Stonewall has been “high-handed and malicious” in its ongoing legal fight against a gender critical barrister, her lawyer has told the final day of an employment tribunal.
The barrister Allison Bailey is suing her chambers, Garden Court, and the LGBTQ+ charity. She claims she was offered lower-quality work after she voiced her opposition to the nationwide Stonewall diversity champion scheme when it was announced at her chambers in December 2018. Stonewall’s programme provides advice and assessments for inclusive workplaces.
Bailey said she was asked by her chambers to delete two tweets criticising the LGBTQ+ charity’s position on trans rights, which Stonewall had complained about. She refused to do so.
In closing submissions on the final day of the four-week long tribunal on Monday, Bailey’s lawyer, Ben Cooper QC, said Stonewall had tried to get the tribunal to reject her claim.
Cooper told the employment judge Sarah Goodman that GCC and Stonewall had attempted to frame Bailey as waging a “political campaign” against the charity, founded in 1989, rather than a legitimate complaint.
“[They] mount an extraordinary attack on this tribunal for ‘indulging the claimant’s claim and the evidence she’s given to support this’, and do so in a way that implies a degree of pressure … to encourage this tribunal to reject the claim for fear of being seen to have assisted the claimant too much,” Cooper said.
He told the tribunal that the alleged approach was “characteristic of the...
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