"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 6

[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)
Thread 5, 31-Oct to 04-Nov; JB (day 8), SW, CG, JR (day 9)

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, NHS 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
AT – Anna Telfer, NHS Deputy Director of Nursing
SW – Sandra Watson, Matron for General and Elective Surgery
JR – Jodie Robinson, manager of Rose

From his WS quoted in the Darlington Times he has 'top and bottom dysphoria' ?? That's a new one.

Certainly...

🎭 Performative Dance Routine: “Barristers in the Digital Fog”

A surreal, satirical ballet in five movements, set in a wood-paneled chamber echoing with legal tradition and technological confusion.

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🩰 Act I: The Summons of the Cloud

• Lighting: A single spotlight on a dusty desktop computer, humming ominously.
• Movement:

- Barristers enter in slow, deliberate strides, robes billowing like sails. - They circle the computer, arms raised in reverence, then recoil in fear as it beeps. - One barrister attempts a pirouette of confidence, but stumbles—his wig askew.

---

🎨 Act II: The Tools of Misunderstanding

• Props: Etch A Sketch, typewriter, fax machine, shredder.
• Movement:

- A pas de deux with an Etch A Sketch: one barrister frantically twists knobs, the other mimics typing mid-air, their gestures growing frantic. - A trio forms around a typewriter, tapping in rhythm, then breaking into chaotic stomps as the ribbon jams. - A fax machine is wheeled in like a sacred relic. They bow, feed paper, and leap back as it screeches. - The shredder is mistaken for a scanner. A soloist performs a tragic arabesque as his statement is devoured.

---

📉 Act III: The Collapse of Hope

• Lighting: Flickers like a dying fluorescent bulb.
• Movement:

- Barristers attempt to mime uploading documents—fingers fluttering like birds, then drooping. - One performs a slow-motion fall, arms reaching skyward, clutching a USB stick like a relic. - They gather in a circle, heads bowed, performing synchronized sighs and shoulder slumps.

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🪑 Act IV: The Office Chair Requiem

• Props: Rolling office chairs.
• Movement:

- Chairs are spun in solemn procession. Barristers collapse into them with exaggerated despair. - A slow, mournful waltz of wheeled defeat ensues—chairs drifting aimlessly, barristers slouched, arms limp. - One barrister attempts to rise, only to be gently pulled back by invisible cords of bureaucracy.

---

🎼 Finale: Silence and Paper Dust

• Lighting: Dim amber glow, like a forgotten library.
• Movement:

- Barristers freeze mid-slump. A single sheet of paper flutters down from above. - They watch it land, unmoving. - Curtain falls to the sound of a distant dial-up tone.

It didn't occur to me that they might be upset, but when I found out that they were I carried on anyway, as I am speshul and they are not.

I don't know for sure but it may just be that a relatively small solicitor's office can't be sure that they have the server capacity to manage an unknowable number of concurrent download requests in a very high profile case like this?

'Since returning to work, Rose is now using a separate changing room and and the female changing facilities, the statement read.'

From the Darlington Times report. What does that mean? A separate CR and the female CR?

That's the problem with lying. You have to keep track of what you've said, and sadly, Rose hasn't done as well as I suspect he thinks he has

Unbelievable, isn't it.

And then has the bloody cheek to complain that they describe his behaviour, and their reaction to it.

And how upsetting that is for him

Boom!

And he was asked and said he does it every time without fail.

It means that he exposes himself when he
takes off his own clothes,
puts on dirty scrubs,
takes off dirty scrubs,
puts on his clothes, gets new scrubs,
takes off his clothes, puts on new scrubs.

So boxers are out more than necessary which undermines his suggestion that he is always clothed and modest in the changing room.

That is brilliant, Boiled

Act I: The Summons of the Cloud

• Lighting: A single spotlight on a dusty desktop computer, humming ominously.
• Movement:

- Barristers enter in slow, deliberate strides, robes billowing like sails. - They circle the computer, arms raised in reverence, then recoil in fear as it beeps. - One barrister attempts a pirouette of confidence, but stumbles—his wig askew.

That non-binary bloke from GCC immediately sprang to mind.

I reckon Matthew Bourne's ballet co could make something of this!

Put it on Scribd. Let that website finally do some good, to balance out all the evil swearing I've ever done at it.

which means, apparently, that poor Rose doesn’t “like how either part of my body appears” - hinting at a somewhat reductive view of the human body

Well he cannot dislike his lower bits if he is using them (or intends to use them) to procreate

so implausible

I think the Witness Statement issue is that the website they are published on must stop it from being copied or downloaded. It’s unlikely either solicitor or the court can achieve that quickly if at all.

Remember most ETs have no public watching, and certainly even less have people watching remotely.

I think the difference was that he was qualified by then and on a full roster. Not saying what he said was true - but it was evidence that in 2020 he was a student and in 2024 he was qualified.

Back to the scrubs thing. If scrubs are tried on and found wanting (imaginary ink stain, small tear or genuinely wrong size) should they be deposited in the dirty scrubs pile? Is it ok to put them back on the clean shelf for the next person unsuspecting woman.

I may have read too many threads about M&S returned underwear.

(Firstly, applause for @Boiledbeetle 's vivid performance art piece...)

We're not going to get any resolution re what happened behind the closed doors of the changing room, are we? It's all he said/she said. So I guess the focus will be on assessing whether the trust management handled the complaint process lawfully. And whether the nurses conspired or overstepped in turn, by starting a petition and going to the press.

Maybe it doesn't matter what happened in the changing room, or whether there was a misunderstanding about comments and glances? As someone upthread said, the trust is recklessly exposing a subset of male employees to potential complaints of sexual harassment and voyeurism, when safeguarding would otherwise be upheld eg university staff keeping their office door open when they see students 1:1, or male gynaes having a chaperone.

Forgive me if this is incoherent - am full of the cold.

Then issue a private link, which observers need to ask for. That way you can know exactly how many have been issued, and limit it if necessary. Perhaps change the link every day, and tell the requesters it will only be valid for that day.

There’s a risk that, once downloaded, the documents might get out into the wild, but that’s also true with recordings or screenshots from the tribunal. Observers are told that they mustn’t make them: they could also be told that they mustn’t share the pdfs.

I don’t think this is difficult - it’s the way audition material is made available by most of the amateur theatre groups local to me, issued with stern warnings that the materials must be destroyed after the auditions.

I did wonder that myself!

Like holey boxer bollocks, Batman

Is that RH’s witness statement upthread in the link or is a statement RH has released to the press?

People have to download it to read it - or so my IT professional DH 😀 just told me.

As to security, the link should be issued with the J’s warnings not to share it, similar to the ones the observers get.

Edit: My mistake, you’re talking about them being published on a website, which people could be given a password to enter. Not a link to a pdf of witness statements.

@Keenovay The witnesses who made allegations about what happened in the CR used different incidents I.e. it wasn’t all 7 claimants saying on 10th June xyz happened. For example KD was alone with RH.

There has been no evidence so far, nor has it been suggested, that the claimants got together and made up the incidents. There is evidence that some witnesses thought the incidents were “exaggerated” not that they didn’t happen.

On the balance of probability 7 witnesses giving individual examples vs 1 person saying none of them happened it’s likely the 7 are more credible.

Surely you just read them online.

Genius! Thank you.