"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

It’s getting to the point of ridiculous now. It’s being reported by multiple news outlets but the BBC cannot yet bring themselves to come up with a satisfactory headline that will appease the gender ideologists.

So pleased for them!🎉 Going to have a G &T as off today. Absolutely brilliant. I am especially thinking of the nurse who is a child abuse survivor. She should never of been put through that by her managers /NHS.

Exactly. Almost as disappointing as if they had not covered it at all. So all sorts of outlets have covered it, BBC calls it "breaking" and then leaves viewers hanging. Useless.

Brilliant

Should we suggest headlines for the Beeb? Or take bets on what headline they come up with?

”Sad Times. Mean Nurses Win"

I’ve just heard this on BBC R5, it was headline story!

So pleased for those magnificent nurses and women everywhere!!

FUCKING YES!

Well done the Darlington Nurses, you absolute legends.

LOL

Two more ET judgments uploaded to gov.uk in the past few minutes. I guess it's in the process of going up ... drums fingers

To be fair, I find the BBC are always behind with reporting breaking news, which I've always assumed is because they're extra cautious. So I'll reserve judgement until I've read what they have to say. In the meantime, my congratulations to the Darlington nurses and their legal team.

Thank you brave women.

I should imagine it's #VerySadTimes for the LGBTQWTF desk who are clutching their support animals and hoping they can write this up as evidence of genocide.

#FuckingExcellentTimes for women* everywhere, mind.

(*The real sort)

'The tribunal rejected the nurses' claims that their transgender colleague, who is a biological male and identifies as a woman, using the single-sex changing room had not personally engaged in conduct that amounted to harassment.'

My emphasis. Is this a typo?

Ah. I thought you were quoting from the judgement!

That's my view too.

Thanks @ArabellaScott for the other links as I was looking in vain at the BBC website...

The Darlington nurses will pass into feminist legend and song

What worries me is there they say “without providing a suitable alternative”. Suitable for whom? “Rose” or the Darlington nurses?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/16/nhs-violate-nurse-dignity-allow-trans-staff-changing-rooms/

https://archive.ph/NRlKh

Agree!

I am so happy today see this.

Happy Friday

We shouldn’t have to be celebrating the tribunal stating the bleeding obvious but I’ll take the win.

Yessssssss!!!! Get in!!

So delighted to read this just now. Well done to the nurses and their legal team!

Very tempted to moonpig a load of support stuffed animals to the LGBTQ blah desk at the BBC.

It looks like Sky news went out of their way to give 'balance', although this quote is actually about the Supreme Court decision, not the Darlington one!

Dr Victoria McCloud was the UK's first transgender judge, who is now mounting a legal challenge against the judgment - arguing that trans people were denied the opportunity to give evidence to the court...

That’s a fair point. There’s still scope, however, for a brief update with more analysis to come. They’ve had half an hour to come up with something.