"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 8

[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)
Thread 7, 05-Nov to 11-Nov; SW (day 11), closing submissions

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 now complete. Submissions are being made on November 11th. 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

I thought Bethany said he was changing elsewhere. I cant see it in TT notes but am pretty sure as she was the only claimant I observed. Under XX when asked what reasons RH may have had for alleged harassment she said words to the effect that RH had been made to change elsewhere & was unhappy with them for that.

I think I remember it being said in the tribunal that, they 'cobbled together' a changing room for Henderson at the cost of a couple of thousand pounds. Henderson was off work and has now returned and is working at the hospital and changing in a separate room. Which, let us remember, was all the nurses ever wanted. I wonder how much NHS Darlington have spent on trying to avoid the law?

Wonder too why thousands could be found for him, but nothing to make the makeshift changing room for the nurses basically safe by meeting fire regs?

Except arachnophobes are irrationally scared of spiders. Women have very good reason to fear men.

From the 11th Nov BBC article:

Their single-minded pursuit of this issue has clouded their judgement," Mr Cheetham said, adding Rose's "very presence was seen as provocative".

Yes Roses very presence was provocative. That is correct.

He also said the nurses' decision to speak to the media was "unattractive" and they had made repeated allegations without "cogent evidence" and disclosures about Rose's private life, which had led to Rose being publicly cast as a "highly predatory character".

Unattractive? Interesting framing that has overtones of women should STFU and know their place. Especially those lower in the pecking order.

Mr Cheetham said the nurses' treatment of Rose had been "unkind and unjustified", with their allegations about conduct "exaggerated". The nurses had unnecessarily "demonised" Rose and were fighting a "public campaign" about policy and the "trust's treatment of them as a group of women", Mr Cheetham said.

Women be kind! But if the Trust had not privileged one man’s wishes over many women’s discomfort they wouldn’t have had to go public.

He said staff were only given access to single-sex spaces if they had "declared they were living their life fully in that gender", which was a "higher threshold" than the nurses claimed.

🙄

Mr Cheetham said the policy also "accorded with relevant legislation and guidance at the time". He said the trust had some 8,000 employees and had to balance the "competing" rights of those with the "protected characteristics" of biological sex and gender reassignment.

One man’s rights were not balanced with all the many female nurses rights. The latter’s were dismissed as being bigotted.

The final decision will be interesting.

Precisely.

You cannot trauma check women on the door and assess whether their reasons are valid enough to grant an accessible single sex provision on a case by case basis, no reason will ever be good enough for the activists.

The number of women with these issues will vastly outnumber the men who want to use women's spaces, they are everywhere. A huge percentage of women have experienced harassment, assault, trauma and worse.

And if men's feelings about loos matter then women's cannot matter less.

Absolutely agree that women have very good reason to fear men, but I'd argue that the seemingly irrational fear of spiders that some people have is a result of evolutionary processes, and therefore may be one of the only things that men experience that could come close to what women feel in the presence of strange men when in a vulnerable state.

Now, I fully admit I may not be impartial in this, as my heart starts to race even when I see a picture of something with eight legs. I used to read a picture book about animals to my kids that had a collage of pictures of insects on the last page which included a spider (I know, not the most accurate book), and, I kid you not, I experienced an small, involuntary jump scare every time I turned to that page, even knowing it was coming. The fear is so instinctual, and it's almost impossible to "educate" someone out of. My mom isn't scared of spiders at all and constantly tried to teach me not to be afraid, but 48 years later, here I am, fully aware they won't hurt me but heart still pounding at the sight of one running across the floor.

The funny thing is, she has the same reaction to snakes, while I have no fear response to snakes at all. This is actually why I think there is something to the evolutionary adaptation idea. Some people have the fear reaction to spiders, while for others it's snakes, or even mice. You could throw the fear of heights or enclosed spaces into this category as well. These are all considered irrational fears, but each of these things can be dangerous to humans in their own way (mice carry diseases, enclosed spaces can run out of air, etc.), so the fear response would be a reasonable adaptation. It's actually kind of odd that we all don't have all of them, but genetics is messy I guess. 😁

The common thread to these fear responses, including the one women feel in the presence of intimidating or boundry-pushing men, is that they are based on an evolutionary survival mechanism, which is why I think the analogy that @Madcats described is a good one. I'm going to try it out on my DH, who just happens to also be a member of the NO SPIDERS ALLOWED club.

Interesting article I just found linking the fear of spiders to a more logical fear of scorpions that human would have evolved. www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/fear-spiders-may-have-its-evolutionary-roots-aversion-scorpions

This.

Just had to say, I'm still giggling about this and it's been like an hour since I read it. I think the official meaning of the phrase should be changed to this immediately. It's perfect.

If anyone wants a sex-realism legal fix, I've posted Tribunal Tweets' reporting of Kevin Lister's appeal on this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5080317-kevin-lister

I’ve just seen an email saying that the Nurses have reduced their crowdfund target. If anyone has a few carrots on payday…

Thanks for sharing @CarefulN0w I have donated previously.
Given the importance of this case, and the hell that these women have been put through, I really hope people can see past the religious background and donate. Donating is not a reflection of support for CC, but for these brave women who are standing up for us all.

They are much closed to the new target so hopefully they will reach it

Yep - under £800 needed now

Gosh, that has rocketed up since I checked earlier this afternoon. 👏

Now less than £450 to go!

And now target exceeded!

Although they would still like to reach their original target of £50,000.

Another example of women being poorly treated at CDDFT, patients this time

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ced6dx0xewno

I just came here to post that, because I am utterly disgusted that they can treat women so appallingly, yet fall over themselves to pander to a man with inner womanly feelings.

"Research from 2024 shows that almost half of women diagnosed with breast cancer at the County Durham trust had a mastectomy. According to 2022 parliamentary evidence, external given by the charity Breast Cancer Now, the UK average was about 27%.
In addition, only 7.5% of mastectomies carried out by CDDFT were followed by immediate breast reconstruction - far below the national recommended minimum of 25%."

"In 2019, an internal NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) report highlighted multiple concerns about breast surgery at CDDFT. The trust's executive director of nursing, Kathryn Burn told the BBC that the concerns in the report were discussed, but not much action was taken.
The GIRFT report, along with a 2024 review carried out by a team of experts at the Northern Cancer Alliance, was not made public until the BBC made a Freedom of Information request ."

"She says that, without speaking to her, offering her pain killers or asking her permission, the doctor just "flicked his surgical knife" and cut her breast to drain the infected area. Catriona says there was "no dignity" in the way she was treated at the trust. We contacted the doctor who Catriona says performed this procedure, but he declined to comment. The trust has told the BBC he is now under supervision.
Serious concerns about the speed and quality of breast surgery were identified in the Royal College of Surgeons' report. "Some surgical procedures appeared to be undertaken with great swiftness," it says.
These included a mastectomy and lymph node procedure performed in 28 minutes, and an excision of benign thickened breast tissue in 10 minutes, "which the review team considered to have been unnecessary"."

I can't believe this - it's awful. How can they treat women like this?

That breast cancer ‘care’ story is very revealing about those at the top of the Trust, and how long it went on for before changes were made.

That Trust really didn’t like women, is the message I’m getting.

Ooo watch out for Darlington 'retirements' incoming .

Anyone want to defend Carol Potter for not doing anything about that?

Wow that sounds like someone who really liked cutting women’s flesh.