Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 8

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5551959-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-7

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.

Please 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.

Lovely, thank you, I now have 2 in my wardrobe.
And thank you for portraying me in my punk angel manifestation!

Maybe HH is running down the clock so that EDW runs out of money and SEEN can no longer intervene?

I really think HHs conduct here is in question - I hope that the judge does consider a cost order when ST loses.

From TT:

J: We have checked all those dates and all are convenient and in diary.
J 4 days beginning 14th -
NC: We have been discussing - can we ask for 5 instead?
J: Indeed. 5 days from 14/12

J: Then 1 day 25/1 for oral submissions, then we will take 27/1-29/1 for deliberations. We will write out a case management order with all this.

NC: Just to remind, EDW can't do 18th so AL has kindly agreed to interpose EDW earlier in the week
AL: If tribunal agrees.
J: OK we will put EDW after CA for now.

From TT:

J: And we agreed exchange written subs by 20/1/2027. I think that's everything?
J: Thank you everyone. Let's hope it's cooler when we reconvene. And thank you Miss Airs for your understanding re your birthday, it's appreciated.

[HEARING ENDS}

I appreciate that finding extra dates for a ET would be problematic, but couldn't they have asked a clerk to set up a Doodle Poll to for all the remaining participants to complete, to show their availability.

It would take minutes to find an agreeable date.

Excruciating.

your experience with doodle polls is obviously very different from mine!

I'm not sure the judge has heard of doodle. He probably thinks it's a dog.

Nap. Got to nap.

Thank you TT and C&Ps.

Well what a damp squib. I was so looking forward to Naomi 😢

I knew mn isn’t insta, but…

Finally caught up. What an utter farce. I hereby declare HH as Queen Clown with her incompetence and faffing around and I hope she feels ashamed of her unprofessional performance. I doubt she does though.

Is ST still on sick leave and does that now get extended to Dec 26?

Soz. Crossed posted with Boiledbeatle.

I'm not so sure. I think she is not ontop of the SS of Doom because ST changed instructions after he was on the stand and realised the numerical difference he had assumed would be sufficient wouldn't serve. If I remember correctly HH is a late edition anyway.

I think her client has messed with his advocates and he has messed with her. I think she has been instructed to go through every post and moderation response by her client.

To show, warts and all, the true horror of what has been done by SEEN?

I’ve just planted some seeds for Elspeth - it must be so miserable having this drag out for months longer

J: We have to complete CA evidence - half a day?
AL: Possibly a little longer, if NC needs full afternoon plus - a long half?
J: Half and a bit. Then Mr Calvert and [missed] and then Ms Duemmer Wrigle
J: How long for Mr Calvert & Ms Adair?
HH: For Mr C half a day from me?
NC: And very little from me
HH: And Ms Adair, an hour or so from me
NC: [missed]
J: And for EDW? With very firm focus on the issues?
AL: Two hours from me?

It could have been finished if the last few days weren't wasted on a 'one thousand and one ways to ask the same question' demonstration 🙄

Elspeth must find it torture to be in the same room as her torturer after years of him torturing her. And yet more torture to come 😡

On balance I agree.

If it WERE the planned strategy then surely there would have been a chance to better prepare how to share the SS of doom (line by line). Potentially with modern technology … It felt like a bad uni lecture when the OHP bulb has popped (one for the oldies 😎😎) and everyone has to read their own text book. And everyone read together at the same pace.

Going part heard is not down to HH but going part heard with CA in the middle of her evidence definitely is. Yesterday she said she'd need only 40 mins. That turned into 3 hours today. She knew what she was doing. Disgraceful.

I mean he and his pals have definitely decided that the number of moderation decisions against their angry diatribes v allowing AM's slightly sarcastic tone to stand on one occasion amounts to harassment and the creation of a hostile environment and from his original testimony he clearly thought a numerical count would be decisive. But the questioning of the J made that clear so I think he then instructed HH to go through each one, but quite often they don't actually have the content of what was moderated, they didn't moderate thumbs up etc, and they didn't record anything that wasn't moderated so the evidence is, I think it is safe to say, almost wholly unreliable.

HH's only option given that, and her not being ontop of the Shoom (SSofDoom), was to try and get CA to admit to being a bit GC and that would prove their argument ie if the evidence doesn't support the claim if your witnesses demonstrate clear prejudice/ bias the implementation of bias becomes more credible if the evidence is unreliable/ chaotic.

I wonder if CAs testimony has alerted J to the fact that underlying the messaging under consideration is the misunderstanding of SEEN's position? And that he has not really considered that before, hence his tude to intervenor intervening.

It is quite plausible, if he has not researched, has trans/allies in his back office and is working with captured panelists all of whom will have had Stonewall training at some point I'm sure.

Could he have just taken for granted that GC approach is anti-trans? That they actually do want to deny existence of trans? Is that why he was so willing to compell pronouns?

I love that CA could assert that issue so clearly and briefly. Clever lady.

Tink was represented by RMW initially, not obvious when HH took over. Instructing solicitor may not have changed though.

HH is coming across as incompetent - not sure if it would be worse for her if this was seen as strategic incompetence or ordinary incompetence.

Only time and the judgment will tell.

If CA wasn’t a full member of the GC club before she surely is now. The only time she showed any irritation was when HH tried to bring her sexuality into the discussion. Up to then she was a model witness - clear and concise and (importantly I think) knows her stuff better than HH. I think her background in law and her experience in general gave her the insight to see what HH was up to and to side step the leading questions.

I can only agree with pp that HH was under instruction from her client to keep flogging the same points over and over because surely CA was an excellent witness for the respondent and increasingly a good one for the intervenor. HH must have known that.