"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 3

[AuthorisedCat]

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

Link to Thread 2
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5432103-darlington-nurses-vs-county-durham-and-darlington-nhs-trust-tribunal-thread-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 because both counsel are behaving professionally and cooperating with each other and the panel to get the hearing to run smoothly.

26 signed a letter of complaint

SC- making avail for download seems most sensible
J - feasibility issue
NF - given it's one request, seems reasonable
J - just one at the moment, could open floodgates, lets hope not Hale quoted
NF - Hale says reps best to disseminate
J- best to leave with solicitors?
SC - yes

SC - can't d o tonight, but will speak with AT
J - it's a qu of open justice
SC - yes, just a matter of how
J - hopefully listening and can update tomorrow.
SC - I hope they can hold on.
J - a timing update?
NF - another hour with AT, maybe my solicitor is sceptical?

NF - aware there are others tomorrow.
SC - will update timings
NF - I'll try to be judicious with time.
J - Thank you very much.

ENDS

Whereas Jane Russell behaves like a spoilt brat.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1983193569428152646.html

Another big contrast is that the NHS Trust here also seem to want an efficiently run hearing and not a complete shitshow that NHS Fife seemed hellbent on creating.

Indeed.

Ah, I see! Obviously it's not even just that 26, it's every woman that works there, but that many complaining has to mean something at least.

one of the witnesses said 80% of the women were not happy.

Well it seems to me he knew all about it and he incorrectly directed his subordinates despite issues re suitability of alternative, HS issues.

it seems he has exposed himself as don't know don't care big fat fibber.

NF - understood, if I was to talk about H&S regs you wouldn't know
AT - have glanced at them, couldn't quote them
J - I'd be impressed if you could

I'm thoroughly enjoying this judge.

I think there were a lot of things covered that I would expect to have been in his remit, or he would at least be aware of and be joining the dots and asking the questions. If I was his boss, I'd be wondering exactly what I'd been paying him for.

The bit where he was querying costs and asking for costed options for alternative CRs was right out of the 'deflect and delay' decision avoidance handbook.

Darlington trans row hospital trust 'feared bullying label' - BBC News

I'm another one who still can't drink plain milk. I hated school milk. Couldn't get too worked up about it being scrapped.

Imagine if Rose had joined the nurses in the meeting room! I'm envisioning a scene that would have necessitated Yakkity Sax being played.

According to this Trust at the time although twaw, women can be given a different, if inadequate room, for changing because...? Changing rooms for Male, Female and bigots probably 😠

I know it's outside the scope of the ET but what if a woman wanted female only care? Would Rose have sashayed in anyway? Although there's the disgraceful way the nurse who needed surgery was treated.

Can anyone confirm the following?

From what I remember the women’s changing room had toilet/s and showers and the meeting room didn’t. Is that correct? Women need a toilet when they are getting changed more than men because of menstruation. Showers are obviously necessary for disease control. I maybe getting cases mixed up.

It also seemed to him to be ok to put these pesky mean women in a room that didn't pass H&S regs for fire. That's not a good look.

Given the response to the nurse who needed surgery and who objected to Rose being on her surgical team - the response being “but she’s a woman” - I think we can assume that the trust would have supported Rose giving care to a woman who requested female-only care.

The internal complaint letter was 26. The tribunal case is 8.

It sounds like most of SC's witnesses will be staff involved in handling the complaint and/or providing the alternative facilities. No surprise there. Mention was made this afternoon of one witness who is not now giving evidence. There was speculation last week that RH might not appear but I'm very much hoping that comment wasn't about him given SC's stress earlier today on how this case is about what happened in the CR.

Just caught up. It would seem he's very effectively demonstrated to the judge why the nurses said fuck this, walked past him and told everything to the press.

The judge has entirely nailed the sex-based discrimination and prejudice.

Au contraire @murasaki - it's the first indication of any planning or foresight so far. The isolated meeting room that fails fire regs makes it easier to burn the witches.

As an aside, by my reckoning 7 of the 8 claimants have given evidence. From what was said earlier, today completed the claimants' evidence apart from the evidence of Professor Phoenix.

As HR director your job is to keep your organisation out of tribunals.

Would it be ever so rude to ask AT how that is going?

I got the strong impression that the strongly worded email from 'Big Noel on the Board' about lawyers getting involved and the story hitting the tabloids made AT shit himself. That was the only point in his evidence he expressed any emotion or animation.