"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 5

[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&7)
Thread 4, 29-Oct to 31-Oct, TA, AM (day 7) JB (day 8)

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, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, NHS trust HR.
AM – Andrew Moore, NHS Head of Workforce Experience
JB – Jillian Bailey, NHS Workforce Experience Manager

And the heretics who resist conversion must be cast into the fire shunned and punished.

Unfortunately, (just about), those heretics have equal rights under law, and her high priestess act doesn't cut much mustard.

#Sadtimes.

Look, how much time is it going to take to understand all these new concerns?
<flicks through the next five years in the diary>

1970s Les Dawson style

Omg I missed that. So trans people are “transgenders” and lesbians require scare quotes. I wonder if she does the bunny fingers whenever she talks about lesbians.

You don't need to understand them, just be concerned about them.

One of the shocking things about TW's testimony was the disconnect between her 'concern' (sorry) for the 'transgenders' and the 'lesbians' and her othering of them by the way she mouthed the words and put them in airquotes.

She didn't want to talk to RH about it, not out of respect and concern (sorry again) for him but because, as she expressly said, it would make her feel uncomfortable.

I don't think TW is quite as accepting as she thinks she is.

@Boiledbeetle Think one would need to apply co-sign law to solve this.

(A) = b squared + c squared - a squared divided by 2bc

HTH

I imagine that's quite common. Being kind in theory then when you have to deal with a situation, be that a management issue or a physical encounter, you realise it's not all fluffy niceness, but actually unpleasant.

like Cissie and Ada? with Les Dawson

Totally helps.

The answer is two hairs past a freckle.

Exactly what I had in mind, but hadn't actually seen it since it was first on TV, so it must have made a lasting impression.

Maybe you have to add twenty seventy instances of “noise in the system” to the 26 rumbles to get to a conversation.

I wonder how many grievance procedures TW has been through? If she hasn’t been accused of bullying by any of the staff she LMs, I’ll eat my hat. Her intransigence and inability to see issues from different perspectives is astonishing.

Bit of an aside, but I had a giggle when I read this because I couldn't help but imagine it being spoken by a Quaker. It is a pretty good Quaker definition of a 'concern'.

Google AI sums it up thusly:
In the Quaker tradition, a "concern" is a profound, spiritual prompting or calling from God to take action on a particular issue. It is not a mere personal opinion, but a deep conviction that comes from an "Inward Light" or divine guidance, which an individual feels they cannot ignore.

I love the Quakers, but I can absolutely picture them in their 'meetings for business' 'discerning' whether a certain agenda item is truly a concern or only a rumble.

Exactly talking over the garden wall/fence if i remember correctly 😂

Not forgetting Cosmo Smallpiece, a more than adequate depiction of some of the internet based troll TRA’s

No fiddle de dees in the taxi of sad times home though 😂

I’m sorry I couldn’t dial in this afternoon. The TT feed is eye opening enough, and your descriptions have me imagining TW physically resembling Kim Woodburn with the manner of bosom hoiking Ena Sharples mixed with a touch of the honesty of Dolores Umbridge.

Nooooo! I don't believe it! 'Lesbian' in air quotes?!
Unless she means women who say they are 'lesbians' and then drop you as soon as a fine figure of a man shows up😠
There's a few of those I wouldn't mind putting in air quotes😏

There are lots of takes on TW's evidence but to me the key thing is that the panel simply cannot have missed the level of prejudice, unreasonableness, and pure animosity that the evidence showed the claimants were facing at the hospital.

One important thing to note is that the HR and EDI people have spent this week shrugging off responsibility for how the Rose situation was handled in practice because it was the responsibility of the claimants' line management to make the actual decisions and arrangements. This afternoon we saw an example of that line management.

From the Telegraph. It seems apt:

Hospital administration in the 1930s was so much simpler

Further to the remorseless rise of managerialism in the Health Service, an article in the Guy’s Hospital Gazette describes the administrative arrangements of that hospital back in the 1930s. “The day to day running was in the hands of one man, the medical superintendent Sir Herbert Eason – ably assisted by his secretary, the supportive Miss Delaware. The nursing and domestic side was in the care of matron Miss Emily McManus, an imposing figure who visited every ward once a week.” And that was pretty much it.

The same simple administrative structure (supported by a small secretariat) still prevailed, if astonishingly, in 1988 (50 years later) when David Nunn was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon – as he recently recalled in this paper’s correspondence column. By the time he retired in 2014, “there were countless administrators and dozens of ‘directors’, each of whom had personal assistants and other staff”, he writes. “I am not aware the hospital was any better run.”

Or the Yes Minister episode about building a hospital. Lots of managers no medical staff and no patients. It runs perfectly! And eventually ends up with one patient, one of the many managers who had tripped and broken a limb.

God it’s so long waiting for the judgments though. I mean the Peggie trial has basically been a year, these ladies have been waiting a year and a half and I’m sure judgment will take time.

I hope every one of these 2+2=5 incompetent work shy woke idiots get their come uppance.

Of course they probably won’t care - but I would like the claimants to get to read from some one who actually has authority that - it wasn’t ok what happened to them and their rights had been abused. Doesn’t undo it but it does go some way to acknowledge it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyk10lyedvo

Updated to include some of TW's evidence. All very selective.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/25587957.transgender-darlington-nurse-liked-supported/
Some excerpts from TW's statement in which she said she never saw RH only in boxer shorts in the CR and he sometimes changed in a cubicle. How very surprising that RH didn't display himself in his manly underwear to his oh so sympathetic and supportive manager. But did to the nurses who had no authority.

I wonder what they would have done if a man was changing in the female changing room who didn't identify as a woman.

We need Pete back!

Thank you for pasting to those who did. My job application has now been submitted.

I am still really tired. The doctor said the antibiotics don't cause fatigue so maybe it's just been the trauma of the infection after the original operation.

Hopefully I'll start to feel better soon.