"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

I'm kind of with you Letthem. While I understand the optics argument, it's something we need to build off, not rely on. The purity argument is important to get over to the public too.

Otherwise we are back to the pre-GRA situation where people think keeping Isla Bronson out of of women's spaces is important but there is some point at which a TiM can become so un-manly that right thinking men are right to consider him a non-man and so his place is with women, not men.

J We have no further Qs
SC Nor me
J That completes yr evidence. Which means we have an early bath as we say. We'll be back at 10am tomorrow to finish off the witnesses. Then Prof P on Friday. We could have submissions on Monday? [discussions re when to start oral subs]

Well, that was more illumination on the schedule with no sign of RH at all.

Of course " It's so complex" has always been one of the stock responses. It is meant to dissuade mere mortals from questioning anything. That, and do you remember " rights are not a pie"?

Well they are ahead of time. I wonder if they all go yippee duvet day 😂

I’m only sad I can’t watch Friday AM as I would love to have heard Jo Phoenix.

"We'll be back at 10am tomorrow to finish off the witnesses"

Unfortunate phrasing.

J You discuss times amongst yourselves
SC Would you be content with Tues morning for submissions?
J Yes. If you emailed them by 9am on Monday and then we hear from you from 10am Tues
SC Will they be time limited? [laughter]
NF I have no problem with that
SESSION ENDS

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1985343754622918915.html

They've had enough of having nothing to hear for today.

TT doesn't include the remark the judge made that they'll 'finish the witnesses tomorrow and then break until Friday'. Which could mean they don't intend to sit on Wednesday either.

Witnesses plural. That's Sue Williams and (I didn't catch the name/s?).

But someone did warn us at the start that Rose may not appear at all.

They didn't mention Wednesday. Do you think the witness discussion meetings were all about Rose giving evidence in private without public observing?

In some ways I don't mind as long as TT get to still report and the judge and panel hear from Rose in person.

The Rose-elephant is looming ever larger in the room, but everyone is studiously ignoring him.....

Can we draw any conclusions from Rose not appearing? Does that mean that the nurses claim of sexual harassment is not being contested?

What’s the issue with RH’s Dad?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gkpjne8v8o

I wonder if RH has got a note from his mum doctor saying he should give evidence in private on MH grounds. The continued private discussions about witness scheduling seem too lengthy to be about 'ordinary' availablity matters.

HR boss confirmed to have told nurses to 'broaden mindset' - Christian Concern

@SternJoyousBeev2 I had to google "ROC drill" but no amount of scenario planning on a policy about single sex spaces works if you also have to maintain as a premise that TWAW, and that a TW is any man who says they are. One of the many reasons the phrase TWAW is so insidious and needs to be resisted at all costs.

It's also very important to consider the mirror arguments, "through the looking glass" as it were - this was posted just in the last couple of weeks: https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1o29z8q/workplace_changing_rooms_nhs/

I agree but their own policy references balancing the needs of different groups and I believe also talks about communication. The HR bods couldn’t explain what the policy meant and so a session of scenarios should have highlighted a policy that was unworkable and needed to be revised.

Did u work w Jane Shields? And knew sh'ed raised it
JR Wasnt aware she had
NF What about Radheka, anaes
No

Can any of those observing shed any light on this exchange - is this suggesting that there were people outside of the DSU who had complained about Rose or are they part of the 26?

I think RH's appearance is relevant in the same way that the panel in the FWS case commented that people are not sexually attracted to a piece of paper. It illustrates the absolute nonsense of self-id in that any male (Pete the Plumber or Hayley Cropper) can say they identify as female and are then legitimately allowed to use female facilities.

The matron who gave evidence today made this point explicitly:

NF You asked if policy was aligned and if I came in tomorrow and said I was male could I use the facilities? I was told by Andrew and (?) yes , then said it doesn’t seem right.
NF you seemed to be asking what does trans mean , hormones or just identifying however you feel. You say , maybe it’s our policies that are wrong, because that doesn’t seem right
SW I think that was me yes.

I wonder if this is where the "education" concept kicked in.

"what if the women complain about a TW in their space"

"then they just need to be educated - once they are educated, their attitudes will change and they will joyously accept the TW as one of their own."

I read that thread looking for an argument and only found a massive amount of "but I want" so I'm not going to consider that one, actually.