"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

@ItsCoolForCats wrote This HR guy seems similar to the Leonardo HR guy, but worse.

Just when you thought it wasn't possible to be worse, along this one comes.

It’s been all over the papers, the Sec of State has commented, the legal fees are high, significant numbers of staff are complaint, but personally although I’m the man in the hot seat, I know nothing about it.

Am running behind a bit, so won't spoiler myself, but do I spot on 'ooh!' incoming?

Re HR directors being male, my recent bit of the NHS was exactly 50:50 at board level. Which sounds good until you spot that the organisation as a whole is almost 80% women.

More scary is that he has indeed given this thought and these are his conclusions, his view, “what’s the problem you unreasonable women”, total Misogynist,

NF name dropped Wes Streeting earlier. Which was nice.

Quite it cannot be credible that he knew nothing about it. Given it was all over the press. It is impossible to believe there were no briefing and strategy meetings, as soon as it was in the public domain.

Hence NF line of questioning with regard to document disclosure. There is more than a mere whiff i would say.

So the nurses complaint was seen as part of a 'Bullying environment' and they were the bullies...

Your safety and dignity can go hang, we need to look virtuous, so suck it up.

Er, maybe you shouldn’t be bullying female nurses if you’re worried about your reputation for bullying?

Does anyone else want to have a crack at c+p-ing from TT this afternoon? I'm happy to continue if not.

Are the Claimants' legal team making their written witness statements available after they give evidence? Selected quotes are great but it's so helpful in understanding the case to have the full thing. This happened in one of the previous cases, I forget which now.

from TT

More Abbreviations:
TG - Transgender
TW - Transwoman
CR/CF - Changing room or changing facilities
WS - Witness Statement
WA - Whatsapp
CLC - Christian Legal Centre
SEAL - Surgical Elective Admission Lounge
DSU - Day Surgery Unit

I'd be grateful if you would continue @AuthorisedCat . It's not something I could manage.

Unless anyone else would like to volunteer?

Where are they all? Has AT locked himself in the loo?

Giving himself a talking-to, i hope.

Having read further on the addition to the particulars of the claim regarding Schedule 22 of the EQA.

Schedule 22 allows for other adjustments beyond that of disability that are justifiable. Such as reserved or additional days off for religious observances, which would otherwise be unlawful. (As to discriminate or treat unequally those without the particular religious needs)

It would seem to me that part of the written defence is probably that they were obliged to make an adjustment re changing facilities available to RH, as he declared he was transitioning, to be a woman.

The amended claim re S22 would therefore be a claim that the adjustment re the CR’s was unlawful and discriminatory/harassment to women.

Back in - room empty waiting for everyone to arrive.

We're back online but everyone seems to be still out to lunch.

You said it..

That’s good for me, cos, i’m not home from my trip to Lidl yet!

They must be waiting for you!

I love your one liners criticals

edited to try to remove Meerkat who is funny for the first few minutes but maybe not for the entire afternoon! Anyway, the page will move on shortly, as soon as the room fills up and Mr Big Guy starts talking again...

Edit to my post of 13:36 about the layout of the courtroom.

Now we have a view I can add - there are only two rows of tables and posh wheely chairs, then two rows of normal chairs for observers, with arms though.

So even more noticeable that Mr HR chose to sit at one of the only two 'better' rows.

We resume. J - we have a request from a BBC reporter for a copy of witness statement of AT, JS and ?? I responded saying we had a spare copy. But the request is for digital. I haven't provided, not sure it's for us to do that. I only have in a bundle PDF. I raise as we may

He is a key defence witness so entitled to sit where he did