"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

The TRAs will spin this as “just a process issue”. Just watch.

At least that headline is reasonable. They could’ve led with "Complaints that trans woman Rose harassed nurses is dismissed"

Why would this specific claim be stayed? Can anyone remember the specifics of what she had said?

'Joanne Bradbury, whose claim is currently stayed.'

I'm not a lawyer but I agree it's much better this way round. We need Health Trusts to get the message.

Yep. Too hard to prove a man's motives for using women's spaces in most cases.

Doesnt really matter. They must stay out.

And we urgently need them to get the message on behalf of patients.

It was the first item on the midday news on Radio 4.

I'm hoping that we get a day without much other breaking news and this story doesn't get drowned out.

I suspect the claim against "Rose" has been dismissed is because it could be seen that he was doing what his employer said he could do. The blame then sits with the employer (which is what's been found).

Yes. Men must stay out because they are male and because that impacts women. Whether they are deluded or predatory, their motives are not the key point here. Their sex is.

Wow that’s brilliant news, just catching up on my lunch break

There were 21k viewing a moment ago. Now 18k.

Transgender Reddit are NOT HAPPY.

One is claiming the tribunal stated "the claimants needed "to be educated on trans rights and to broaden their mindsets". Not sure where they get that from. Mind you, they're also advocating for "bigot-only changing rooms"

Hard to archive the live stuff - takes one shot

Over 17000 people are apparently viewing the BBC news live reporting article, according to the BBC anyway.

From BBC for the record

Live Reporting
Edited by Johanna Chisholm

NHS trust 'violated dignity' of nurses by allowing trans woman to use female changing room, tribunal rulespublished at 11:50
11:50Breaking

NHS trust 'violated dignity' of nurses by allowing trans woman to use female changing room, tribunal rulespublished at 11:50
11:50Breaking
We're still working our way through the full court document, but here is the tribunal's summary of their judgement:
The Judgment of the Tribunal is:
1. The complaints of harassment related to sex and/or gender reassignment are well founded in part and succeed to the extent set out in paragraph 1.1 and 1.2 of this judgment:
1.1 By requiring the Claimants to share a changing room with a biological male trans woman as pleaded in paragraph 23(a) of the Amended Particulars of Claim, the Respondent engaged in unwanted conduct related to sex and gender reassignment which had the effect of violating the dignity of the Claimants and creating for the Claimants a hostile, humiliating and degrading environment.
1.2 By not taking seriously and declining to address the Claimants’ concerns of August and September 2023 and of 04 April 2024, Case Number: 2501192/2024 & others 2 regarding that part of the Transition in the Workplace Policy that afforded biological males access to the female changing room, the Respondent engaged in unwanted conduct related to sex and gender reassignment which had the effect of creating for the Claimants a hostile and intimidating environment.
2. The complaints of indirect sex discrimination are well founded and succeed.
3. The complaints of harassment in so far as they relate to the use of the female changing room by and the conduct of Rose Henderson whilst so using the changing room as pleaded in paragraph 23(b) of the Amended Particulars of Claim, are not well founded and are dismissed.
4. The complaints of harassment in so far as they relate to the conduct of Rose Henderson outside the changing room as pleaded in paragraph 23(e) of the Amended Particulars of Claim are not well founded and are dismissed.
5. The complaints of harassment in so far as they relate to the conduct of the Respondent pleaded in paragraph 23(d), (f), (h, (i), (j) and (k) are not well founded and are dismissed.
6. The complaints of victimisation are not well founded and are dismissed.
7. This judgment is in respect of all claimants with the exception of Joanne Bradbury, whose claim is currently stayed.

Exactly, the motivation for using the wrong changing room is irrelevant, the same as it is for a male in women's sports etc etc. It does not matter if they are a pervert, a cheat, or suffer from genuine dysphoria and absolutely believe themselves to be female. They should not be in those spaces. It may alter the level of sympathy I have for the person, but it does not change the fundamental principle that they should not be there.

I'm keen to see how HR depts and the NHS will take it.

I think it was always going to be difficult to prove that “Rose” had any other motive other than just using the changing rooms.

I agree - it's difficult to prove to a legal standard what happened when obviously the man in question is going to say 'I never, Judge!' and the women in question are going to view everything he does as offensive, because he shouldn't be there in the first place.

Best to keep all men out, that way they have no opportunity to add, either intentionally or unintentionally, provably or not probably, to their original offense of being in women-only spaces.

Congratulations to the Darlington women!

Also key is shifting focus from 'how men feel' to 'how women feel'. Because that also matters.

I was wondering that too…

FINALLY! A JUDGEMENT FOR WOMEN!

❤️

It's terrific news and should help Sandie's appeal too.

The journalists have the judgment. Has it been published?

I think Joanne had to withdraw because of ill health so her claim was (and continues to be) stayed.

The judgement in numberspublished at 12:04
12:04
New
The judgement is 134 pages long so we are taking our time to go through it properly.
It was produced after a 16-day tribunal held in Newcastle in October and November last year which heard from 24 witnesses also took into account some 4,500 pages of documentation.