"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

This passed me by upthread @IDareSay - who are THEY I wonder. It can't be the Andys, surely they couldn't force Noel Scanlon to hand in his notice over this?!

About T/RH's physical appearance - I read an article fairly recently (but I can't remember by whom or where, but I suspect one of our favourite barristers, possibly Sarah Phillimore?) that said how important it was that such men do appear in court. Their PR is so much 'poor fragrant flower, gets so much abuse when only trying to keep in the background' that when they are in full view it has a massive impact on proceedings. People can really see what the whole thing is about. I know we here know that, but clearly the general public is only just waking up to this stuff and the sight, sound and just the general male demeanour of these men really illustrates our case beautifully. Which is why, of course, they often don't want to appear in court (looking at you, Dr Upton).

I think it's in the folder that contains the newspaper stuff

The defendant's current full name is Rosalie Willow Henderson and photos will show up under that name. At best, he seems to be someone trying hard but who will never likely pass. Appearances are quite deceptive as to age too. From ages/date stamps in older press articles (the father was in press several times as the director of a local community theatre company) I think RH is around 26yo (but, to me, looks much older).

If he's 26 it may explain why 6 years ago at the start of his training there wasn't as much of an issue as he may have still been really young looking and much less manly looking than he does now.

There is a very soft focus one taken in a pub which looks to me like his most feminine moment. It's on poor light and could have been photo-shopped.

There is also a formal? family portrait (with parents, sibs etc) where he appears to be trying to look like his sister.

Keeping my fingers crossed for "Rose".

As long as they all knew where their towels were of course

From Maya's twitter

I disagree. I qualified as an ODA years ago and we worked at the equivalent level to nurses, whether scrubbing or in anaesthesia. Absolutely not at the same level as HCAs - I've never come across HCAs scrubbing in cardiac surgery for example.

I think the respondent’s case is that they were following policy and were taking lots of steps to consider the concerning concerns and get all the right mangers and mangers’ managers involved. There was a process and they were very busy processing it - the buck was being passed up and down the chain of command and sometimes sideways. The nurses on the other hand didn’t follow the correct formal complaint process, didn’t engage with the investigation and went to the press. It’s all they’ve got, but I think that’s why we’re hearing from witnesses like this this morning.

However, I think they’ve shown that so many different people and layers were involved - including the senior executive who resigned - that it will be impossible for the Trust to show that the nurses leaked Rose’s name to the press (unless they admit it) because the whole hospital must have known about this case and Rose’s name - in fact the whole of Darlington must have known - so it wld have been very easy for any journalist worth his salt to work it out.

edited for SPAG

Good grief. I thought that he was middle-aged.

No, because the answer is always n+1

That male-pattern baldness is very unforgiving.

It's also been mentioned on Xitter that the picture was taken in August of 2024, so well after the nurses first encountered Rose in the changing rooms in 2023.

https://x.com/GrumpyOW/status/1981361498870985169#m

Someone astutely commented on an X thread with the wedding-photo posts that RH, despite wearing a (black) dress, was in the traditional groom’s position waiting for his bride (in a white dress) to be escorted up the aisle by her father. Said bride has also taken the name ‘Henderson’.

Funny, that.

Rose's appearance should be irrelevant - whether he was the epitome of machismo or very feminine, he was a) male in what was legally required to be a single sex changing room, and b) behaving in ways in that changing room that made women uncomfortable.

The only reason his appearance is relevant is to make it obvious that no investigation was necessary to find out if the changing room was being used by a male.

Have I read that correctly - did India try to say that the photo of one of the nurses giving evidence was a photo of Rose post transition?

Well, and peaking all those who are under the impression that all trans identifying men are tiny waif-like gentle quiet souls that just want to pee in peace.

I agree with this. I find the comments about his stubble and boxers irritating. He could have a freshly shaved chin and a pair of lacy pants on, he's still a male.

Correct, he tried to claim a picture of Karen Danson was depicting Rose.

That’s amazing. So glad he fact checks before tweeting rubbish!

Yes, I seem to recall when it first came out, there were lots of people saying Karen Danson looked like a man herself, so she had no right complaining about Rose 🙄

Well I have been out and about all this morning, not much gone on today so far. I'm nicely settled in for the rest of the afternoon though.

It's about the PR battle and normies looking in to this for the first time. The appearance of Rose enables them to advance quite a long way in understanding.