Two of the Darlington Nurses have told GB News they feel “vindicated” and “elated” following their landmark victory against the NHS.
Speaking to GB News, Bethany Hutchison and Lisa Lockey revealed they have received “no apology” from the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust after winning their employment tribunal.
Eight Darlington nurses took action after trans colleague Rose Henderson was allowed to use the female changing rooms, sparking a legal battle spanning almost 18 months.
Reacting to their victory, Ms Hutchison told GB News: “We feel completely vindicated, we’re elated and we’re delighted.”
Highlighting the impact Rose’s use of the women’s changing room had on the nurses, Ms Lockey recalled: “Our friend Karen, who has got a history of sexual abuse from being a child, it was really, really distressing for her.
“But there were a lot of incidents where people just felt uncomfortable to the point where you sort of felt uncomfortable even walking in there. We were thinking, if I’m in a state of undress, is he going to walk in? It just felt uncomfortable for everybody.”
Noting that their ward manager was told by bosses that the concerned nurses simply needed “educating” on trans people, Ms Hutchison told GB News: “Our ward manager was summoned to a meeting, and in that meeting she was told that the members of staff that had raised the concern were to be educated.
“They needed to broaden their mindset, to compromise, and there was an offer of Rose Henderson actually educating us himself.”
Two of the Darlington Nurses have told GB News they feel ‘vindicated’ after their victory against their NHS Trust
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GB NEWS
Revealing that NHS bosses “refused” to spend £9,000 on necessary work transforming a former office into a safe space for the concerned women to get changed, Ms Lockey explained: “We were given our manager’s old office, it was converted into a locker room for us, which initially had no lockers in there, there was just a chair. So we were having to just leave our clothes on the floor.
“It opened onto a corridor, so it used to be a case of you would go in there and you would kind of be ready to jump behind the door, because if you were stood there and just your bra, you were uncovered and exposed. So it was uncomfortable.”
She continued: “Eventually they did put some lockers in there for us, but there was only half a dozen. And for the amount of stuff using it, it was nowhere near enough. But because it had been an office, it needed some work done to make it fire safe as a changing room, and they didn’t do that.
“And it came out in court through a bunch of emails that we read that our one of our directors had said they couldn’t justify spending about £9,000 on the fire safety work that needed to be done.”
Host Josh Howie then quipped: “So they couldn’t spend the £9,000 on that, but of course they could spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ money fighting this in court?”
Nurses from Darlington Memorial Hospital took their trust to an employment tribunal hearing over a trans colleague’s use of changing rooms at work | PA
Asked why the NHS Trust didn’t simply settle the case with the nurses instead of going to court, Ms Hutchison responded: “We can’t understand that either. For us, it’s not a complex issue, sex is immutable, it’s binary, and he should never have been in there anyway.
“And they were in breach of other regulations as well. Men and women are entitled to have facilities that are for men and women. There is legislation for that already in place.”
The nurses also revealed that the Trust has failed to contact them since their victory: “No, we’ve has no contact. No flowers, no apology.
“It’s been exhausting and also all consuming as well. There’s been sleepless nights, tears, thankfully we’ve had each other to support, and the wonderful Christian Legal Centre as well to support us. So we have managed to get through it, but there have been times where some of us have thought is, is this worth it?”
The Darlington Nurses told GB News that they are still waiting for an apology from the Trust
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GB NEWS
Asked if they received any union support, Ms Lockey revealed her union chose to represent Rose Henderson instead of the nurses, resulting in her cancelling her membership.
Ms Lockey said: “Fairly early on in the process, I emailed my union rep and I didn’t get a response, and then a month or so later, I found out he was actually going to be representing Rose, so that was frustrating. They then they refused to let us have our legal team with us in any meetings, so that was when we formed our own union, the Darlington Nurses Union.
“We then went to meet Wes Streeting and the story of that appeared in the media, and the President of Unison at the time tweeted ‘another politician pandering to these anti-trans bigots’, so my membership was cancelled the next day.”
Asked what they hope comes from their landmark victory, Ms Hutchison concluded: “We’re hoping that these illegal policies will be removed across the board and into the public sector as well, because they’re still they’re still there. Women and men are still being impacted by these policies.”
A spokesman for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are taking time to review the judgment carefully, and will comment further once we have had the opportunity to consider it in full.”