Lorna Young v Manchester City Council, Employment Tribunal, May 2026

[Mmmnotsure]

Lorna Young is taking her former employer, Manchester City Council, to Employment Tribunal. The case began today. It is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets https://x.com/tribunaltweets
and coverage is also available on their Substack
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/lorna-young-vs-manchester-city-council

Lorna Young was Equality Team Manager at MCC. She was dismissed, among other grounds, for her social media activity.

Lorna Young is gender critical and Catholic, and opposes surrogacy. She is claiming unfair dismissal, and discrimination and harassment because of religion or belief, and disability.

Blimey, he's even queered his dog collar!

IANAL but I think that they need to put questions to the witness and get their responses because then it is on record and it will either add to or detract from their credibility as a whole and might effectively undermine their WS as quite often, as we see here, they manage to contradict their WS quite often.

Ie the misconduct but not misconduct line of questioning. Crucial in revealing so much.

The Law &Order TV approach is the idea that you get them to confess something on the stand (which is dramatic but not necessary in the main).

The fascinating thing is the Council being prepared to take this to a hearing when it is clear that they have completely failed to provide a fair process.

They are so in their own bubble

Does anyone know what part Jenny Osborne played in this utter sh*tshow?

Osborne, I think, did the first disciplinary investigation and wrote the dismissal letter. Hence is a crucial witness. Lot's of Angela Harrington's evidence was about how she dealt with the appeal with references to the original dismissal letter. One reason the letter seems to be so important is that there seems to be black hole that is sucking up much of the normal documentation one would expect to find.

I've missed vast chunks of this; have they run out of court time or are leaving it part heard because of the late disclosures?

Thank you for all the commentary.

I get this. But I'm often using those gaps to catch up with the jaw dropping thing that was said in the last q&a.

And we try not to give colour commentary so 'witness spent 30 seconds inspecting own shoelaces before mumbling a non-answer' not really our thing.

It’s because a necessary witness is on long-term sick, I think.

it might give MCC time to actually disclose the documents, but don’t hold your breath.

They have arranged the new date partly around a respondent witness’s birthday! It is extraordinary how much care Manchester City Council will give to people on the right side of their ideology.

For a belief to be a PC (protected characteristic) under the Equality Act it needs to be 'worthy of respect in a democratic society' (WORIADS). That was the importance of the Employment Appeal Tribunal finding in Forstater; it established gender critical beliefs as WORIADS. It was another member of TT who first used WORIADs and we owe her a drink every time we tweet it.

The interesting thing is that gender identity beliefs have NOT been fully tested in the same way. The prevailing winds are such that no one is or has been dismissed for a belief in GI, so not tested.

Having spent too long in cases about sex and gender - sex is biologically sound and there is a whole raft of evidence in respect of it. So of course it is WORIADs.

A lot of gender ideology is unsound and founded on the individuals interpretation of their own ideas around their body and identity. A lot of the gender wang espoused would be hard to get a judgment on.

Try explaining twin spirit to the Supreme Court.

Well, the Sandie Peggie judge called Dr Upton "credible" after the expert had said the dates on his contemporaneous record of events could not have been genuine... so I guess they are all credible.

It's disappointing that the Manchester Guardian isn't covering this in detail! 🤪

Thanks.
The letters (original dismissal & appeal outcome) are important because they (should) state clearly the reasons for dismissal and the evidence taken into account. As Angela Harrington's evidence this morning made clear, her letter was woefully inadequate on both counts and it appeared from her testimony that in fact she had very little idea of either.

Of course HR draft these letters and then people who are surely paid more than enough to know better put their names to them, apparently ignorant of the possibility that they may at some future date be cross questioned on them in a court or tribunal. And not one that follows 'Stonewall law'.

That really got me. What are they, twelve?

Tbf the MEN are in a cleft stick here, caught between their usual stance of being, as you suggest, all about the MEN, and being given an opportunity to legitimately slag off the council, which they very much enjoy doing when it's NOT legitimate.

Could MCC choose to settle during this period?

Yes.

But they wont settle because trans identified men are women - despite all evidence of biology and indeed the law to the contrary.

To settle they'd have to let down all the gender cult activists who have bought into this ideology hook line and sinker.

So on it will roll.

Anyone with a wit would have quashed this a long time ago. Instead they clearly fudged discovery and send a few weak links out to represent them.

Awful for Lorna, good for the world to witness.

They could offer to settle but LY wouldn't be obliged to accept

Around that, I think,

with the occasional foray into vicious teen.

I suspect they may settle. They may be pragmatic and cut losses, as the fallout will not look good in terms of the way its been handled.

It's almost a pity, eh?

I thought it would undermine her case if she refused to accept a reasonable settlement offer? Which might include a public apology but then they might never get round to it or they might just do a quiet sorry/not sorry.

So if I was MCC I would settle now. This isn't Scotland (Scottish courts have made some unexpected judgments recently) so if MCC don't settle then they are likely to lose. And the longer this drags out the more likely that the press are going to notice they can make a fuss and even use the case to take a politician or two down. And expose MCC in the process.

I missed some of the earlier testament. There seems to have been a WhatsApp group that is known to have existed but everyone involved has changed or lost their phones.
Has there been any evidence of who the members of this group where?