
If he really was a woman, then they wouldn’t be there in the first place.

But single sex spaces are also provided for reasons of dignity and privacy. It is not just about safety.

Hopefully JP will get that in too.

Baker is talking about that really as loss of privacy and dignity is also a detriment.

If management actually believed he was a woman he'd have been spoken to the first time anyone complained "she" was staring at someone's breasts. So they obviously didnt believe him either.

Funny how these TIMs each have a specific definition of 'woman' that happens to include themselves but exclude other men.

Almost every TIM will throw his fellow TIMs under the bus if it means keeping (or rather getting) his special privileges. The only ones who don't are those that call themselves transsexuals, use men's spaces and aren't actually a bother to anyone.

I think the personal information about Rose in the newspaper is not news good with regard to the Trusts’s internal investigation of the grievance. The nurses could pay heavily for that, it would have been far better not to include that.

I suppose if they win the tribunal then their best defence will be if the Trusts had not broken the law they would never have been put in this position

Is there anything further on when/whether RH might appear?

I guess the Prof will be indirectly justifying how the nurses' concerns and feelings are valid.

I.e. how Rose's behaviour fits into a pattern of (male) perverted behaviour.

Something nearly all women know.

Apparently India Willoughby was there today. Now saying that because no one noticed she was a transwoman it “ Says it all “
Also making various comments about the trial being unfair etc.

I doubt no one would have recognised Willoughby.

It sounds crazy, but I'd really hope that tribunal judges were better informed about the law than the posters on Mumsnet, rather than less.

Many years ago we were told to educate ourselves
we did
we were dissecting the issue when 'no debate' was still the way

BUT
ET judges can only decide on what they hear in their session
hence why they sometimes ask the blindingly obvious

@RoyalCorgi

Well it is our specialist subject, we smash it on Mastermind. 😂

Also with regard to IW, I saw the people in the audience, no IW to be seen, perhaps they were surrounded but all their imaginary friends.

I stood next to IW quite recently and strapping was the first adjective to come to mind. Short mini skirt displayed a great pair of footballer's legs. Surprisingly tall as well.

I would suggest it's a belt and braces approach by the claimant:

"The law is clear that men are not allowed in women's SSS (the belt) and even if the law was not clear men should still not be allowed in women's SSS because... " (the braces).

I can see the nurses might have felt the general public needed the full grotty picture for wider reasons than just wanting to win their claim. It makes very clear that this is a man, like any other man, who is being enabled and feted by a hospital staff leadership as women are bullied into taking their clothes off for him. It gets the point across. It's the war if not the battle.

I have every sympathy with that. So many grotty little secrets have been covered up and hidden by a captured, luxury belief and lanyard drapped press and establishment that should have been all over the front page, but would have messed up the personal agendas of the powerful.

If the dailies front paged the tampons up the bum/wank on the floor of M&S/ peeing and wanking in the ladies with the door wide/ sword in hand chap in frock threatening women who dare to resist him in the ladies/ a few pages of Terfisaslur on Wednesday, it would all be over by Friday. The general public would go nuts. But oh look at all the things being hidden under rugs in all directions for increasingly grubby looking reasons against all ethics or morals.

It's not just in the field of women's rights, and it's not only unwell individuals living in personal fictional universes where if they said it, it happens, and the actual evidence is irrelevant. MPs now seem to be fully embracing this. Whistleblowing and going public is like the poor women having to walk out of the grooming inquiry: one of the few ways to blow a hole in it.

Perhaps India was wearing a disguise 🥸

🤣

IW was probably expecting to get mobbed by people asking for his autograph.

Another great post 👏

It's also worth remembering that some men were given privileged access and wrote the dystopian guidance in the judiciary's Bench Book and no doubt provided the training of dubious quality and accuracy to the judiciary in order to promote their niche version of male control over women.
Although there's been an embarrassing reverse ferret after the abysmal anti women / anti safeguarding bias was publicly exposed, we'll never know which judges eagerly signed up to the delusion TWAW etc. And still believe it 😑

The point is that as IW is not an actual woman he doesn't understand that centuries of being the weaker sex mean that we won't always comment - doesn't mean to say we don't notice.