"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.

And not a word about other people's rights. Stonewall law at its finest, which leaves me indulging a little fantasy about HR executives starting to think 'that could be me.' Preferably at 3am on a cold morning when they wake from a bad dream.

Many years back, I remember my boss saying to me to keep John Humphries (then a ferocious Today programme presenter) in the back of my mind. If I didn't fancy sitting on the stairs on a cold February morning while I explained what I'd chosen to do to the listeners to the Today programme then I shouldn't do it. To that I'd add something he said about interviewing politicians, which was what are the lying b's going to lie about today. I've got no idea about why that popped into my head as proceedings are about to start. No idea at all.

Best practice would be for employers to have unisex bathrooms or to let transgender employees know they can use their preferred facilities.

If anyone can use any facility, all facilities are unisex, just not compliant with H&S regs.

(Ugh at use of 'bathroom' - are they sure they were referring to legislation from the correct country?)

I too was a union rep for many years, within the civil service, and I took on a fair few employment issue cases for members. My union sent me on a fairly long employment law diploma course to give me a solid understanding of what the law at the time was, and then there were regular refreshers as well. I always thought of the HR managers I dealt with as the equivalent to the senior TU reps in terms of responsibility for knowledge of the law and how it's applied etc, but to be honest, the HR teams I dealt with frequently trusted union reps to advise on what the law was, even when reviewing employment policies.

It's also worth noting that the process for adopting an employment policy in the NHS will almost certainly include Trade Union review and sign off of that policy, prior to implementation. I think one of the witnesses referred to a JNCC, which would be a committee of union reps and HR/management. So the union refusing to represent the nurses is not necessarily a surprise, given that the same union will have signed off on the whole transitioning in the workplace policy anyway. Hard to represent a bunch of people who are arguing against a policy you yourself have signed off as acceptable.

Is anyone in to the court room yet?

WFTCHTJ guy sounds infuriating when he repeats WFTCHTJ but lovely when he says WTTC, I find.

Not me

No, still waiting. They've been pretty prompt up until now, I wonder what's occuring.

I wonder, too.

I feel organised today, I'm up and ready before court has started today. I'm sat in my nice comfy spot, got everything open on multiple tabs, got my crochet pattern out and my hook and yarn, all I'm missing is my cup of tea.

Good morning wims.

Back in now but although I'm pretty sure I joined as an observer I don't have the muted icon and nor do the other people in my room. Anyone else got that? How do I make sure I'm muted?

I am organised too Jimmy but I have not fed the chickens (!) or had coffee. I will make that right at the break.

Good morning all

ed to say my room don't appear muted either, don't have crossed out mic icon by names except clerk

Thank you for your post at 9:25, @Justabaker explaining how different things apply to witnesses in Scotland and in England. Very clear and helpful.

I am in now. It's TA being questioned again.

To check i am muted I click the > on the middle left of my screen. That brings up a list of names with the muted symbol next to them. Everyone is muted in my list.

@Harassedevictee wrote

Like any profession there are good, average and poor HR professionals. Sadly we seem to be getting the poor ones who rise through the ranks as they can do strategy and corporate speak but know fuck all about HR.

It may be that it's only cases that those poor ones deal with which get to this sort of ET. We can but hope.

Now muted

Someone's slippers are on camera. 😁

Is anyone here wearing large comfortable brown slippers?!?!

<hides slippers>

No. Not me.

They've muted us all now, which is a relief!

They are also hearing a dog

I think that not being muted means that you can trigger your video to be shared. So muting is the essential step.

Could be.

When I was involved in a tribunal (still at the internal stage - should have gone further, but that's another story) I was kept apart from anyone else giving evidence. Only people in the room were the manager, presiding person, note-taker, respondent, respondent's union rep and my union rep.

My rep was there in spite of the fact that I'd only been called as a witness.

ETA: Scotland.

God that was terrifying even though my camera is covered and I don't own brown slippers!

They are now, but when I looked (after hearing the footwear description) the lower two names in the list did not have the muted symbol.

My experience in a number of Trusts is that HR in the NHS is always utterly incompetent. In contrast when I worked in private industry the HR departments were excellent.