"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

It does feel like the HR process is being used as an instrument of obedience and not addressing any of the nurses' actual complaints

The Fear of Decision-Making

"Bureaucracy is characterized by a hierarchical structure, strict rules that no one knows why they came about, and detailed procedures, usually outdated and our of context, serving no purpose, but to exist. While these features are intended to ensure fairness and consistency, they often lead to slow decision-making and an inability to adapt to change. This environment fosters decision paralysis, where individuals are afraid to make decisionsdue to potential consequences, while some employees are skillfully using it to avoid work and effort, and to prolong status quo that suits them until the original task is forgotten"

She'd totally judged them. Incredibly biased against them.

Hopefully soon as I want to go throw crockery at a wall.

From TT

NF In relation to whats at the top. Email re desired outcomes and 3 responses were received but none since April. The email puts ? into context. It says we're instructed re the RP duplicates these proceeding / [schedule of loss is mentioned] [very fast]

If Rose really was a woman, SW, etc, would have treated him with the same contempt as the claimants.

I hope it lives up to the anticipation....

When we get a break, can somebody explain what NF is going on about. Is it a letter from the C's sols summarising the detriment into 3 distinct parts or something?

Have I got this correct

• 26 women complain about Rose in CR
• Rose is given names of 26 women
• Rose starts taking strolls round the wards of the 26 women
• Rose submits a counter complaint, about the 26 women
• HR, who twiddled their thumbs over women's complaint suddenly spring into action now Rose has complained and start calling people for interviews
• women start withdrawing their complaints

Am I right about Rose having the names of the complainants? Hope I am not because that would be shocking.

Rose is the Christ child, and the whole HR system is designed around his protection.

From TT

NF Now go to p64. A doc called draft recommendations prepared for the ET that copies the April email. Thats Dec 24 so b4 the report was finalised. Did u see this correspondence
SW No. I wasnt shown any of this
NF Excuse me a moment.

Not only the names, but seemed to have been updated as to who had dropped out.

I could be wrong I but think early on one of the HR said he's been given the name's. It's definitely been mentioned he was told all 26 names.

New entrant on the tribunal bingo card: "Remit of the investigation"

From TT

NF Excuse me J. I'm aiming to keep this shorter
J If you want to take instructions by all means
[pause]
NF I've asked u about the report on the central issue. it left the Cx where it started. Just acceptance that Rose used CR
SW [missed]
NF U knew this was going to happen
SW It wasnt in the remit

These apparently fragile people are enabled and then nurtured to believe that they can be and do anything they want. They can stalk and intimidate, exact retribution, and that is all perfectly acceptable it would seem.

Utter madness!

I don’t see how this is helping NHS case?

From TT

NF U knew this wld be stressful for the Cs and wld nt resolve things
SW Stressful for all. The remit wasnt to review the policy
NF So the stress on the Cs was for nothing but to impose ? And make their working lives more difficult

The Judge summed the point Fetto is making beautifully - I hope TT captures it all

SW It wasnt in the remit

Oh! Well that's OK then HR need not worry their pretty little heads about it any further.

Remember that, from his evidence, Rose did not know many of them (and they were all liars) so it was probably necessary for him to wander around asking people so that he could put faces to names ...

So it was a foregone conclusion. There was never going to be a revision of the policy, but they didn't tell the nurses that and left them for a year to worry and stress.

They complained.
The policy was TW can use FCR.
End of investigation.
Women go to the press.
Women are put under disciplinary investigation.

From TT

[no sound]
J Is that u covering the purpose point. As high as yr putting it. Bearing in mind statute 6. yr putting that the Cx shld go nowhere but Rose's shld go regardless of the feelings about him.

This was a response to

MarieDeGournay · Today 12:17

NF doing a good job here of showing that the actual concerns of the nurses were less important than the fact that they had dared to make a complaint about Rose.

Why though? I'd love to know more about why they went all out for Rose.

RH seems such a different character to Upton. Beligerent and smug, yes, but there's no big trans following, no 'my people' speeches, no apparent threats to have everyone cancelled?

(I was looking through RH's family members FB photos last night, going back to when he was quite a young teen, and I felt a lot of sympathy for young Tyler. He doesn't seem at all like a Main Character in the family, which has led me (entirely without real evidence tbf) to think that he's someone who has become entitled due to a very long period of coddling and enabling rather than being a particular instigator or campaigner for trans rights)

As a separate matter, this witness seems to be an atrocious person and I wonder if the request for this not to hang over her daughter's birthday was supported so heartily because noone deserves this level of arseiness to hang over their special day.