Sara Morrison v BFF Thread 3

[SexRealistic]

For background please read here:

https://genderblog.net/sara-morrison-v-belfast-film-festival/

Not sure if this has been answered as I haven't yet RTFT, but employment tribunal judges are often barristers and solicitors in the field, rather than judges who progressed on a judge track. She may have originally been part time but is now considered a good pair of hands, and as previous posters have said they don't have many panellists, hence being a full time judge.

Let’s trust that a qualified solicitor and Judge knows how to manage her Tribunal with integrity & impartiality.

I believe EJ Sturgeon will get a handle on this. She wants to uphold the integrity of the Tribunal. I wouldn’t be surprised if she recuses the entire panel.

Micheal McKeown was given evidence in the bundle on Friday of a womens network that believed trans women are women. Boyd had connections to it. On it NIPSA was written in it in large lettering. Unless he turned to the Judge and declared his conflict or potential bias at that point - his conduct has to be called into question. I am sure the EJ knows this herself.

Source of document - Nick Wallis’ blog re Friday’s proceedings. Link at front of thread.

Yes true, but I can't seem to search in any other way than opening the docs to check.

Any further ideas welcome.

Most of her companies were below the abbreviated accounts limit.
Turnover is not profit after all.

And what she has said on her own social media may not be supported by the reality.

Her house is not that of somebody who earns a lot.

Murphy is the family name of Dirtworks directors that have previously been mentioned in connection with DB and have her listed as contact in 2025. A different person of same name in same area?
https://www.fermanaghomagh.com/app/uploads/2025/02/Addendum-to-Joint-Council-Waste-Management-Plan.pdf

Just plonking this here although this may have been linked previously.

With regard to how much tribunal members are paid, has anyone been able to confirm the amount?

HC 349-II 04.05.pdf

AI says this

Employment tribunal lay panel members in Northern Ireland are paid a daily fee of £200.72. A half-day fee of £100.36 is also available for sittings of four hours or less.
These fees are non-pensionable and are subject to annual review and deduction of income tax and National Insurance. Lay members are also able to claim travel and subsistence expenses at Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) rates.

It was me who suggested £500, but this was from a court listing of payments. I'll have a look again for that.

Daily fee is £200, based on the recruitment dox from last year: itfet-candidate-information-booklet-v5-final.pdf

No panellist will sit for 200 days a year. I would say maybe one case every two months and most cases last around three days or less (including judgment days not heard in public) unless there is a lot in the bundle or there are a lot of witnesses.

So 3 days every two month equals 18 days a year at £200 a day equals £3,600 a year. Even if it's every month it's not even £10,000 a year.

I'm curious about why McKeown is considered culpable. A lot of union staff go to the executive meetings because they have to be available to answer questions or are very senior.

I think I missed where he was responsible for trans policy and support. Could someone point me in that direction?

I don't think anybody does it for the money, though if someone is retired or going part time the fees might come in handy.

A lot of the union reps who become panel members are people who've represented members in hearings, got a taste for it, and thought they might like to sit on a panel.

The employer members tend to be HR specialists who could make more money doing consultancy work.

Some government boards pay well, and some have prestige attached to being on them, but mostly they attract people who are interested in the subject and want to offer their expertise.

I presume these tribunals operate in situations where in Ireland the Labour Court would be used. Is there a permanent staff for the Tribunals?

www.labourcourt.ie/en/

The current fee for lay members is actually £227.68 gross, for a full day's hearing.

Can anyone on LinkedIn confirm that that's where this is from:

'Re3's Chief Executive Officer, Professor Deborah Boyd, is the 2009 NIEA Sustainable Ireland Environmental Leader of the Year.'

Yes, it's basically the same function - there's also the Industrial Court which is a smaller body that deals with TU recognition and collective bargaining rather than individual claims.

There's a permanent staff of civil servants - a few dozen I think - maybe half of whom are tribunal clerks assisting with hearings, some do listing, and the rest do behind the scenes admin.

Plus expenses.

Which could be £5 a day max for travel like for medical students, even when that doesn't actually cover the cost of travel to a placement; or it could be MP-like heated stable/duck house expense levels. Any specifics given?

In the 2016 docs linked linked up the thread, the responses and edits to the draft trans policy were being coordinated by the Whitley Council Trade Union sec, which was listed as M Mckeown on the same doc.

M Mckeown also attended and was oresent as they voted through motions supporting calls for gender neutral facilities in all government buildings and gender neutral language in government docs

He is not necessarily responsible or culpable or even on board with these things. But he was there, discussed and participated in these motionss and the end result was the illegal NICS policy that we have seen.

It is absolutely surely on him to speak up in these proceedings and outline any potential for bias.

Panel members would have been reimbursed for mileage @ the HMRC recognised rate of 45p a mile, or for bus/rail fares & car parking etc. However, the £227 daily fee was supposed to include £5 to cover these elements already & that would have been disallowed, when the claim was calculated.

Just picking up on her purported amazing work with Cleanaway
getting them to £20m turnover by 1992
they did rather better than that after she left ....https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/JkoUK7rm2S3EK4ImpbFIHUj05IYPESfJIhD_69PZvTg/application-pdf

Because, as someone pointed out upthread, she wasn't.

The winner of the 2009 Sustainable Ireland Environmental Leader of the Year award was Jonathan Pugsley, the outstanding energy manager of Leitrim-based door manufacturer Masonite Ireland.

And now I can't find the original reference to it and I'm not on LinkedIn so can't check.

Very occasionally there are hearings outside Belfast (Omagh, and maybe Derry) and the mileage might kick in more for those hearings. But nobody's getting rich off those expenses.

Doesn't come up as DB on Google search

passivehouseplus.ie/news/events/sei-announces-2009-sustainable-energy-award-winners#:~:text=The%20retail%20and%20telecoms%20sectors,across%20their%20business%20in%202009.

As far as I can tell it was this post that first flagged it:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5444170-sara-morrison-vs-belfast-film-festival-thread-2?reply=148529963&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

eta: @MarieDeGournay are you about?

Its an extrapolation:

https://nipsa.org.uk/publications/AR2017.pdf

Central Whitley
M McKeown
Assistant Trade Union Side Secretary

See page 64 at B1

It talks to LGBT issues and a survey in development that then informs policy in 2018 which becomes the published Trans in Workplace Policy published in 2020 and still in force.

'acknowledging the continuing need for Trade Union Side to progress related issues within the Central Whitley context. It was also agreed that further policy work would neeed to be done to further support LGBT staff and in particular those transitioning in the workplace'

My read - if McKeown is the Trade Union Side for Central Whitley and was progressing matters relating to a LGBT survey and doing further policy work to support those transitioning the workplace in 2017 that led to an illegal policy that means women don't have single sex toilets or changing rooms - then he needs to declare that conflict of interest.

If it wasn't just a random vote but direct input on shaping policy then it should be put before the Tribunal for EJ Sturgeon to decide on whehter he is impartial.

If he didn't then the question needs to be put to the Panel.