"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 7

[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)
Thread 6, 04-Nov to 05-Nov; RH (day 10), SW (day 11)

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

But as a rep he probably went to Unison “training”, and we all know what that would have been like!

Interesting pov re overseas nursing recruitment

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5JExHGB8sMEzxaZQhED3Aa?si=ATCPC14eQ720IQ1QtBlr1g

I love Sarah’s article as posted above.

I was thinking that someone needs to seek a judicial review of the governments silly position on releasing the new guidance, as described by NC as unlawful.

What is an interesting development is Sex Matters are intervening in the GLP judicial review, IANAL but it seems to me that the judgement in that case will help move things forward.

Interesting @KindleKlub, that this has filtered back to the Philippines, hadn’t considered that aspect. Plenty of ‘homegrown’ UK RGNs are RC though and no one seems to give a shit about their feelings. As long as the singular male is kept happy, that’s all that matters 🙄

In that press release a nurse, described as a close colleague and ally of Henderson, says he told her that any attempt to conceive with his wife would be via egg collection and sperm retrieval. Presumably this claim was to counter the description of him as sexually active but I wonder if his wife appreciates just how invasive the IVF/ICSI process would be for her if they do go down this route (maybe using previously frozen sperm thus enabling him to continue taking the female hormones he says he has recently started).

Although you would think they would just try IUI first.

Re hostile witnesses - assuming you want to prove X (eg scissors): if you call a witness who said X in their statement but you think they won’t cooperate, you have to ask them if they stand by their earlier statement. If they say Yes, great, now you have evidence of X. If they say No, you haven’t anything, no X. They are not necessarily hostile eg may claim memory issues. If they say No but eg make contradictory statements or otherwise indicate no desire to tell the truth, you have to ask the judge for permission to treat them as hostile. You must XX your own witness to discredit what they have just said in court. So now you have discredited the evidence of non-X, but still need to prove X. For evidence of X, you will need to persuade the judge to rely on the earlier statement rather than the new one, having shown your own witness to be a liar. Never a happy scenario, and when the witness is one of the victimised nurses, absolutely not an option.
Edited for incomprehensibility, ahem

V true. Or any other women.

I do think the commercial argument should be paid attention to, even if women's wellbeing is of no interest....

I had to read that through a few times but got you!

Noel Scanon was Executive Director of Nursing at Darlington, ie an exec level employed nurse. He is Non-Exec Director at Scarborough, which is a governing body role with an honorarium for x days per month or year? So it is a retirement job rather than a return to exec nursing.

No, they are still there but they've been hidden down at the bottom of the list, out of year order. 🤔

My hospital has actively recruited from the Phillipines, in my own department 5 out of 9 nurses are from the Phillipines. They are all Catholic and definitely would object to sharing the changing room with a man. They choose female staff for things like gynae/IVF/any sort of intimate examination.
So far we haven’t had a Rose by any other name situation but it definitely wouldn’t go down well.
It’s also the case that due to other issues in the UK eg immigration related rules/changes in required basic salary etc some of them are actively looking to go elsewhere eg one recently took the necessary exams to go the the USA, whilst advising friends and relatives back home to give the UK a miss.

Please can I just drop in here that the nurses are asking for people to do some gardening. I've just been over there and the garden is looking very bare, it needs a lot more plants.

I feel like the Darlington nurses scandal
has parallels with the grooming scandal.

Here are more females used against their wishes by a man, physically uncomfortable, did not seem to be able to say no, or get themselves out of it, reported it to the trusted correct people, line managers, the unions, all the right people but guess what? It turned out there were consequences to speaking out, which are an awful like coercion.

And the people assessing the complaint had a fundamental issue with accusing the men and would prefer to blame the women.

Now, these women face life long consequences of speaking out against a situation not of their making, professional investigations, financial consequences, mental health consequences etc etc.

I feel like it has similarities to the grooming gangs, but these were professional women, not children.

That's because they've been included in the 2024/25 list. Almost as though they weren't meant to be found...

Here they are: https://www.cddft.nhs.uk/application/files/6317/4843/1218/CDDFT_Open_Board_Papers_May_2025.pdf

Thinking of the future at these hospital units.

We have these nurses at the ET, we have the other nurses who were bullied and threatened but may still work there.

Then an unknown number in Theatres who put up the signs etc. One of the Theatre Managers is on RH's side.

HR is dreadful. No idea about the board.

This is going to take some sorting out unless they intend to let it fester and hope people leave or retire.

Where would find that please?

Links to crowd funders are not allowed but if you did an internet search that included the words "crowd justice darlington nurses" you should find it.

See image

Yes gardening little by little has made such a difference. If anyone can garden 🪴 even a £2 carrot 🥕 it all adds up.

Remember 2+2 =4 (not 5)

Well done for every one who keeps standing up for the truth.

As far as I can tell, the tribunal hasn't had direct evidence of the sexual harassment of the pregnant woman. Whoever the nurse he said it to is, she's anonymous and hasn't said, under oath, that he said that.

So while the fact Beth was told this by someone hasn't been challenged by the Trust, and is therefore accepted, the fact RH said it hasn't been proved. The Cs would have needed to get someone who actually heard Rose say it to give evidence for the Tribunal to consider that it actually happened.

I suspect the Trust's line will be that, if anything, it's just part of the witches' hyperbole, gossiping, making things up and ganging up on Rose.

Not so sure about the scissors. That seems like something could be accepted as having happened without the intent (the menacing nature) the nurses ascribed to it being accepted. But I don't know.

This is interesting but also a bit outdated. At the moment there are more UK nursing graduates than there are jobs available.

What we here forget is that we only have a smattering of the evidence, that is in full in the extensive bundles. That we have not had sight of.

Ordinarily the tribunal does not interfere with the conclusions of defendant's investigations or even conclusions per se, unless they breach the law, do not follow their own procedure, or the conclusions are so unreasonable as to be considered unlawful.

The records of the complaints, the documented “process” the “investigations” and the documented “conclusions” are all in the bundle.

in addition when an employer receives a complaint that might result in an investigation in to the actions or behaviour of a the person complained about, then some kind of preliminary action to prevent further infractions alleged by the complainant should be addressed.

for example redeploying the person complained about, or worse case scenario suspending them.

if the person complained about lodges a counter complaint, then the counter complaint should be suspended until the original complaint has been properly investigated.

That is standard practice.

what is apparent here is that is that based on the existing policy the employer should have dismissed the complaint out of hand and not engaged in a “resolution” process at all.

There is nothing in law that prevents a complaint being made by more than one person.

So firstly they did not follow their own process. Which was to not consider the complaint, in light of their policy.

The second mistake was to deal with RH complaints (presumably of harrassment, breach of confidentiality, and breach of his rights) at the same time.

and thereby muddying the waters.

In the meantime the complainants felt so harassed by the process ( or lack thereof)

they went to the press, a whistleblowing exercise, we may not have heard this argument, but it stands in light of all the law even preceding the SC ruling.

what is before the judges in the bundle will lay bare to them what complaints of a serious nature were made and how these were not addressed at all.

they will not have to make extensive findings of fact about the truth of the complaints, it is so very more about how they failed to even contemplate them.

The point that NF was making was the policy was none negotiable, and everything that flowed from it was a witch hunt.

this will be a win.

Thank you, @Hedgehogsrightsarehumanrights Very helpful.

What we here forget is that we only have a smattering of the evidence, that is in full in the extensive bundles. That we have not had sight of.

Do you think we might get a hint of some of this evidence in the submissions?

Well i hope so or my attempt at an adequate legal analysis will cause me to name change in embarrassments