Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread (follow on from Chair of SEEN is being sued)

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5031904-the-chair-of-seen-is-being-sued
TT substack: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/tempest-vs-defra-and-rural-payments

Tempest (a TW) is claiming discrimination, harassment and/or victimisation on grounds of gender reassignment. Central to the claim is the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN or IP). SEEN has been granted right to intervene. Parts of the original claim against the co-chair of SEEN (Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley) and another party (Andreas Mueller) were struck out or narrowed. Another claimant, PQ, is no longer part of the case.

The hearing is in Leeds; the number of online observers has been limited by the court due to "capacity" and posters are reporting that requests for links are being declined on those grounds.

Also to note that Elspeth still has a garden in need of seeds and water to support the ability of SEEN to be an intervenor in this case.

This

They can squeeze out a tear but it's a bit poultry 😁 🧥

From TT:

14:15, no action.

dont get cocky now

It's a pity the Judge doesnt seem to have the latest revision to the Bench Book. Page 198 pargaraphs 17-19 https://sentencingcouncil.org.uk/media/ah1n15rj/etbb-july-2024-february-2026-update.pdf

including

19. Witnesses should never be compelled to use the trans person’s preferred pronouns.

edit for typo

Aw, hen, keep your pecker up

I'll get my capon.

The Bench book again

"17. Typically, it should be unproblematic for the judge to use the trans person’s preferred name and pronouns (“he/she” or “they”), regardless of whether they have obtained a GRC.479 However, where one side’s case hinges on the recognition of the biological sex of the trans person as crucial, and the other side on the recognition of their chosen identification, judges need to be careful not to let the choice of gendered pronouns give an appearance of bias, or that there is a predetermined conclusion. If possible, using the individual’s name instead of a pronoun where these pronouns are contested, or alternatively, the gender-neutral pronoun of “they” may help minimise offence towards, or the undermining of, an individual’s personal identification, while also not validating and giving it undue weight over the perceptions of others,"

As for compelling testimoney with 'they'

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Equal-Treatment-Bench-Book.pdf

Chapter 12, page 197

Non-binary people often wish to be referred to by non-standard pronouns or by pronouns in a non-standard way; namely, “they” to refer to a singular person, which many people find linguistically confusing.

Judges should exercise their discretion whether to use these non-standard pronouns, rather than referring to the person’s biological sex/gender, depending on whether they believe it will achieve best evidence. Witnesses should never be compelled to use these pronouns. See also “Recommended terminology” within this chapter.

So its a definite no to forcing a witness to use 'they'. Woopsie Judge Robertson.

Also didn't the judge say on Friday that the witnesses could use whatever language but NC would have to use they /them?

I’m struggling with the time line for the SEEN network going live and when it became private.

Also does anyone have sense of whether people not in any particular private network receive notifications about posts to it?

The King (on the application of Ryan Castelluci)

That's the American man who had a 'penis preserving vaginoplasty' and wanted to change his British legal id (passport?) to nonbinary. He's identifying as female at the moment! He lost but, last I heard, was appealing.

He's been permitted to put female, as a sort of placeholder, even though he's biologically male and clearly doesn't even actually see himself as female. The expensive legal action he took being a pretty unequivocal sign.

Anyways derail over.

Eta. Not the King, the other guy.

I understood on Friday he was compelling both the witnesses and Counsel.

Lunchtime already! I don't fancy Tandoori for lunch today as it will disrupt my system.

Was the next witness supposed to start tomorrow?
Re the Massive Spreadsheet, couldn't it have been summarised (with agreement between parties) beforehand as to e.g. number of types of complaints, some examples?

@ProfDrLapwing from about Oct/Nov 22 until April/May 23 I think. So 6-7 months of it being open. And no, notifications of posts only go to those signed up to those groups, unless they’re posts in all-company groups such as IT issues, employee rewards, governance, HR etc

Respectfully I disagree. I can see you are exorcised by it but to argue we are only here now because humans like to discuss non work things at work is wholly reductive. The equalities act is built
around the idea that being human means you can’t ban people from talking about non work things at work but there does need to reasonable measures to be sure that this is within limits of the law and if society can’t quite work it out by itself then the law arbitrates.

We are not here now because humans are not, in fact, machines but because a particular strand of people have been given license to think they are more special than anyone else, not because folk will talk about non work things at work.

And good luck to if you think you can stop people talking about the wider world, or their cat, at work.

From TT:

We resume.
J - we have looked at the spreadsheet, large doc, in two parts, spreadsheet of all mod decisions, and then a subset of DEFRA moderations. 250 entries in main section.
HH -there are specific criticism of moderation in WS,
J - was about to refer to that, but helpful

J - 65 seem to relate to DEFRA, C's WS contains some detailed comments about spreadsheet, we think the document should be admitted in evidence and is before us now,
AL -what you choose to ask about it is up to you, we are not particularly sympathetic to standing down and giving you more time, we are going to admit in evidence, qs are a matter for the parties.
AL - are you happy with that
AL - reality is that I will be q'ing ST into tomorrow, and so I will have tonight to look at it and will reserve qs. But about C's supplementary bundle.

[HH turns to talk solicitors, where is it?]
J - can we proceed, and check if it has arrived at a break
NC - mentioning spreadsheet, suggests J has password to allow modification to make it easier to work with it.
AL - I have the same version, Cs have asked about it.

J - who put the password on.
AL - it must have been us, I will follow up
NC - explaining the width and need to scroll right and left
AL - I will follow up when possible
J - I think that clears the decks for the moment,
AL - I will move on to something else this afternoon

Hopefully it will be NC cross of ST tomorrow

Timetable slippage as NC was scheduled for tomorrow

Ah cheers!

I totally had in my mind that NC had said to the J, 'so I must use x language, but my witness does not?'

Who knows where I got that from! 😂

Do you think we are going to hear what these comments were that ST feels showed bias when it came to moderation? It’s ok suggesting that bias occurred but if one side was particularly more offensive than they should be it would ultimately lead to more moderation? I certainly get the impression that ST seems to see even the mildest comments from SEEN as some sort of offensive dog whistle. I know this was from a few years back but I do wonder how ST coped with the SC ruling - not well I suspect!

I think Tinkerbell’s problem is that Andreas Mueller posted in all-company groups about all-company matters, so Tinkerbell kept seeing Andreas’s name in round-up emails (having previously interacted with him) which obvs caused much distress 🙄. His complaint is that Defra didn’t stop these notifications. It doesn’t seem to have crossed anybody’s mind to put a simple email rule in place to delete these notifications on receipt.

edited to add eyeroll

From TT:

AL - ST, I'm going to ask you about an allegation on posts made about Pride month, page 1462.
J - one small point, I take it there is no issue about the timing of this issue, presented after the claim
AL - no one has taken issue with the dates, continuing acts I think .

AL - it's Pride Month article written by Sarah Homer
ST - doesn't seem to be named
AL - it's not but do you take issue with that
ST - only that I don't know
AL - placed on intranet, not on Yammer
ST - yes
AL - p 1465, AM made a post arising from article we see it here, other comments, if we go next to 1540,
ST - what page
AL - can I have a moment to check page refs. Sorry took you to wrong ref, I want to take you to 1540 please, we see the AM comment, 'we are SEEN' this is around the time of DEFRA SEEN's announcement, link to short video you (ST) say 'announcement of SEEN denies the existence of trans people' ST - the position SEEN takes has been quite clear. This post, is in very poor taste, its promotion on a page that is supposed to be about PRIDE and LBGT people AL - members of SEEN are inclusive of LGB

I found it difficult to read the judges written direction ad think there was a bit not shown in the tweet listed upthread.

No really, distributed teams are absolutely normal in 2026 and people do talk like humans as well as like work cogs. It’s not the 1990s anymore, we don’t have water cooler conversations, smoke breaks or swift after work drinks. The soft skills of work still needs to happen and work-regulated channels are easier overall than vast grey IT channels with no overruling policy about what is and isn’t acceptable.