@ArabellaSaurus pls fact check with me, if possible?
In an earlier a post I noted that Judge Michelle Sutherland, as I observed her during the BM Kelly vs Leonardo UK tribunal, appears to be the same Michelle Sutherland pictured here, as Trustee of Fidra environmental charity based in North Berwick, East Lothian.. I won't repost all links, but to recap: Fidra ia a small charity with endowment status, and approx 11 employees and 4 trustees. Trustees are noted to be responsible for management oversight, and Michelle Sutherland works closely with the Operations Manager, who in the last year arranged training for Fidra staff on being an ally/safe spaces, provided by the LGBT Foundation.
From further secret squirrelling I think that Michelle Sutherland, with her "strong personal interest in passive housing", seems likely also to be the same Michelle Sutherland featured here, who with a Neil Thompson (sic) self-built a passive house for themselves in North Berwick and showed it off to a Scotland on Sunday publication.
(Their young children are featured in the article, please do not post the names or anything about them here to protect their privacy; any links to the parents charitable endeavours don't need to be spelled out in a way that harms their privacy).
I think 'Thompson', above, may be a misspelling of Thomson, because the photo on the passive house article matches photos of a www.linkedin.com/in/neil-thomson-045a4463 Neil Thomson Director of NB Analytics Ltd. Neil's company is based in North Berwick where a
Michelle Diane Sutherland was also a company Director until 2020.
There seem to be quite a few Michelle Sutherlands in the area but I have only found one Michelle Diane Sutherland in North Berwick.
We can see here, that Employment Judge Michelle Sutherland was intitially listed as Judge Michelle Diane Sutherland when first appointed on a fee-paid basis in 2018
I have also found another Scottish charitable organisation called Team East Lothian, an athletics club, with a Michelle Sutherland as Trustee and current Chairperson. The Secretary of the same organisation is a Neil Thomson. Sadly there are no photos or addresses of Trustees available at this time, but details should be available on the SCIO register from January 2026
If Judge Michelle Sutherland is also a Trustee and the current Chairperson of Team East Lothian Athletics Club, then she will have almost certainly declared this as a potential conflict of interest already, I imagine, given that:
1 Team East Lothian has previously signed its child members and all up to the East Lothian Sports Charter, to embrace equality and inclusion;
2 the club has adopted the ScottishAthletics Equality Policy which, inter alia, has added gender as a protected characteristic in its own hot take on the Equality Act 2010.
Discrimination has been legally defined through the Equality Act 2010. Discrimination refers to unfavourable treatment on the basis of particular characteristics, which are known as the ‘protected characteristics’. Under the Equality Act 2010, the protected characteristics are defined as age (employment only until 2012), disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status (employment only), pregnancy and maternity, race (which includes ethnic or national origin, colour or nationality), religion or belief, sex (gender) and sexual orientation.
3 Scottish Athletics provides rainbow-based Guidance on Equality for clubs and has a Transgender/DSD policy which, if also adopted by Team East Lothian, would mean that there would be few restrictions on sex-based inclusion/exclusion in school athletic competitions, and that 'conversation-based' decisions would be made more broadly on eligibility for inclusion on the basis of gender identity rather than sex.
I should repeat that I cannot definitively link Judge Michelle Sutherland to the Michelle Sutherland who is Trustee and Chair of Team East Lothian. If she is the same person then she has probably already declared her roles as possible conflicts of interest lest otherwise a fair-minded and informed observer should conclude that there could be a real possibility of bias that could have affected the otherwise beautifully drafted and thoroughly spell-checked decision in the case of Kelly V Leonardo.