"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

That dress and get up is more Beetlejuice than Arwen.

The first part of that news report: "Rose Henderson, who is a biological male who identifies as a woman."

Cassandra was Greek.

She was cursed with being never listened to or believed because she changed her mind about wanting to give Apollo head.

Even the fact that women aren't believed in mythology is due to their failure to put out.

Women don't want to perved on whilst getting changed and are told that this is unacceptable behaviour, because women must always put out if a man demands it.

Ive had a break from following this, to come back and see Tyler has described wearing boxer shorts as he needs to as he's male and described not having breasts no sh1t Sherlock

This is a man telling everyone he's male. The rest of it is all just 'dressing up'. The amount of time, energy and money wasted on a lie is incredible. Better all round if those who know him had originally said, "Tyler you're a man".

Of course, Rose was a hobbit, the sweetheart of Sam Gamgee, so Henderson's choice of name is an odd one for a hulking great Tolkien fan.

Exactly, @Boiledbeetle . Rose didn’t know them, so how on earth can they be expected to know that he identifies as a woman?

Praise for the alliteration - Pete the plumber and Rose the roleplayer.

Andrew Thacker waering a trans tie.
https://x.com/boswelltoday/status/1983538703461998637/photo/1

Boiledbeetle · Yesterday 19:08

I knew Rose's hair style looked familiar.
Upton sports the same style

There's a special on Thursdays. All trims done in the dark, with the stylist wearing boxing gloves.

I'm still not fully understanding the background to the claim that Rose had been using the female changing room for four years.

Is this four years until the first complaint?
Is this continuous use of the same changing room?
Was he a student during that time so attending less often?
Have the complainants given a reason why they did not object earlier?
Were some of that four years during covid where people were less likely to complain?

It is an easy line for Rose but does it hold up to scrutiny?

Edit grammar

He started at the hospital as a student in 2019. He used the female changing room from that point. He worked different shifts as a student to the shifts he worked when he started employment there in Oct 2022. He became aware of complaints in 2023, so four years since starting changing there, but only a few months since starting working there.

I recall (reading TT) that one of the nurses said they'd first raised the issue very informally in 2022, and nothing happened so they and several others complained again in 2023, but I can't find that in the TT transcripts so I may have misunderstood.

RH also said that during covid the students spent less time on placement, which could account for quite a bit of missed CR lurking.

Also, when you think back to how stressed the NHS was by covid, its quite likely that people may have been too burnt out/grief-stricken to press complaints during those times.

Oh my this is too good not to share, look what ad I got when reading about the fragrant Rose in the Times (thanks for the token @Igneococcus )

Can anyone wiser explain this to me, please?
Women are exhorted to be kind and inclusive and think how hard it is for Rose.

At no point does Rose spare more than few seconds to think about the impact he's having on other people. He's totally focused on his 'right' to be there which doesn't exist and no one has the guts to point this out.

Does this mean that Rose and NHS Darlington are neither kind nor inclusive?

To be very fair, we're all applauding Bethany's legendary "He's male (and Idgaf about his feelings)". I genuinely wish people would be kind and think about one another, but they don't have to. (And in the case of people with suicidal empathy, sometimes they shouldn't).

That's why we have rules, and managers to enforce them. And that's why I think the C were very wise not to go for Rose as a co-respondent.
(I still think he's a horrible person, mind you, but that is unfortunately legal)

Kind and inclusive is strictly a one-way street.

And none of it comes the nurses way.

He was thrilled to contradict NF about working nights, wasn’t he??

X couldn’t have happened because students don’t work nights.

NF rightly said: let’s put the date to one side for now.

I thought it was interesting at about this point, or during this exchange he made it clear that it was a pair that were possibly ripped at the waistband.

Some people wear something underneath, others wear just a bra and pants. I always liked to wear slightly oversize scrubs, so I'd wear a t-shirt underneath for modesty (there's a lot of bending in theatres work and scrub tops are V-neck). All NHS hospitals will have a 'bare below the elbow' policy for infection control, so as long as your top is short sleeved, it's ok.

I was cared for by a student nurse on nights.

Could be different in tTheatres I guess, as it will be emergency and on call staff only with the vast majority of operations happening during the day.

I still think that it's relevant for the culpability of the trust. If Rose had been blameless in conduct, shyly nipping into the shower cubicle, taking the very first or very last opportunity to change, etc., then the Trust would have been wrong on the technicality of a man in the ladies changing room and responsible for rectifying it as soon as it was brought to their attention.

The fact that the conduct of Rose is allegedly to lurk, to stare, to harass, and the trust were told about it by many different staff, on many different occasions, then formally told about it by a group letter, etc., puts the culpability of the Trust far higher, I think.

I agree. I was once accused of neglecting a baby's needs when I was in NICU. The parent was distressed and it was completely understandable, but it was also distressing for me. I was able to defend myself by telling the nurse in charge exactly what colour and pattern the soiled blanket would be when she checked the dirty laundry, to prove that I had changed the baby, because I was challenged hours after the event. Even now, 20 years on, I could tell you the colour and pattern of that blanket. But that's because it was a 'moment in time'. I was young, new to NICU, and I'd never had anyone complaining about me before, so it was etched in my mind.

I can't tell you the colour or pattern of any other blanket I ever changed, or which baby I looked after when, because there were so many. They all just blur.

The very very obvious answer is because he is male. Trans rights are no more than a cover for male entitlement. No woman in the land would make the choices he has totally unthinkingly. The obtuseness only comes with expectations created by generations of women being treated as less then men, backed by policies that also do not consider women to be real people. IT IS THE FUCKING PATRIARCHY.

That's what I suspected so I'm with Naomi Cunningham when she said 'I am not kind.' (Although, of course, I'm kind and downright adorable when people treat me fairly and I do the same back up.)

What is so glaringly obvious is that if he really was a woman, he wouldn’t constantly put himself first.

I can’t imagine many women who would see the absolute carnage (that they have caused), and arrogantly continue using the changing room.
A woman would remove herself from the changing room, and decamp to the crappy office.

I’m also v surprised that he didn’t join the nurses in the crappy office to get changed in.
If he really was a woman, why didn’t he also get changed in there??

You’re absolutely right, it is a cover for male entitlement, and it makes me sick.

I'm going to quote this in full.

Day 5 | The Darlington Nurses v County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust

🚨“It Hadn’t Occurred to Me”: The Day the NHS’s Inclusion Policy Fell Apart in Court

At the Newcastle Employment Tribunal on Day 5, the Trust’s Director of Workforce, Andrew Thacker, looked like a man discovering his own policy for the first time.

For four days, the Darlington nurses had told the panel how they were ordered to “re-educate” their instincts, how one survivor of sexual abuse had panic attacks in her own changing room, and how complaints were brushed aside as “non-inclusive.” On Friday, it was the Trust’s turn. What emerged was astonishing.

Thacker admitted that the “Trans in the Workplace” policy—the one that let a male colleague identifying as female into the women’s changing room - was still in force a year after he’d called it “not current.” He’d even emailed subordinates asking for it to be “expedited.” Yet it remained untouched until March 2025. Why? “Capacity issues,” he said. A policy affecting thousands of staff delayed because someone retired

He was asked if women were entitled to privacy from men while undressing. “I guess it would be reasonable,” he ventured, before insisting that discomfort “could apply either way.” Pressed on whether a woman might fear “an unshaven man with a deep voice” in the next cubicle, he retreated into abstraction: it depended, he said, on “how that person presented.”

Fetto KC, for the claimants, read the policy back to him. If women objected, they were told to change elsewhere. “So the women move, not the man?”
“That’s your interpretation,” Thacker replied.
No risk assessment had been done. “It hadn’t occurred to me at the time,” he said - words that seemed to hang in the air like an indictment. He accepted that 26 nurses had complained, yet spoke as if this were an unfortunate public-relations glitch rather than a welfare emergency

His answers came in the measured tones of a bureaucrat: careful, bloodless, faintly incredulous that anyone might expect more. Inclusion, in his hands, had become a slogan without thought, a hierarchy where women’s discomfort was a footnote to someone else’s affirmation.

By the end, the Trust’s policy sounded less like equality and more like abandonment dressed up as virtue. The tribunal adjourned with HR manager Tracy Atkinson due next. But the damage was done. For all the management speak about balance and inclusion, Andrew Thacker’s phrase will be the one remembered: It hadn’t occurred to me

And now I'm going to ask you to ponder about the Green Party's line on Bristol Council in this context, who clearly have had this occur to them - so they have officially banned discussion of the subject, and where that might leave them legally in future - especially if this and the Sandie Peggie case find for the complainants.