"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 am finding the business of Mr Rose's appearance a bit of a bugger to untie. I think at least part of it is that we are very visual, the media relies on images and they are concrete whereas a lot of other things that we observe when determining someones sex are not. Being a musician and having sung a bit I always think about what happens when these men open their mouths, they can't keep up the falsetto, even a trained male alto doesn't have a lot of power and volume. Men are just never going to have female vocal chords and will never have our voices, unlike the number testosterone does on women. But that doesn't hold the social resonance of a still visual image, so on balance I think we kind of have to go with it.

It is outing if a transwoman was using the communal and then suddenly starts using a cubicle after a change in policy.

The problem is that they were told they had the right to use women's changing the first place.

It's not outing in general, especially if there are a few cubicles for anyone who prefers more privacy for whatever reason to use.

Perhaps there is a way to support them in the meantime temporarily by i.e. offering an extra half hour on shift so it isn't obvious.

As I said up thread, I can't see how it is possible as a matter of procedure for the Rs to rely on RH's WS without putting him on the witness stand in person or remotely, publicly or privately to swear or affirm to its truth at which point it goes on the record as his evidence in chief. If they are not willing to do that then they can't rely on it. I don't think it can just lurk around in some kind of twilight world.
We've seen more than one witness turn up, take the oath, confirm their statement and be released after a couple of minutes. It's a necessary part of the process. If it could be dispensed with then those witnesses wouldn't appear in person.

Cross post with @Justabaker

Just pointing out that there were two rooms as part of this "temporary" arrangement - a room that opened directly onto the corridor that had lockers they could store their stuff in, and another room that a (single) changing cubicle in where they could get changed. So in theory, anyone looking in from a corridor should have only been able to see fully clothed nurses.

Of course, with just one changing cubicle, nurses may have felt it necessary to change or perform other personal grooming outside the cubicle in either room. I don't think we've heard that in the C's testimony, but it may be in their witness statements.

Justabaker you are amazing 👏

I totally agree. I think at the heart of it, Rose is irrelevant. It is the Trust that is the Respondant and their policies and (in)actions that are what matter here. I think the R/SC would be willing to let RH's witness statement be left on the cutting room floor than create any more of a circus. I don't know what his witness statement would really provide over what we already have.

Perhaps @prh47bridge could give us some real expertise, but my understanding of the English process was: witness are generally required to attend for their evidence to be considered. If both sides and the judge agree then a witness can be let off attending and their statement taken at face value. A tribunal may at its discretion, accept a statement without the witness attending even if there are objections, but should not give the statement the same sort of weight they do to evidence from witnesses who did attend.

Yes exactly that - it moved to more - the evidence we have had from Rose or Roses statement says….

I think @CriticalConditions post was a good summary. They may have been flip flopping on whether RH is going to appear.

People have said that the allegations etc have dropped so he won’t be called.

The only thing that was not brought in evidence was that Karen Danson was harassed by the Theatre sisters being intent on letting Rose be present for KDs gynecological surgery. TW insisted someone KD had been sexually harassed by and that she had raised concerns about should be able to touch her while she was unconscious and her labia was on show. She should have been investigated over that. It’s total handmaiden enabling woman abusing bullshit. Why not hold her down Aunt Lydia while she is assaulted?

However it is in evidence that Rose is harassing individuals, parading around the room in an undressed state, asking women to get naked in front of him, staring at their breasts. Rose has all these allegations to answer. Not turning up means no rebuttal of this evidence.

Is my recollection correct that this hearing was delayed as RH was getting married at the time of the original scheduling and so it was put back to accommodate him? If he now declines to attend (and I cannot imagine NF would allow his WS to stand without cross) I imagine that the panel will not be impressed.

I'm forgetting my manners. Thank you to everyone who pasted TT today, I think there were several good souls who took up the baton! And of course to @Justabaker and the team for their continuing dedication.

Part of the ‘is appearance important’ debate is that we are constantly asked to take into account that a transwoman using a non-female changing room (men’s or gender neutral) would be ‘outed’.

So whilst I agree that men, whatever they look like, should not be in a female changing room, I also think it is important to point out that in the vast majority of cases everyone knows they are men, so one of the ‘detriments’ they claim to be a problem is not, in fact, reality based.

That's a good point, and was pretty damning in the Fife case (especially given the earlier judges' insistence that it wasn't blindingly obvious).

Surely RH needs to appear and defend the behaviour allegations?
Otherwise if the tribunal finds that the nurses were sexually harassed by RH ‘s behaviour in the CR then surely the Trust would now need to carry out an investigation into his alleged gross misconduct and potentially report RH to his regulatory body?

I haven't been able to follow this thread as closely as SP vs NHS Fife due to other commitments, but I'm always happy to respond to questions.

I agree with @NumberTheory. If a witness does not attend the tribunal and is therefore not available for cross examination, the side calling that witness can still rely on their witness statement but it will be given less weight than if they had attended.

Every time I hear the phrase 'The Darlington Nurses'? I start thinking of a traditional/barn/celidh dance like the 'Dashing White Sergeant' or 'The leaving of Liverpool'

I can just hear the caller ' You know how this goes now... (music starts) 'man in the centre, bow to the man, everyone dance around him, Do-si-dos, nurses turn your backs and move away, management in, link hands and circle, change places, men progress and women back..
Finishing with the 'chain of responsibility', forward and back and pass on.... and the 'squaring of the circle'

How regressive. Hell would freeze over before I got escorted up the aisle by a man.

I've just remembered that the judge hasn't addressed what they are going to do about making witness statements available. I think it was left with the parties' lawyers to consider whether they could come up with constructing some sort of website. Which all sounds a bit cumbersome. Why can't the tribunal provide a portal with some read-only links? They must have them in a digital format.

Have I got it right that last week we had 3(?more?) HR bods all insisting that they never manage complaints they only supports managers. And then this morning we hear from two of the nurse's management line (Sandra Watson and Sue Gregory) who said they passed this complaint on to HR because it wasn't one they could manage and HR told them to but out and let HR deal with it?

And that poses the question whether RH's statement will be made available if he doesn't appear.

How about a "supporting the concerns" bit where nobody quite knows what to do and they all end up going in different directions and tripping over each others feet? Utterly gracelessly of course, while desperately trying to pretend they know what they are doing.
I might be tempted to pay actual money to watch.

I wish it was possible to post multiple love emojis! This is brilliant!

YY.

I completely agree that this issue doesn't hinge on whether someone is feminine or masculine in appearance. If men are male they shouldn't be in the women's facilities. However, I do think that it gives a different impression if the individual is feminine in appearance. In that situation, I think people can be better understood for thinking 'what's the harm?', 'they're just going where they're comfortable', 'well you can hardly expect them to be in with the men, looking like that...' Whereas, if the person is 'manly' looking, then there's a much more willful 'TM have a right to use the facilities they like', 'TWAW', 'Cis women should be more accepting' air about it all.

Yes I feel all is not well and harmonious in Darlington!
These batshit policies are produced by HR and the unions and then the nurse managers are left to implement them

Well, they think they're something they're not, so they're delusional, aren't they, by definition.