The Unwisdom of Mobs
Well there's a turn up for the books... I was girding my loins for another full, long day of evidence, when, after the first witness had received a full grilling, both parties started suggesting they might be able to get through the remaining two before lunch. Absolute scenes. The only spanner in the works was that the final witness, Laurence McKeown, co-founder of the Belfast Film Festival, was not in the building. Calls were made, a short lunch was had, McKeown finished his evidence and we were home and hosed by 2.15pm. Also, in what was a surprise switcheroo, Dr Charlotte Elves cross-examined the final two witnesses this afternoon. The Full Handle Before we start, those of you who have only recently signed up may not have a full handle on the story, so: This was Day 8 of Morrison v Belfast Film Festival - an employment tribunal. Sara Morrison, a former employee of the Festival, is claiming discrimination (based on her gender critical/sex realist views) and constructive dismissal over what happened to her between her appearance at a Let Women Speak (LWS) event on 16 April 2023 and her eventual resignation on 26 November 2024. To get Sara's take on the story, please see "Sara Morrison v Belfast Film Festival", and for a recap on the drama of the first week, see "Morrison v Belfast Film Festival: Week 1". If you would like to read through the live-tweets from any day of this tribunal, go to the Live Tweets page on the blog. Ready? Good. Then we'll begin. "Many", is the Magic Number Lisa Barros D'Sa has considerable poise, evident intelligence and a very careful way of answering questions. She is co-chair of the BFF. Straight out of the traps Naomi Cunningham wanted to know why Barros D'Sa had said in her witness statement "Many groups in the women's sector had criticised the input from the Claimant at this rally". "Is that true?" wondered Cunningham. Cunningham then tried a new line on Barros D'Sa which I hadn't heard at the tribunal to date. Before I go into it, I think it's worth reading Sara Morrison's LWS speech in full as both Barros D'Sa and Laurence McKeown were asked to do that today. Or you can watch it here (1hr 4mins in). It's only four minutes long:
Cunningham suggested to Barros D'Sa that the women's groups Morrison was criticising on 16 April were the groups involved in "Songs for Solidarity", which was organised as a competitor event to Let Women Speak. And that Songs for Solidarity were trying to drown out what LWS were doing. "Where is that in evidence?" interjected a somewhat bemused Sean Doherty, barrister for the BFF. Cunningham said it was clear that what Morrison was complaining about in her speech is that the groups present and trying to drown out the LWS event are there "to shame and silence women." Barros D'Sa replied: "I can tell that Sara is speaking in criticism of those groups and she has every right to do so as a private citizen", but, said Barros D'Sa, the "issue" is where Morrison's right to free speech "intersects" with its consequences for the BFF. "I have no problem with her speaking up for her political beliefs", she added. Cunningham wanted to know what was actually wrong with what she said. Barros D'Sa was careful not to give an opinion of what Morrison said. She wanted to view this through the lens of the complaints it was generating and the potential reputational damage for the BFF. "Do you understand the difference between reputational damage and people making unjustified criticism of you?" asked Cunningham. Cunningham asked about the concerns at board level. Barros D'Sa was vague. "There was a sense that there were associations with… groups that disrespected trans people that gave concern to some people… at least one person mentioned that in the email that Michele [Devlin - BFF CEO] sent to us. I know that Lucy [Baxter] had mentioned womens groups, so those are the areas that I believe had been mentioned at that stage."
Cunningham listed some of the concerns of sex realist campaigners: single sex toilets, men in rape crisis centres, induced lactation in men so babies can suck on their nipples ("that's child abuse, isn't it?" asked Cunningham "I can't comment" said Barros D'Sa), mutilating the young bodies of vulnerable people and so on. The point of her list, said Cunningham, was that these were serious concerns about important matters. Barros D'Sa said she had absolutely no problem with people speaking out on matters which were important to them so long as they didn't "infringe on other people's rights." Cunningham wondered if the women's groups trying to silence and stop other women from speaking out about important serious matters deserved criticism? Barros D'Sa again said that speaking out is fine, but if it starts to cause reputational damage to an organisation that an employee is a member of, then it's understandable people would want to explore the reasons behind it and why it was happening. Cunningham suggested any women's organisation seeking to silence other women's organisations from speaking were behaving reprehensibly: "they've completely lost their moral compass, haven't they?" Anyway - It wasn't really about women's groups at all, advanced Cunningham - it was about Sara Morrison speaking out on gender critical issues. Ms Demeanour At that point Cunningham put a glove down, telling Barros D'Sa she hadn't "looked me in the eye once" since the cross-examination began. The BFFs barrister, Sean Doherty, leaped in immediately, stating that it was not relevant, nor important, nor mandatory to maintain eye contact. Cunningham spent much of the next half hour trawling through the complaints made to the BFF about her client's LWS speech. The complainants variously said Morrison "spoke openly at an anti-trans event", that she "holds, and publicly shares, negative opinions about Trans people", "spoke at a transphobic rally", displayed "blatant transphobia", had "very public transphobic views", etc etc.
"There were no negative opinions about trans people in Sara's speech were there?" asked Cunningham. Cunningham marched on through the criticism. She submitted to Barros D'Sa that if there was a single piece of documentary evidence pointing to Morrison's alleged transphobia, it would be in the bundle [the documents put into evidence at a trial, agreed by both parties]. Barros D'Sa said there was an allegation from a young film-maker. Cunningham showed Barros D'Sa a facsimile of a flyer aimed at raising enthusiam for the counter protest to LWS - it read "NO TERFS ON OUR TERF". Cunningham thought this summed up the attitude of the complaints made to the BFF - that women expressing gender critical/sex realist views should be "driven out of society". Barros D'Sa said she didn't think that was the right reading of it. Cousins Cometh
Cunningham then addressed the timeline of the alleged management decision to get rid of Sara Morrison, at the alleged instigation of Mark Cousins, a fellow BFF board member. For readers of this newsletter who have been signed up a while, this is something of a familiar story. Indeed, if you want to remind yourself of it, do have a look at this blog post and scroll down to the section right at the bottom titled The Evil Plot, which has a detailed timeline. The short version is that on 25 May 2023 Mark Cousins found out Morrison's gender critical views had been expressed at the LWS event. This made it "more serious than I thought". He wrote to the BFF's co-chairs and said he would back any "investigation or process" BFF CEO Michele Devlin chooses to put in place. Nothing much seemed to happen for a month until Cousins wrote again - agitating for action. He bumped into Morrison in a bar and was aghast she was unrepentant for the LWS event. Cousins told his fellow directors that "I’m standing up for the rights of women’" is "a new staple of the anti-LGBTQ anti-lslamic right.” On being pushed by Cousins, the co-chairs and CEO leaped into action, holding a phone meeting on 28 June. But what course of action did they agree? It is undisputed that on 3 July Devlin tried to pressure Morrison into sending an email to LGBT groups, so Devlin sent it. As designed, or completely unpredictably, it blew up in the BFF's face. On 5 July an HR organisation called Think People were instructed to take part into an investigation into Sara's actions and the subsequent complaints against her.
Cunningham asked Barros D'Sa what transpired at the phone meeting on 28 June. In the first instance Barros D'Sa wasn't sure if her co-chair Marie-Therese McGivern and CEO Michele Devlin were on the same call or if it might have been two calls. According to their witness evidence, Devlin only has a vague recollection of the call and McGivern can't remember it all. Cunningham ploughed on, noting that by this stage of the timeline, the concerns about the problems the LWS event were causing the BFF were "well-established". All present had seen the speech, they'd communicated between themselves about it, and they knew Mark Cousins felt "we need to accelerate the process by which this is sorted… We can’t have an inclusion/diversity officer who, many weeks after making such an ill-advised speech, is still standing by her actions completely". "Wasn't this an occasion to decide what to do next?" asked Cunningham. Cunningham reminded Barros D'Sa that all three women were busy people, who get things done and who have got together with some urgency to move things forward at the behest of their "charismatic" and influential fellow director who is looking to "accelerate the process". Yet it appears that when they do meet, all they do is have some kind of "hand-wringing session". Barros D'Sa stuck to her guns. "We were taking the temperature of the situation which had been escalating. This was a new bit of info we had to discuss [the bar encounter] and we discussed it as concerning." "So you discussed your concerns and decided to leave it there. Is that right?" asked Cunningham. Barros D'Sa couldn't really remember. The next event in Barros D'Sa's witness statement reports the 4 July feedback Devlin sent her on the back of the 3 July email. The co-chair wrote: "Michele forwarded to me complaints received from many organisations in response to her invitation." How many? Cunningham took her to the substance of the matter - the 3 July email to LGBT groups (and as we discovered yesterday, lots of other non-LGBT groups) asking them to collaborate on the Pride on the Big Screen project at the end of that month. All the groups in the email were open copied and Devlin put Sara Morrison's name at the top of the cc-list. It caused a huge adverse reaction (which Morrison's legal team say was deliberately engineered by Devlin, with the full knowledge of the co-chairs). Cunningham took Barros D'Sa to a series of WhatsApp group messages between board members, sent on 6 July. Cousins led the way: "As a board member I think Sara should be removed from any of our trans and queer projects at once." Lucy Baxter replied to say: "Yes I think this is the right way forward. It was a mistake to include Sara in the plans [for Pride on the Big Screen] but this can easily be remedied now." Cunningham noted Baxter had called the addition of Sara's name in the 3 July email "a mistake". This mistake, she continued, reflected badly on Michele Devlin for making it. Barros D'Sar didn't think it was a mistake, and that was only "Lucy's opinion in the moment". Cunningham suggested Devlin knew the enterprise was likely to go wrong and should have taken note of Morrison's discomfort about initially being asked to send the email and her unease about being added to the cc list. Sean Doherty intervened to point out that in cross-examination, Sara Morrison had agreed she worked on putting together the email with Devlin and was happy about it going out (which she did). Cunningham read from Morrison's witness statement, which said "I expressed my discomfort with having my name on that email, noting that we are experts in curating festivals and can offer a broad perspective on what should be featured… Despite my hesitation, Michele sent the email to the groups using the contacts from my Inclusion Excel spreadsheet, cc-ing me in after I had left for the day." The barrister proposed to D'Sa that even if Devlin herself couldn't see the "unwisdom" of place Sara's name prominently into the email, her employee's demeanour could or should have given her pause. "I think she was mananging the situation as best as she could in the moment", replied Barros D'Sa. As a final flourish before changing subject, Cunningham suggested "it was described as a "mistake" to send that email - truth was, it wasn't a mistake at all." It was the implementation of the plan to "accelerate matters" which in "obedience" to Mark Cousins, Barros D'Sa and Michele Devlin had cooked up on 28 June. "No it wasn't, and no such plan was made" said Barros D'Sa, firmly. S/he Who Shall Not Be Named
We moved on to the 7 July complaint from the "young film-maker" about an encounter with Sara Morrison. This has been recounted at the tribunal and in this newsletter, but today it was decided that, given the young person (a trans-identified female) was potentially vulnerable, their name would be left out of the judgment, and would not be used going forward. I told the court I had published their name along with a picture (a publicity shot) and so their identiy was all firmly in the public domain and associated with this case. Doherty (who initially proposed not naming the individual going forward) agreed "the horse has bolted" with regard to the person being named in the media. I took a unilateral decision that whilst reporting what was happening in court via twitter, I would follow the court's language and not use their name. However given their name has been used by me repeatedly up till now, it would seem odd to stop. The reason I am telling you all this is because I don't want to disrespect the court, nor do I want to appear gratuitous. Anway, it's the Caleb email again... The Caleb email arrived with a covering note from someone called Amie Martin who worked for an organisation called LGBTMH, which may or may not stand for LGBT Mental Health. Martin's covering note said Caleb "has asked that you do not show [his email] to Sara, nor let her know that he has sent this or keep it anon as possible as she has been known to chase up some people and he does not want any contact with her at all. He has said that its okay to show to board but to just keep it between yourselves for now and not with Sara or online as he understandably was a bit shaken with the experience and does not want to be harassed for doingthis or for it to effect [sic] his relationship with the festival as he is an avid fan of the festival and will attend screenings regularly as well submit. If you need to have a chat about this or need me for anything let me know as we were supporting him through this." Caleb's tale was that in November 2022, Morrison had "initiated a conversation with me by name, knowing who I was. This conversation quickly became incredibly uncomfortable, turning into what felt like borderline targeted harassment. She insisted on making it known to me that she was a TERF, standing for 'Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist' - repeating this to me multiple times, adding that I "probably hated her, hated her guts, thought she was a cunt" etc. despite having never met her before. It clicked with me then, that it was because I was transgender that she was telling me this - creating an intentionally antagonistic conversation. Several negative comments were made in relation to me being trans and that despite this (me being transgender) she still enjoyed my short film Homebird and thought that young gay people should see it... I was genuinely quite shocked that someone would approach a stranger and to their face tell them that they didn't like trans people, and I awkwardly removed myself from the conversation". Cunningham regarded all this and said: "If the complaint in that email is true, it's very serious." Barros D'Sa agreed. Cunningham thought it put Morrison's behaviour (again, if the allegation were true) into gross misconduct territory. "It's certainly very serious", said the Barros D'Sa. So why, Cunningham wanted to know, was it not followed up or investigated? Reflecting the evidence from her fellow co-chair yesterday, Barros D'Sa said that by the time the email came in, an investigation had already begun. Cunningham took her to the email sent to Morrison on 25 July, entitled "Invite to Investigation". It is written by Think People's Bethany O'Neil, but it is clear from the information at the top of the invite, is Lisa Barros D'Sa's investigation. The document lists the scope of the investigation, including the LWS event and Morrison's encounter with Mark Cousins in a bar, but there is no mention of the Caleb allegation. It is the single most serious allegation against her. Why on earth wasn't it in there? Barros D'Sa told Cunningham that the scope also mentioned "any other issues that may come to their attention during the course of the investigation", but as Cunningham pointed out, the Caleb email had already come to their attention. It was sent through on 7 July. Why wasn't it mentioned? "Bethany put this together" floundered Barros D'Sa, "and the terms... and there is a section there that says there is the opportunity to put matters which may come to our attention..." she paused. "That's all I can say." "In hindsight isn't it incomprehensible that it wasn't put onto the charge sheet?" asked Cunningham. Barros D'Sa agreed it was incomprehensible. Cunningham proposed there were, in fact, two perfectly comprehensible reasons it didn't happen - a) no one thought it was true, and b) they had already set themselves on a pre-determined outcome for their investigation anyway. But, said Cunningham, if the BFF hadn't predetermined their investigation, why did Barros D'Sa send her colleagues a message saying: "Hi all, MT [McGivern] and Michele are on holiday this week so I wanted to give you a quick update. Michele has gathered further formal complaints relating to Sara. And refusal to do certain aspects of her job [a reference to Morrison's unwillingness to send the 3 July email under her name]... in itself constitutes gross misconduct. So pending further legal discussion things are moving toward a clear destination - again it's just about doing everything in the correct way." Cunningham thought this was further evidence of a stitch up. Barros D'Sa disagreed. What then, Cunningham asked, was the "clear destination" she was talking about. Barros D'Sa said it was the investigation. The investigation was the destination. Cunningham called this "fairly desperate". "Not at all", replied Barros D'Sa. Achievement Unlocked
The final two witnesses of the tribunal were both cross-examined by Naomi Cunningham's junior, Dr Charlotte Elves. Moyra Lock was barely on oath for more than ten minutes. Lock is a book-keeper who looks after the BFFs payroll and admin services. The questioning was about Michele Devlin's instruction to put Sara Morrison on Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) when she went off sick in July 2023. Lock had never put someone on SSP before, which Morrison's legal team thought might be an example of Devlin acting detrimentally towards her. After some confusion about when Lock was instructed to put Morrison on SSP (she was unable to give an exact date), Elves asked Lock how many other employees had been off sick since she began working for the BFF in 2022. "I don't recall anyone being off sick and sending in a sick note in my time there", replied Lock. The judge asked how many employees Lock adminstered at the BFF "Three", replied Lock. "No further questions", concluded Elves. The IRA Gunman and Hunger Striker
I'm not being sensationalist - that's what the Irish Times called him. The tribunal called him Dr Laurence McKeown. He is co-founder of the BFF and sits on its board. Despite McKeown's influential role, his cross-examination was brief - he also spoke quickly in a low tone which made picking up everything he had to say quite tricky. Elves took him through his witness statement where he wrote: "Apart from being the founder of the Respondent organisation and being a Board Member ever since, I am publicly known for my life as a former IRA volunteer, a political prisoner who took part in the 1981 hunger strike, and a supporter of Sinn Fein and the Republican Movement. I have written about my life in various books and publications and made a film about my prison experiences. It is all very public. However, none of that in any way ever conflicted with my role as a member of the board of management of the Respondent, as I was always very clear about the separation between board membership and my life and work as a private citizen. There never was any challenge to that from any member of the public." There are any number of meanings you could read into that. Charlotte Elves asked him if he was highlighting "a separation between personal opinions and your role on the board is very important". McKeown agreed. Elves noted that Morrison had not named her employer, mentioned the industry and attended the LWS rally in her own time. McKeown agreed, but said "Belfast is a small city, the arts sector is a small sector, so Sara would immediately be identified." Other than being recognisable, there's nothing that Elves did wrong by speaking as she did. "I don't agree", said McKeown. "She appeared at a public rally with two people who have very contentious views and it would be like me appearing on a platform with dissident republicans who still advocate for armed struggle." McKeown opined that if that happened, he very quickly would no long be on the board of the BFF. Elves asked if McKeown wanted the tribunal to draw a comparison between LWS and dissident republicans. "No" said McKeown quickly, it was about what you can and can't do as an employee and inclusion officer. Morrison was "criticising women's groups and appearing with people whose opinions here have caused a lot of difficulties."
Elves brought up Michele Devlin's appearance in a Sinn Féin campaign video, which the BFF board gave her permission to do. Elves suggested that was because Devlin had the approved opinions, unlike Morrison. McKeown said that if Morrison had wanted to appear in a Green Party or a unionist party she could. He shared platforms with and worked with all sorts of people with whose views he vehemently disagreed, but everyone works together "it's what it's like here". Elves asked if Morrison had appeared at an Amnesty International event and criticised human rights abuses in China, prompting a complaint to the BFF board, would they begin an investigation? McKeown replied: "any complaint that the board would get would be investigated." Elves scoffed. "That's just not credible." There had to be a "filtering process". McKeown didn't like this, suggesting Elves was "calling into question the integrity of the board... If the board gets a complaint, it will be investigated." Elves moved on to the broader sweep of McKeown's witness statement, which doesn't mention transgender people, trans rights, gender identity/sex realist beliefs or the LGBT community at all. The only thing McKeown's witness statement suggests he has a problem with is Morrison's criticism of women's groups in the LWS speech. "Yes and being on that platform in the first place", said McKeown. Elves took him to the contemporaneous documents, in which McKeown variously writes "Posie Parker's campaign against trans is equally well known" [Posie Parker is the alt name of Kellie-Jay Keen who runs the LWS events] and "Were others "letting women speak" speaking in support of trans?" and "removing her from any engagement with trans or queer groups seems to be the solution". Elves says McKeown's concern had nothing to do with women's groups. It was all about trans. McKeown insisted it was all "intermingled" and had to be looked at in "context". Elves suggested McKeown's witness statement was deliberately misleading. "No", replied McKeown. "There's nothing misleading in my witness statement at all. It's a very clear exposition."
Elves posited if McKeown had connected the criticism of Morrison with trans groups rather than women's groups, he knew the BFF would be "encroaching on her protected belief" to be gender critical. "I've heard a lot of theories at this tribunal," said McKeown. Elves tried again. "I'm not going down this road," he interrupted. I waited for someone to say "That's not how this works. I ask the questions and you answer them", but no one did. Elves put it less confrontationally, telling McKeown said she was entitled to ask the question. If he chose, he could refuse to answer. "If you had linked your concerns with Sara Morrison and its effects on the trans community," she stated, "that would have been a reaction to Sara's protected sex realist beliefs." And there the day's evidence ended. Housekeeping There is now a full day (Thursday) when court is not sitting. Both parties have until 9am on Friday to get their written submissions to the judging panel, then at 11.30am on Friday, court will reconvene to hear each party's oral comments on their opposite number's submissions as well as answer any questions the judge might want to put. I suspect that will mean it will all be over by lunchtime on Friday but you never know. Thanks for reading this far - I thought this newsletter was going to be short and I was going to get it out quickly. At least it's earlier than last night's! Have a good evening and I'll be back with another newsletter on Friday before I catch my flight home. Best Nick This is the GenderBlog newsletter. If you have been forwarded it and would like to join the mailing list so each newsletter and GenderBlog blog post drops, freshly-baked, directly into your email inbox, please consider making a small donation via the donate page on my GenderBlog website. Thanks. © Nick Wallis 2025 |
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