"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 4

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, KD (day 1 of evidence) and BH (day 2).
Thread 2, 23-Oct to 28-Oct; BH (day 2), CH, JP, MG (day 3&4), TH, SS, ST, LL (day 4), JS, AT (day 5)
Thread 3, 28-Oct to 29-Oct, AT (day 5&6), TA (day 6)

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 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 Seamus Sweeney
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
SW - Sue Williams, NHS Trust HR
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, claimant
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany
CH – Carly Hoy, claimant
JP – Jane Peveller, claimant
MG – Mary Anne (aka Annice) Grundy, claimant
TH – Tracy Hooper, claimant
SS – Siobhan Sinclair, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust
ST – Sharron Trevarrow, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust, former housekeeper and wellbeing officer
LL – Lisa Lockey, claimant
JP – Professor Jo Phoenix, expert witness
JS – Jane Shields, witness for the claimants
AT - Andrew Thacker, witness for the respondents, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, witness for the respondents, NHS trust HR.

“Your other option is, get stuffed”

Many moons ago England played Cameroon in the World Cup and beat them.

Bobby Robson was the England manager at the time and was interviewed post-match, and was asked if he had underestimated Cameroon?
And he said ‘I didn’t underestimate them, they were just a lot better than I thought they’d be’.

This is the Claimants. They were a lot better than the Trust thought they’d be.

.

From TT

NF this is EHRC statement July 2018
have you read before
JB yes I think so
NF did you see it in 2023
JB I don't recall sorry...I may have looked at it

NF this is all pre For Women Scotland
This says that UK law sex is binary - birth cert, trans person that does not have GRC retains sex on birth cert for legal purposes? Did you know what RH was?
JB no I did not know

She seems to be aware of things but incapable of giving them any thought.

It's odd isn't it - I assume that they must be familiar with the concept of reasonable adjustments when dealing with other PCs like disability, pregnancy and religion, but it seems to go out the window with the PC of gender reassignment. It's particularly odd, given that they don't even seem to have a clear policy on what gender reassignment is.

From TT

NF - applying this, assuming it is to be correct, your discim analysis, you see a trans person with no certificate [missed]
JB they have bio sex, yes. This was one of national guidance out there.

NF just looking at this one in context of single sex, a bio male has to be seen as bio male as to whether have access to single sex CR
JB according to this.
[missed poor sound]
something about guidance

from TT

JB I felt overwhelmed by all national guidance all saying something different

She may have a point there - it was the heyday of Stonewall Law, wasn't it?

Trans Women are Women was pushed so hard at that time that it was impossible to argue against it without being called an unkind bigoted fascist homophobic rascist!!

That position appears to be slowly changing thank God!

... which proved less than helpful, whereupon SC advised him to stick to law. 😁

Which was Ben Cooper’s point. If it was any other PC, we wouldn’t be here.

I was attacked myself for saying ‘I think the law needs clarifying’. No doubt was tolerated.

But isn’t that what the in house lawyers are for though? To give a definitive opinion they can rely on? If I’m unsure of anything at my work I consult a specialist.

From TT

JB I felt overwhelmed by all national guidance all saying something different
NF para in your statement para 44. page 200 witness bundle

NF importance you see reference Feb 24 you say ' reread non stat guidance etc' I think all EHRC is all non stat
JB yes
NF This was about single sex service providers

NF - you read before at some point?
JB I don't know when had re read at that point
NF distinction between service provision and employment
JB yes

NF page 151 under series of egs including separate toilets - if used of staff toilets - 1992 legislation, single sex guidance H&S website.
Did you look at workplace regs on this website

JB I don't recall seeing that
NF when did you first hear about 92 reg
JB think it was about, honestly don't know, during this case at some point.I think when I did look at it it talks about I don't know exact wording, male female but before SC ruling on what that meant

J - taking a 10 minute break

Are we at the stage of "it was all too complicated so I ignored the law?"

This is much more steady work by NF compared to earlier HR and EDI witnesses but what's being accumulated is really damning of the respondent.

That's me done - have to get on with sth else.

so lots of national guidance out there, all of which was saying something different, why on Earth were they so confident that Rose was entitled to use the female changing rooms? 🤔 if I was a cynic I might assume that the priority was keeping Rose happy and despite the constant use of the words (insert appropriate Princess Bride reference) I really don’t think they understand the meaning of “balancing rights”.

Re: “discrimination” - I genuinely think that many people understand discrimination to only be something that happens towards a minority group. That there is no such thing as discrimination against men or discrimination against women, only against disabled people, or minority races, or LGBTQ+++++.

And there is definitely an assumption that there is a hierarchy of needs. Some groups are definitely seen to be more equal than others.

Thank you for your service

Thank you very much for your work this morning.

At least JB was honest enough to gave the overall impression that everything was about RH, the main goal was to make sure that RH didn't have reason to make a claim against the Trust, and that they didn't give a shit about the moaning nurses who would most likely shut up eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later.

So Rose’s managers didn’t want to have this conversation with him…. Yet SC suggested that it might have been appropriate for the Cs to speak to Rose directly about the rumours they had heard about him. You could not make this shit up!

I think they thought they were the experts. Given their basic understanding that TWAW then Rose was an actual woman (in their eyes and in the eyes of stonewall law) and could not and should not be excluded from Women’s SSS. It saved them reading up on all the guidance making their jobs very easy.

And we pay for all those NHS staff to attend and sit on their dim dum stupid asrses