"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

The judge’s help regarding Jo’s errant watch was perfect.

He really engaged with Jo’s report and asked for clarifications.

What is going to be interesting is the deliberations against the actual claims and how they are summed up in the judgement.

Why hasn't the HSE been involved/reported too in these cases, do we know?

Do they not actually have any teeth with workplaces adhering to the law?

@borntobequiet Some dinosaurs were herbivores so truly NADALT.

It’s a big FO Club welcome 🤬

HSE is an executive agency of government. It does have quite strong enforcement powers but not much resource so those powers are almost entirely used for big failures such as train crashes, building collapses and incidents involving fatalities.

She has changed her view to the Nordic model.

I almost forgot about SC's claim early on that JP advising Sex Matters meant she wasn't an impartial witness - standard practice, cf Naomi/Fife.
SC - SM is very active
JP - it's a human rights org, yes
SC - intervened in Supreme Court, intervention positive
JP - yes
SC - is it reasonable to question your independence.
JP - I'm really glad you asked that, that notion of holding a belief and the relationship to academic independence, just because I hold GC beliefs and I'm an adv board member of SX, does not mean I ignore evidence,
👏

Whenever I've had a procedure at the Doctor's or the hospital that will entail intimate nudity (not just baring a shoulder for a shot) I've been given privacy to get undressed; put the robe on, drop the drawers. I've never been expected to perform a striptease for whatever the health care bod. The nudity is unavoidable but to save everyone's blushes I don't have to make a performance of it. That seems, to me, a recognition of discomfort for all parties not just in being naked but in getting undressed.

Brilliant JP
Sounds like the judge was enjoying their exchange

Thank you to the 'scribes'

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if the NHS did not want to accept Jo as an expert witness, could they not have fronted their own? That they haven't and have only cross-examined Jo means they are happy with her stance as expert and her statement, other than the bits that were questioned?

They focus their inspections and efforts on industries that have a high risk of fatalities or severe injury, from explosions, fire, falling from height, working in enclosed or confined spaces, electrocution etc. They are pretty strict and fearsome and have strong legal powers.

minor edit

I can’t see this in the excellent TT so I’ll have to be careful:
I had written earlier that I was looking forward very much to the oral submissions, because in the previous ETs I’ve watched they were good at summarising the case and bringing out important points. They took place in Scotland, though.

As we haven’t seen witness statements, and in Rose’s case no parts of them were read out, I was looking forward to similar summaries on Tuesday and possibly references to what’s in the statements.

That wouldn’t happen in this case if both NF and SC’s submissions were in written form, and if on Tuesday they spoke principally to answer any questions the panel had after reading their written submissions.

Sigh. ☹️

The respondents dont have much going for them, questioning the integrity of an expert witness is all they can do.

Like others, I really think it's a bit much (completely batshit) that you have to justify why women don't want to get undressed in front of men, either voluntarily, or under compulsion.

But, when you have nonsense arguments like no one knows their sex, and that men who say some magic words are a completely different species to men who don't, I'm guessing you have to absolutely go back to the basics of 2+2 = 4, not 5.

We've all sat here watching men say "if you don't know your chromosomes, you don't know what sex you are, ha!" Eye rolling and thinking what wankers you all are.

And I guess what's just happened is the stone cold, legal, accountable, recorded and official equivalent of, what wankers you all are.

Had to be done.

I agree, and during a procedure they have been very careful to cover up any parts of me they didn’t need to see with separate cloth sheets or rolls of paper.

Hi - I'm going to drop JP an email and Christian Concern to see if I can get her expert witness report.

For me, it was a pleasure to see her in such good form, on top of her material, sparkling in her interactions with the lawyers and the judge.

Having reported on her tribunal, I always felt like I wanted to hug her and pass her tissues.

She's an amazing woman.

It’s utterly batshit isn’t it? It is written into law that separate changing spaces are required for males and females in workplaces. Why are we having to rehash this so many times in a court room?

She has posted on MN, I'm certain at the end if the threads with the results of her tribunal. I'm not certain what username she uses, possibly @JoPhoenix ?

The morning session posts are here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1986728446773297333.html

Many thanks to @BettyBooper for pasting today. I am available for Tuesday's session.

Really good point. Gender ideology is sexist because women suffer more adverse outcomes from its application than men do. The impacts are assymetric.

Down the line when the dust settles, I hope to read an indepth study of why so many men were not only happy to wave GI through, but defended the "dolls" with far more righteous fury than they ever expended on real women.

I find it fascinating. Is it because such men think TW will be grateful for their affirmation, in a wide-eyed, uncomplicated way - unlike pesky real women who keep calling them out on their bullshit? Remember TW have shared feelings of euphoria after experiencing sexual harassment or being patronised by men. Not so much Me Too, as Me Too, Please!

The passionate defence of transwomen and related scolding of "Karens" exploded exponentially after Me Too, around 2017/8. I feel sure it's related. Gender ideology allowed such men to sidestep the increasingly complicated demands feminism/Me Too was making on them, by attacking women and making them the prime oppressors.

A gross simplification I know, but that's why I would love to read a proper study analysing the disproportionately protective stance some men exhibit towards TW.

I wonder what the judge will make of the fact that the other side's representatives were sorely depleted, if not completely absent.

Certainly, to an outsider, it looks like more of the same, we're not listening, we're looking the other way, we can't hear you, la, la, la.

And would go one hundred percent towards explaining why none of this shit 'ever occurred' to any of them.

The passionate defence of transwomen and related scolding of "Karens" exploded exponentially after Me Too, around 2017/8. I feel sure it's related.

I remember at the time, when the twaw crowd really got fired up, women saying 'this is our punishment, isn't it'. So yes, it very much seems related.

Thanks for all your input as ever- I forgot this was happening this morning so just caught up.

It's such a shame research on this has been effectively forbidden by trans captured orgs/ Unis. For anyone interested, thought you might find this open letter interesting (written by a group , FOVAS, representing female rape and sexual assault victims). It dates from when Stonewall/ the gov were pushing self ID 2019 but is still very relevant today.
https://fovas.wordpress.com/response-to-stonewall-2/

There's also evidence on the Children of Transitioners' website about why they often cannot use intimate spaces with men who ID as women in them, and referring to research that excluded GC responders from families affected. One example is here:

https://childrenoftransitioners.org/not-shutting-up/

I agree with your point but also think that it has moved the bigger discussion along by spelling out what some of our female discomfort is based on. On real physical issues that the trans folk cannot ever feel. And that men in ET and organisations do not understand. Its not just the potential for sexual violence; privacy also matters. Taking the two together is WHY woman have separate provisions and we want our rights returned.

Media reporting should comminicate this more widely but I have zero expectation that it will … sigh.

PS I also liked the question on different life stages and the vulnerabilities of each. Id forgotten !
PSS I do hope the JP report has lots of stats on male sexual violence against women. The numbers quantify the real risks.

another link from FOVAS:
https://fovas.wordpress.com/