"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

SC I have no further Qs
J Thank you SC. Just bear w us a moment. We dont have any Qs. Do u have any re-exam?
NF No
J We're doing well for time and have finished C's witnesses. Now the R's witnesses. Apart from JPH, who is no-ones. We have Mr Thacker next

So, the start of the respondent's witnesses. Argumentation from SC has sharpened up immediately.

Ooh, SC getting snippy about JKR!

He referred to her as ‘a children’s author’.

OOO er!

Interesting Jo Phoenix is not a witness for either side so I wonder if she has applied to intervene?

Eesh!

Could it mean she’s an independent expert witness accepted by all sides?

SC There is one thing I'd like u to look at. J What are u proposing and how long do u need? SC Now is fine. Are u referring to the index to see the nature of the documents? Seeing that it's permissable to cross witnesses on evidence used but much cross hasnt happend

That would be interesting. Could Darlington be keen to clear up this mess..?

SC How will they Q re s22 of the EA2010. This arrived at 5.30 and not sure which witnesses this will be used with. They need to be able to prepare what to say. Just being told to be used w their WS.

SC I must flag that despite what the media and politicians and childrens authors say this case is not about the SC judgment. Am concerned are trying to braoden beyond RH behaviour and how the trust responded. How will this be used by the court?

NF We have witnesses on the R side who refer to guidance as ref to in the bundle. Also refs to content and correspondence that;s referred to by Rs witnesses. So items in the bundles and the docs. I'm aware of what I can aske witnesses or discuss my submissions w witnesses

TT

SC There is one thing I'd like u to look at.
J What are u proposing and how long do u need?
SC Now is fine. Are u referring to the index to see the nature of the documents? Seeing that it's permissable to cross witnesses on evidence used but much cross hasnt happend

SC How will they Q re s22 of the EA2010. This arrived at 5.30 and not sure which witnesses this will be used with. They need to be able to prepare what to say. Just being told to be used w their WS.

SC I must flag that despite what the media and politicians and childrens authors say this case is not about the SC judgment. Am concerned are trying to braoden beyond RH behaviour and how the trust responded. How will this be used by the court?

Happy to copy and paste, unless I'm stepping on someone else's toes?

Sorry @Harassedevictee I got impatient!

Can anyone explain what this bit is about?

I think SC said something to make it clear that her evidence was not necessarily accepted by the Trust.

@AuthorisedCat please if you can do it my phone is glitchy and slow.

Something earlier worried me. Going back to the fisticuffs between the counsel, SC claimed that this ET is about RH's conduct in the changing room and how the Trust dealt with that. And nothing more. I wonder if that's true.

I wonder the same. Would the tribunal need the independent witness JP if that were only the case?

I don’t understand the comment that this case isn’t about the SC ruling. Surely the Equality Act is relevant here, and the SC ruling didn’t change anything, it just clarified the law.

What it’s about is how the employer (the trust) acted in responding to employment issues (those raised by the nurses)

It’s a clever way of phrasing it as it presumes that RH had a right to be there in the first place. But he clearly didn’t based on the law.

It sounds like few of the arguments around SSS will come out in witness exam and cross as they will save the legal arguments for submissions. But we should get a feel for the attitudes of the respondent witnesses.

It depends specifically on the claims made by the claimants. Do they have claims for which the SC judgment is a deciding factor?

Well, is the Trust agreeing it was wrong to have a policy that placed RH on the women’s CR? The complaint by the witnesses seems to be that a man was in the CR at all, not just what he did. I guess it depends how the complaint was framed though.

I can, no problems. I missed that last bit.

NF We have witnesses on the R side who refer to guidance as ref to in the bundle. Also refs to content and correspondence that;s referred to by Rs witnesses. So items in the bundles and the docs. I'm aware of what I can aske witnesses or discuss my submissions w witnesses

NF But some had a job of dealing w these issues. But I wont debate the law with witnesses but will ask how they got to conclusions they did J [clarified re how counsel can question witnesses] I can understand SCs concenrs w this arriving the night before but yr not going there?

NF I'm not J Where in WS are u concerned? SC For example, WS p122 NF That's referred to in p67 J [can't hear] U want to clarify w Mr Thacker what he's referring to? NF Yes, if we get that far Sc If it's just labelling I cant object J That seems reasonable