Sara Morrison vs Belfast Film Festival - Thread 2

[TwoLoonsAndASprout]

Continuation of previous thread - don’t have all the details to hand to add here, so if someone can pop them on, pls do! Want to get this up quickly!

Absolutely. Even the way the Judge behaved and spoke drew questions of bias in my mind.

Naomi is a respectful professional. She did not deserve the ire to the level she received.

She’s not from ‘here’ so she forgot she can say true things out loud - and it wound everyone up.

I reckon it would be so different if Sara had a local barrister. They’d be much more cowed by it all.

And when do the sprinklings of 'Dr' come into it? I think we've had mention in Gov records and in a screenshot of a Web page here.

Once in 2008

.

Although it wasn't great that they weren't there and proceedings were delayed, they sent a rep and apologies and stated that it was important and all would become clear.

Any high level public servant is expected to deal with the unexpected with efficiency, authority, and a calm professional manner. You can be annoyed, worried, need to come up with a plan of action etc but it is professional courtesy to manage the situation outwardly politely and deal with the big feelings out of sight.

Bad mouthing legal colleagues (when you have no reason to believe are being deliberately and avoidably annoying - they hadn't rung in from the driv-thru offering to collect requests!) and allowing other parties present to do the same is unprofessional.

Zoe Boyd the make up artist is definitely PB’s daughter.

What an odd coincidence that the University of Ulster's link to the list of visiting professors for the faculty of arts, humanities and social sciences isn't working right now.

It's working for all the other faculties.

https://www.ulster.ac.uk/faculties/arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-dev/visiting-professors

I agree re the local barrister bit.

Naomi had to speak up even as they heckled and booed her essentially.

Whilst you obviously have to follow the structure and form and process of hearings, it should also be that if someone has to be brave and call out significant concerns that they are facilitated and supported to do so.

Otherwise you end up with scandals where everyone says, 'someone should have said something' whilst knowing that everyone did everything they could to make it impossible.

A more professional, moderate and circumspect judge may have kept their counsel until they turned up with takeaway not a genuine legal flare and only lost their shit then.

• How dare they come here and behave like this

Did the Judge actually say that?

@Boiledbeetle or @MarieDeGournay or @MyrtleLion or anyone with capacity to assist at all?

Does anyone have a bit of time over the weekend to gather together a thread three proper run up - so the link to Nick Wallis thread reader app summaries, his news post and blogs. Like @nauticant‘s amazing work on the Peggie threads.

And a summary cast of characters? I am at a family thing so just on phone - but I can help with content & editing if needed tomorrow. Is suspect by Monday we will need a new thread. I expect fireworks 🧨.

She said - ‘this is not the way we do things here’. She is othering Naomi and Charlotte as they are not tugging their forelocks at her.

From Nick Wallis’ blog: Judge Lisa Sturgeon Sturgeon declared she was “quite frankly disgusted” at being so “heavily disrespected” by Chambers’ side,

She’s said similar phrases at least twice.

Very revealing, that article. Left school at 16 which would chime with her exams. It was published in 2010 and cites her age as 50 and so she has been using Prof for a while yet it calls her Debbie Boyd and given the article is about career gains for women a Prof-ship would surely rate a mention.

This is the right kind of role for her, although she's not one of the four mentioned here:
https://www.ulster.ac.uk/news/2025/april/ulster-university-strengthens-commitment-to-sustainability-with-the-appointment-of-four-visiting-professors

One odd thing just sparked for me.

When ‘Prof’ got agitated and up and left the tribunal she left her bag. After a fair while the clerk was sent back in to collect it. It was very unusual as they gather each time they rise.

If she really needed medication she wouldn’t have left her bag behind. It would have been the first thing she had to hand.

From Nicks blog: On Wednesday it was particularly acute. Boyd had made the request to rise so she could take some medication. The judge said the only conversation that took place in chambers was to see if Boyd was okay and to assess her suitability to continue sitting on the panel. Nonetheless, to enable Boyd to manage her condition, avoid a long and painful commute and (presumably) assuage any concerns, the judge said Boyd would be stepping down from the Morrison v BFF panel.

Ah, and look at this from the Business School in 2021. There's a link to their full list of 30 visiting profs at the bottom - but it wants me to log in :-(
https://www.ulster.ac.uk/news/2021/june/business-leaders-appointed-as-new-visiting-professors-at-ulster-university-business-school
ETA ah, but the Wayback Machine has a bunch of saves of the page. DB is not on the first or last version of the page or on a couple of random ones I checked in between. This is only the Business School, though, not the whole university.

Or perhaps "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists" home town?

I'm just about ok believing the judge and a panel member colluded to lie about the subject of their discussion, in order to save face, given that the panel member was about to retire from the panel.

I have a really hard time believing that the third panel member would allow clear falsehoods to go before him and not also (at least) retire from the tribunal. If you sit on an ET you must at heart have a interest in truth and justice. It calls into question the entire process to hear the judge and other panelist tell clear untruths.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but if you search "2009 winner of NIEA Sustainable Ireland Environmental Leader of the Year Award" the results say it was someone called Jonathan Pugsley who ran a company called Masonite.

What does the Wayback Machine say about this page?

https://www.ulster.ac.uk/faculties/arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-dev/visiting-professors

You might struggle to know what to do in the moment, though, if the Judge was in charge and was bizarrely not doing what you thought should be done for reasons you couldn't understand. When you thought about it calmly over the weekend...? Bets on whether this case actually resumes on Monday?

Hasn't archived it, sadly.

It is very possible that this is the conversation that took place.

It is also possible that this isn't the reason that DB pulled a face, asked for a break and said, 'I have a concern.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northernireland/1907884.stm

3rd April 2002 she's plain Deborah Boyd. Given the other professors on the list, if she had a 'professor' title to use she'd have used it and it would be mentioned.

ETA: So she has to get it between April 2002 and October 2004

Yes that article reflected truth of her LinkedIn.

The website RE3 showed the lie.

I was sitting in the dark googling at 3am so was putting pieces together but not very coherently.

This may assist if you can get through the paywall (40 visiting professors appointed in 2016).
https://www.irishnews.com/business/2016/10/31/news/hats-off-to-new-ulster-university-business-school-visiting-professors-763455/