"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

Obviously the HR people had to be back at HQ because Friday afternoons are such uplifting days to hand out bad news letters to the next round of people up for investigation or disciplinaries.

BREAKING -
@PoliceScotland have informed @ForWomenScot & @SpeechUnion
they've concluded their ‘review’ into the criminal complaint made against FWS Director Susan Smith. She will not receive a Police Recorded Warning or be subject to criminal charges for alleged ‘minor vandalism’ outside the Scottish Parliament on 4 September 2025. Police will be taking no further action in relation to the complaint made against her. Susan has been offered a meeting with senior officers at Police Scotland and will be taking up that opportunity to discuss her case and the wider issues raised - particularly the need for women to feel protected by law enforcement.

So the glare of daylight does have an effect!

Hooray!

Shame they ever took the complaint seriously.

Having now read JP's expert report, this document should be compulsory reading for every HR department in the UK. It is extremely clear and well written. Shame that she's had to state the obvious but there it all is in a concise document.

I'm being blind, I'm sure - where are you finding JP's report?

Here, from up thread

But are they recording it against her as a hate incident or whatever?

How are you, Myrtle, any better?

I'm sure she will ask them - I wonder who will have the front to meet with her?

I was far more charitable and inclined to think that somebody with a gram of sense on the Board* had thought "FFS, the combined salaries of this lot must be costing us best part of £1/4M and they are just sat there like a living display of the Pantone pink shades".

I imagine similar thoughts occurred to the panel over the course of the week.

The penny just dropped for me as to why they're not at the ET - it's Friday of course. Ever found anyone with that kind of gobbledygook job title at work on a Friday? WFH or at an important meeting (aye right)

My mum told me all about this fifty years ago, don't know where she got it from. She said that during the war it was found that women adapted to life in barracks much more poorly than men did, because of the enforced and constant lack of privacy - and that was just sharing with women. I bet there are army records of this somewhere gathering dust (though she did also see the Haymarket Theatre's resident ghost)

Well just read the report too, excellent stuff, i especially like the reference to the research conducted about male and female patients which presumably was commissioned by the NHS. (😂)

As for SC his cross examination was a wet lettuce, and if the respondents could come up with an alternative expert who had the opposite point of view, they would for sure have produced it.

So we can safely assume there is no evidenced research to the contrary.

Surprise, surprise.

Upthread i noted the Stonewall analysis of TW’s in female services as being of no consequence was pretty pathetic.

I still have no clue what the defence is

That was an excellent read. Very clear as to why the women would legitimately be in a state of fear and distress at even just the thought of, never mind actually encountering, the bloody man the Trust had allowed unfettered access to their semi naked bodies.

Some of you youngsters can probably help my memory here, but hasn't there been a big shift in style of female changing rooms in department stores over the past couple of decades (okay, closer to 1/2 a century) or have I just gone more upmarket?

Back in my teens I distinctly remember that a lot of changing rooms in Chelsea Girl/Topshop/Dorothy Perkins were just big communal curtained affairs. At some point stores switched to 'floor to ceiling' curtains (that you hoped didn't gape) for single cubicles. Aren't most now single (full or partial) doored cubicles?

And also his.

Absolutely.

That's interesting, @thewaythatyoudoit . I wonder if that is because, not only the bodily norms and attitudes discussed in the tribunal today, but also women's greater sensitivity (on average) to 'other minds'.

What I mean is, women are much more likely than men to be constantly monitoring the mental state of the people around them, trying to divine their needs, any possible frustration, judgement, anger. It is socially exhausting and I know I'm not alone amongst women in sometimes heartily wishing for the physical absence of people I care about, just to get a rest from this constant data stream.

I kind of imagine men in barracks to be able to exist in and for themselves most of the time (except when conflict breaks out). Whereas for women I imagine it as a constant open sore of mutual awareness.

I think a lot of men just don't get this. At all. It is like colour blindness. Or perhaps like not having synaesthesia. They react to the presence of emotional awareness as if it was something weird, obscure, needing to be pinned down in objective data so that it can become comprehensible to them. Whereas for those that do possess this sensitivity, it is the unawareness that is incomprehensible.

Yes, totally, constant judgement and expectations.

I remember entirely communal ones as a teen in the 90s. Female only, obvs.

I think it depends. There are still some curtained cubicles - especially in older or smaller high street stores. Thank God the communal dressing rooms have not made a comeback.

Totally. Communal changing rooms were a thing. And very uncomfortable they were too.

No one wants to be trying on something they think might make them look awful, or is way too tight, or be a bit risque in front of other people.

And women like to come out of the changing room and look at the full length mirror to get some kind of context. Again, no one really wants to do it in front of other women, but they REALLY don't want to do it in front of men.

It's personal.

On the rare occasion I take DH with me, I don't come out and show him anything that I'm not just about to buy. I really don't need his opinion on something that I don't like 😄

@Madcats I nearly had a conniption when I moved to the UK mid 80s and went onto the changing room of Etam or Chelsea Girl or whatever it was. I had never seen a communal changing area before and was horrified at idea. Who wants to discover something is hideously unflattering in front of an audience?

I can understand what you say about women in barracks. From the age of 10 I spent some years in a boarding school and went from having my own bedroom to sharing with several other girls, some of whom I didn't get on with. The only real privacy there was in your head. It could be excruciating and I hated it. Add men into the mix and it becomes unbearable. Lack of privacy causes huge stress and I wish this was more widely recognised.

The Scotsman says that Police Scotland have apologised to her; which makes it all right, doesn't it? (sarcasm intentional.) Meanwhile, have they charged anyone with wasting police time? Or under the Public Order Act for his counter demonstration? Or disciplined any police officer?