Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 5

[fanOfBen]

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5549488-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-4

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 existence of the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN). 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.
I will also 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. The claim originated because she said "only women menstruate" and a search with her name and those terms at the usual gardening website should point you to her plot.

Oh fuck off with the lanyards, this man goes about in skimpy flowery frocks and no doubt uses womens spaces, and all the progress stuff is plastered about regardless.
Death by lanyard, for fucks sake.

The 'mental health' card can't really be played there - mental health support does not mean placate and gratify unwell person regardless of all other considerations and employees.

Do you mean this line?

J It's a draft of SM's decision, 18/4/24. Don't think I'd be unfair if I said reached a different outcome to one SM reached. Have you seen this before

I think that means that the earlier decision was different, not that the judge is taking a position.

A draft decision - so SM changed his mind probs. On the legal advice from someone.

Probably

I'm just taking it as stating that SM went through a process which included changing his mind, and DH, who was tasked with checking what SM did, did not know that there had been an earlier, different draft.

That sounds dodgy - if DH's one and only job was to check procedures were correctly followed, there was a big gap in his knowledge of how SM reached his final conclusion, and why he [apparently] changed his decision.

Not to mention the 5 days morphing into 10 months - I take the point that these procedures rarely meet the deadline, and the reasons give, but in that case they should remove the commitment to 5 days and put in something more realistic.
As it stood at the time, the promise was 5 days and that was missed by a mile.

I imagine originally the decision didnt recognise what the law was and someone reminded him of it.

Boiledbeetle · Today 13:43

There appears to be a beetle in your tea cakes.
Best give them to me to dispose of

Ah now, that's a Jewelled Rhubarb Scarab.

From TT:

J Everyone will be pleased to hear that's as far as we go today. Can we have a running order
AL Plan had been to hear from Steve Moore next. Then Nicolas Bettesworth.
J If humanly possible please stick to this as we will read in the order you propose to call witnesses.

AL Slight hesitation as would have been natural order to call NB first. [someone goes to check]
AL We'll stick to that order. Then Caroline Airs, then Mr Calvert but may revisit.
AL MLFs discussed this yesterday. Best case scenario is finish evidence by end of next week. Unlikely [eta cut off:] will get to submissions by end of next week and don't think subs

should be rushed. Grateful to know how tribunal feels c subs next week or not. Timetabling.
J We agree with all of you. Only decision to be made by us for that re written subs - in a case like this we would prefer to hear some oral subs.

J Will reserve judgment. Can we timetable and deliberate directly after that.
AL May be looking at relisting witnesses.

J Will see if we get to that. Will ask for written subs and oral subs, assuming that is what you want. Will deliberate after that and send out reserved decision.
J Wish you all a good weekend.
[ends]

My note: you'd think judges with this kind of experience might be sympathetic to investigations taking months... and the rest of us might be unsympathetic to both systems!

As far as DEFRA's responsibility goes, whether or not the judge agrees with their conclusion is neither here nor there, surely? Surely what matters is that the investigation process was completed reasonably and with reference to the protections of both sides of the dispute.

i guess we'll learn more when SM is interviewed next week.

HH After 2 years. Outcome was short letter and failure to engage
DH Don't agree. I am used to being concise. I believe I addressed the issues.

This answer was one of beauty and I punched the air. Never mind the width, feel the quality. He can make a point concisely without loads of hyperbolic waffle.

In fact, and I think it was @MarieDeGournay who asked, I liked him very much. He was calm and polite all the way through. He didn't dissemble and any "I can't recalls" were tinged with a slight tone of either regret or apology. TT summarised him quite a lot, but he spoke in full sentences in a professional manner. I would have him pegged as a very credible witness.

5days for a review of an investigation would just be silly - 5 days to set out a timetable would not be. Not clear what it was.

A full and happy one at that!

Oi!

Thank you, it was me, and that is helpful.
As I said in later posts, I warmed to him, I liked his no-bullshit approach and answers.
However, I'm concerned about the fact that at the very end he had to admit that he wasn't aware that SM changed his decision from the first draft.
Even if it was because somebody explained the law to him, that's part of the process that DH was reviewing, and DH should have known about it.

I concur with MLF. 🙂

No the draft would have been found at disclosure for these proceedings. The decision made by SM was what was reviewed, it was irrelevant to DH’s job in this process.

Also, if there was a draft that was changed, how was DH to know this and to know to ask for it?

The judge got veeerry grumpy at HH when she brought up Palestine. ANALOGIES DON'T HELP! FOCUS, PLEASE!

And to someone upthread a judge can not look in to the actual rational of a decision and meddle with it. It is his job to determine whether procedure. Was followed and conduct by staff and managers was or was not harassment.

Exactly. I don't think this is a 'smoking gun' scenario.

I thought Hallam came across as a bit of a 'not my department' kind of bloke, but that's not necessarily a bad thing when dealing with this kind of investigation. Just shut out everything extraneous and deal with the facts as they are presented, with the information you have. It also means he didn't go looking for problems, and doesn't seem to have any ideological opinions, one way or the other. He also comes across as someone who doesn't care who he upsets as long as he does the job he's been asked to do, and knows himself to be right in that regard. It probably also means if he was asked to do 'A' he wouldn't put any effort into finding out if 'B' was connected to 'C', but that's the risk you take with someone who does their job like that.

I imagine it was very frustrating for ST to not be able to influence or emotionally blackmail Hallam. I don't think Hallam cared one way or the other what the outcome was. As another poster upthread said, he was probably just wishing he was out hillwalking.

edited, spelling

Call mr simplistic but in any job i ever had it was complain, decision, appeal decision, tribunal. End of.

All this fannying around beggars belief.

Its called belt and braces.

OK, I accept that, I just have a feeling that ... oh I'll drop it
I've been unusually argumentative this afternoon, it's not like me - but as I said before, not in an aggressive way, just things that didn't sit comfortably with me to such an extent that I felt I should say something.
Like about barristers gotta barrist, it's their job, even if their case is daft.

Thank you for the c&p ing, fanOfBen, you deserve a 🍸or three or..

Oh I agree, I was just wondering if it implied he was more on one side than the other but that's been clarified, so thanks to all for that. If he's just checking the procedural lines that's good. My inner cynic was shouting at me, that's all!