I am mostly not accepting that.

Unacceptable.

Hello

Our (my) total dependence on the internet was brought home today when it briefly fell apart and took some time to get itself back together. It meant I couldn't do the job I'd come to do, which is live-tweet from Day 7 of Morrison v Belfast Film Festival (BFF). I felt marooned and helpless. There was nothing I could do - well, not whilst the tribunal was still happening - so I just bashed notes into a blank word processing document on my laptop and then, when CloudFlare sorted itself out, I pasted the contents of that page bit by bit into tweets, executing what we would call in TV News as-live tweeting. You can read them all here.

Before we get going I would like to warn you about a potentially offensive photo which was put into evidence today. I have posted it right at the bottom of this email. It shows an arguably pornographic image of a man with his breasts in suction pumps. I would not want any children to see the photo, so please be careful who sees this particular newsletter. If you don't want to see the image, stop scrolling when you get to the chapter title One Last Big Push. Okay let's focus on the evidence:

Three BFF witnesses in one day!

It's a new record. Before lunch, Michele Devlin, the BFF CEO finally completed her evidence after five days on oath. After lunch we heard from AAB's Keara Paterson (formerly Think People. AAB, not Keara) and at the end of the day we got the evidence of one of the voluntary co-chairs of the BFF, Marie-Therese McGivern.

Naomi Cunningham, barrister for Sara Morrison, who is claiming discrimination and constructive dismissal, asked most of the questions, save a few queries from the Judge and the BFF barrister (Sean Doherty) when his witnesses were being re-examined.

Sara Morrison was present throughout today and in a cheery mood, accompanied by a rolling number of supporters which I would say averaged around ten (including Sara's mum and her mum's partner). There was quite a presence of the BFF side too, including Michele Devlin's dad, who came along for the first time.

The same four hacks who were present yesterday pitched up again (me, The Newsletter, BBC NI and a Jenny the Substacker) and the entire day went by without a single recusal application. In fact, there was no procedural drama whatsoever, which after the excitement of the previous two court days made today feel a tiny bit flat. And long. Very long. I won't attempt to take you through every single twist and turn of every piece of evidence, but whilst it is all still fresh in my mind, here goes...

Devlin About

Naomi Cunningham went straight back to the 3 July email which is so central to the claimant's case. If you need reminding about it, do go to this blog post and scroll right down until you get to the headline The Evil Plot.

The email was ostensibly sent to LGBT groups about a proposed LGBT event, but there were a lot of groups cc'd who weren't obviously LGBT, including a youth group - Ardoyne and an organisation called Falls Women's Centre - which Cunningham surmised might be a Women's Centre. "The name would seem to give it away” agreed Devlin - plus Alliance for Choice, Sinn Féin and the Women's Institute.

Cunningham wondered if the Women's Institute might be surprised to be invited to co-design an LGBT event. Devlin explained that this was planned as a family day out and Devlin argued that many community groups "and unions, as we discovered yesterday" have LGBT sections and subcommittees.

"Alliance for Choice?" (a group campaigning for rights to abortion) queried Cunningham.
"They have members who are gay" said Devlin.
Cunningham wondered if the qualification for appearing on this email list was "any group ever". She noted that both the Women's Resource and Development Agency and Alliance for Choice were among the groups called out by Sara Morrison on 16 April 2023.
"It was bridge-building", said Devlin.
"It was a deliberate provocation", countered Cunningham, which Devlin denied.
"You put this list together with a view to generating complaints", said Cunningham.
"I don't accept that", said Devlin, not for the first time in her evidence. She went on to point out that she worked on the list of people she was going to sent the email to with the participation and agreement of Sara Morrison.

Frozen Out

The next phase of Cunningham's attack involved what happened to Morrison once she had gone off sick in July 2023 with stress. Morrison was not referred to occupational health until October, she was not given her work email password, she was shut out of the shared folders at work, she had to had to hand back her keys and she was removed from the BFF programme that year.

Devlin said on the latter point Morrison didn't work on that year's Festival so she was not going to appear in the programme. Morrison did, however, remain on the staff web-page because that was related to her job. Cunningham reminded Devlin she took the entire staff web-page down. "That's because we getting tortured by all sorts of headcases", replied Devlin "stopped by people in the street and harassed online… so I protected my staff."

Cunningham spent a long time on Morrison's claim that she couldn't access her work emails for several months, despite requesting Devlin send over her work password.

Devlin initially sent the password to Morrison in July 2023. Unfortunately she "mistakenly" sent it to the work email account Morrison was locked out of. Cunningham said this was no mistake. Devlin protested it was. Cunningham asked why then, when she wanted to inform Morrison that an investigation had begun into her actions, she directed the Think People consultant to send it to Morrison's gmail account. Devlin said she didn't know if Morrison had "definitely fixed" the work email issue, so she wanted to make sure she got the investigation email.

Cunningham said that Devlin did not give Morrison access to her work emails until November. Devlin said she sent her the password again after being chased in October and then again in November along with an email pointing out she'd sent the password twice already. Morrison responded to the November message saying she had no record of receiving her password in July or October. We knew why she didn't get it in July - Devlin sent it to the account she couldn't access. But what happened in October?

In documents submitted to the inquiry there is evidence that Devlin sent Cunningham her email password as part of the response to her Subject Access Request (SAR) which Morrison had made that autumn. Cunningham wondered if it was sitting on an unsent email somewhere which then got caught up in the SAR searches and that's how it reached her. Devlin didn't seem able to produce a coherent response.

"You're just lying now, aren't you?" suggested Cunningham.
"I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT", replied Devlin with some force.

It transpired that Devlin had indeed sent Morrison her work email password as part of her SAR bundle, and was claiming that this was done to help her access her emails. Devlin did not make mention of the fact the SAR bundle of documents contained Morrison's password when she sent it over to her.

"So you sent her the password, buried in a bundle, knowing she needed it and didn't tell her it was there," said Cunningham. "Is that a fair summary?"
"Possibly", replied Devlin saying she thought Simon Chambers, Morrison's solicitor, would or should have seen the password and alerted Morrison to its existence, which is certainly an unusual way of telling someone their email password.

"You knew from 25 July the claimant didn't have access to her email, and you did nothing to communicate it to her till 26 November", challenged Cunningham.
"I did take action" retorted Devlin. "I sent it - mistakenly - to the wrong address in July. I took action in October and I took action again in November."
"You firstly sent it to the wrong address and then you secondly hid it in a pile of papers."
"I sent to her and it was available to her and it was there for her to use it", said Devlin. Cunningham reminded Devlin that Morrison was off sick with "poor mental health... Have you heard the expression 'gaslighting' before?" she asked.
"Possibly", came the wary reply.
Cunningham explained gaslighting - giving someone misinformation or persuading them something was happening for inexplicable reasons in order to drive them mad.
"You were gaslighting Sara Morrison, weren't you?"
Devlin denied it.
"The way you were treating her was cynically cruel, wasn't it?" asked Cunningham.
"I do not accept that", came Devlin's reply.

The court rose for a break. As it did so a man shuffled past me, pointing out it was odd that the CEO of a Film Festival wasn't sure about the word gaslighting, given that a film called Gaslight had given the term its modern meaning. I must admit I had traveled through life without ever knowing the origins of the word and tweeted as much. Then I googled it to discover the term was originally conceived in a mid-war play set in the Victoria era called Gas Light. In the play a woman hears footsteps upstairs and notices the gas lights in their apartment dim every now and then. Her husband manipulates these occurances to convince her that she is going insane. This begat two films, both called "Gaslight". It made for a diverting break. Then the internet fell over.

Sara Morrison's "It"

Back in court Cunningham was summarising all the ways Morrison was allegedly depersoned by the Belfast Film Festival over the summer and autumn of 2023, including the removal of her keys. "No wonder she felt as if she had been de facto suspended", she said.

Devlin pushed back saying that she had only "borrowed" Morrison's keys and when she had finished with them they were left in the office for Morrison to pick up which she could have done during working hours.

We then turned to the Cunningham's final topic - the serious allegation that Sara Morrison had called a trans-identifying man "it". This allegedly came about as the two women walked home from a meeting in early 2023 through an art gallery. In the gallery a trans-identifying man was giving manicures. Devlin had commented something along the lines of how nice it would be to have the time to stop and get a manicure and Morrison allegedly replied saying "Urgh - not with it."

Cunningham suggested this was both shocking and unpleasant and, in fact, a very clear example of transphobia.
"It was very odd", said Devlin. "I couldn't quite believe I heard it."
"Did you hear it?" said Cunningham
Devlin was sure she had. What's more they were close enough for the manicurist to be in earshot. Then this, suggested Cunningham, was surely misconduct.
"It was odd", repeated Devlin.
Cunningham suggested it was worse than odd. It was gross misconduct followed by dismissal, if it happened...
Devlin agreed it did need to be raised "and I did take note of it to talk to her about it."
"Do you still have that note?" asked Cunningham.
"I don't know", said Devlin.
Cunningham suggested an employee that spoke their mind in that way in front of their own manager was a liability. She either thought her manager shared those views or she didn't care who heard them. Devlin assured Cunningham she didn't share those views.
Why then, if Morrison had said what she said, did Devlin do nothing at all about it. Why was there no disciplinary? Why was it not raised at Morrison's next supervision meeting? Didn't this reflect very badly on Devlin as a manager?
"I should have done something about it", said Devlin.
"You were in gross neglect if your duty", said Cunningham.
Devlin didn't think so.

Either way it was exactly the sort of thing that should be covered by the BFF's investigation into Morrison. But it wasn't. And, said Cunningham, it also would be in the bundle put together in response to Morrison's discrimination claim. But it wasn't.

"This allegation about Sara Morrison’s transphobia is completely made up, isn’t it?" asked Cunningham.
"No", said Devlin.

Cunningham then said there was something at the exhibition which might cause a disgust reaction, and it was at this point she showed the court the breast pump photo, which I am going to post right at the bottom of this email so it can be avoided by those who have no wish to see it. Alternatively scroll down now if you're up for it. You have been warned.

In one of the best lines I think I've heard in a courtroom ever, Cunningham asked Devlin "Are you aware some men have a sexual fantasy of being milked like a cow?"
"No", replied Devlin.
At this point, perhaps understandably, the judge asked "where this might be taking us?"
Cunningham asked if we were essentially looking at sci-fi influenced pornography. "Looks like it", agreed Devlin.
Cunningham said this was something autogynephiles were into. Abusive images of objectified women. Devlin did not know what autogynephilia was.
"This image", said Cunningham "is sexual harassment of every woman who walks past, especially a woman having to walk past it on her way to work - and you knew full well..."
The judge intervened again - wondering if Cunningham was about to suggest that Devlin had deliberately steered Morrison through the exhibition on their way back from their meeting.
No, said Cunningham, she wasn't going to do that. Instead she suggested to Devlin that knowing Morrison had been exposed to something "truly disgusting" it gave her the "cover" to come up with the lie that she'd called the manicurist at the exhibition "it".
"I don't accept that whatsoever", said Devlin.

Devlin was asked - given that Morrison is claiming discrimination for her gender critical beliefs and the BFF's case is that she criticised women's community groups - why did she try to "smear" Morrison "as a transphobe" when she first gave evidence last Wednesday.
"Because I was asked about her gender critical beliefs", said Devlin. "I was asked about how I knew Sara Morrison had gender critical views. I was thinking of a series of examples and that one popped into my head."

After that, five days of Devlin being on oath came to an end. She marked it by kindly agreeing to pose for the photo which tops this newsletter.

Keara Afternoonly

Keara Paterson works for AAB, which used to be Think People. She was brought in to investigate Morrison's grievance claim in 2023 when the company was called Think People. The grievance was about the investigation launched into Morrison's actions.

Cunningham was interested in two things - what evidence Paterson studied to see whether or not the BFF's investigation into Sara Morrison's behaviour was valid, and how much ownership Paterson had of Morrison's grievance investigation, in which the co-chair of the BFF, Lisa Barros D'Sa also participated.

Cunningham noted that Paterson said in her witness statement that "the initiation of the investigation by the Respondent was not based on the Claimant's beliefs, but rather due to the negative impact her attendance and participation in the event had on the Respondent’s reputation, its clients, and commercial success".

Cunningham wondered what documents Paterson had studied to assess the damage to the BFF's "reputation, its clients and commercial success." Paterson replied she was more interested in the "rationale" for the investigation "not the specifics". In doing so she didn't study any documents which showed any damage to the BFF's "commercial success", there were no complaints from anyone working in the women's sector, so she could't look at those, and she relied for her information on what she was told by Michele Devlin.

Paterson argued there were plenty of complaints on social media which suggested reputational damage and she also got information from the other interviews she conducted, plus Moyra Lock's witness statement.

Cunningham took her to her interview notes. It seems that during the process she barely asked any questions, letting Lisa Barros D'Sa do most of the talking. Then Cunningham looked at the emails sent by Barros D'Sa to Morrison.

"The reality is that your role was little more than an administrative role wasn’t it?" asked the barrister.
"No." replied Paterson, outlining the HR advice and guidance she was giving to the BFF co-chair as the investigation ran along.

Cunningham took her to the grievance outcome report. It is written in the first person and signed by Paterson, yet the grievance investigation, on paper and in practice was carried out by Lisa Barros D'Sa.

The grievance outcome "was Lisa Barros D'Sa's decision, wasn't it?" asked Cunningham. Paterson agreed, but said it was made with advice and input from her.
"Why didn't Ms Barros D'Sa sign it, then?" asked Cunningham.
"I can't recall" said Paterson.

Cunningham suggested it was to give the investigation a wholly unwarranted veneer of independence. Paterson pushed back, saying both she, Think People and the BFF did everything properly, pointing out that the BFF went out of their way to hire in proper experts to make sure everything was above board. "Companies who don’t want to be impartial don’t do that," she said.

Blow Back

Marie-Therese McGivern is a big deal. She is co-chair of the Belfast Film Festival. Before that she was Principal and CEO of Belfast Metropolitan College until her retirement in 2020. Before that she was Belfast City Council's first Director of Development. McGivern chairs Visit Belfast and is a non-executive director on the boards of Invest NI, Northern Ireland Water and the Strategic Investment Board for Northern Ireland.

Cunningham spent most of McGivern's evidence trying to work out who made the BFF decision to investigate Sara Morrison and when. It was not something McGivern could help much with. She acknowledges she sent an email on 19 May to her co-chair Lisa Barros D'Sa saying they need to get a professional HR company in (which turned out to be Think People) to "review our contracts of employment just to check that they are in keeping with our value framework and also we need to review and update our employment policies". There is no mention here of an investigation into Sara Morrison.

Nonetheless McGivern said that at the time Morrison's attendance on 16 April at a Let Women Speak event "concerned" her as the "impact" of it "had potentially not settled".

Cunningham took McGivern to her co-director Mark Cousins' 25 June email in which he says the phrase "‘I’m standing up for the rights of women’ is the argument used by conservatives and religious people in several countries, and a new staple of the anti-LGBTQ anti-lslamic right", tells his fellow directors "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" and suggests they neeed to "accelerate the process".

Cunningham wondered what McGivern thought Cousins meant when he said "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." McGivern said it could be interpreted in many ways, before noting "It doesn’t speak to what remedy he wants… I think he wants to put some distance between the inclusion officer and people making complaints…. He was worried that interaction might cause even more issues".

McGivern was keen to point out that Cousins was a "huge, huge fan of Sara and spoke very lovingly of her on a regular basis" he was, apparently "very complimentary".
"Isn’t it pretty obvious what he’s saying...? He’s saying she needs to be dismissed, that’s where we need to get to", said Cunningham.
"That isn’t my reading of it”, replied McGivern.

We then stumbled onto the phone meeting between the CEO and her co-chairs on 28 June which Lisa Barros D'Sa said did take place, Michele Devlin wracked her brains about over the weekend and vaguely remembered, but Marie-Therese McGivern simply had no memory of.

Cunningham said this was the meeting at which the three women concocted the plan to get Morrison out of the BFF by making her send an email to LGBT groups, confect a complaints ****storm and then use that as the excuse they needed to launch an investigation into what happened with a view to getting her out of the building.

McGivern described this idea as "just nonsense". Cunningham asked her what she thought of the 3 July email, which was eventually sent by Michele Devlin - McGivern replied she thought it was an example of her CEO trying to "find a way through" the situation they were in. She also told Cunningham she had always thought there needed to be a fact-finding investigation into what happened and that it would always reference the Let Women Speak event in which Sara participated.

What Cunningham couldn't pin down was who took the decision to instruct Think People to carry out the investigation and when that decision was taken. McGivern seemed to think it happened "cumulatively… there were growing numbers of complaints and it was always - in my view - a good idea to have an investigation. I was always supportive of the concept."

Cunningham posited the "problem" the BFF had was that until they got complaints about Morrison on 4 and 5 July "all you had was Sara Morrison exercising her right to free speech and you needed something extra to discipline her".

McGivern dismissed this - saying Morrison's decision to take part in the LWS event "generated “blow back” for the organisation. We needed to investigate - no one was talking about discipline… the main conversation I was having was about damage limitation to the festival."

McGivern pointed to the complaints of 4 and 5 July and told Cunningham: "the tone of these emails is quite cross... We are a small organisation which is dependent on funders and there’s no doubt the incident caused blow back which was not positive for the organisation."

Caleb v TERF

Cunningham took McGivern to an email written to Michele Devlin by a young female called Caleb, who believes she's a man. Caleb wrote:

"I drafted an email to you in November after having an incident with Sara Morrison during the festival, and again on the 16th of April after Sara publicly spoke at an anti-transgender rally in Belfast city centre that was circulated online. On both occasions I opted not to send the emails, feeling powerless and quite worried about the possibility of being exiled from the Belfast Film Festival for speaking about my experience. At the Belfast Film Festival in November 2022 - during the after-screening drinks of Ballywalter in the Cineworld foyer, I was approached by Sara Morrison. I had never met Sara before, and had to
google her after the interaction, shocked that she was listed as the Audience Development and Inclusion Officer....

"Sara 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 with the help of my partner and my producer, who witnessed the whole thing - equally angry and completely baffled at what had just happened. This left me very upset and quite powerless on what should have
been a night of celebrating Ballywalter, causing me to have to excuse myself for a while before rejoining."

Literally No Idea

Cunningham called the email "implausible" suggesting that it would be far more likely that a TERF would be worried about being exiled from the Belfast Film Festival rather than a trans-identifying woman.

McGivern said she didn't know what TERF meant or stood for. Cunningham looked surprised. McGivern said she had no knowledge of the "debate", the "different factions etc etc, it is not an area that I have any expertise in".

Cunningham wanted to explore this. Did McGivern know what sex realist or gender critical meant. She didn't. McGivern seemed almost proud of her ignorance.

"You’re telling the tribunal that you are giving evidence about a claim against the Belfast Film Festival for discrimination and you haven’t taken the time to acquaint yourself with the issues" asked Cunningham, by now somewhat incredulous.

McGivern explained this was, in her view, a case about someone who had done something which had generated complaints, and setting up an investigation was the best way to find out what really happened.

"You stand accused of discriminating against someone based on their belief and you don’t know what that belief is?" pushed Cunningham

"You may think me utterly blind or whatever" said McGivern, but she was claiming complete ignorance of the whole sex and gender debate, out of what was, she said, a total lack of interest.

McGivern agreed she was aware Michele Devlin had called the Equality Commission to discuss Morrison's claim. "What protected characteristic did you think was being engaged?" asked Cunningham

"That Sara Morrison might think she had the right to express views about trans people", said McGivern. Cunningham wondered if McGivern would be so blasé if a member of her staff had been accused of antisemitism.

McGivern got quite animated. She told Cunningham it was "absurd... to say that antisemitism is any way equivalent - the world knows about antisemitism, the Holocaust happened. We have not being discussing trans rights and gender identity for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years."

Cunning probed a bit more, but McGivern did seem thoroughly uninterested, so the barrister returned to Caleb's alleged encounter with Morrison, where she allegedly confronted him and told him she didn't like trans people. Didn't this make Morrison a serious risk to the organisation? Why wasn't she suspended immediately so the BFF could stop her from causing any more damage? The BFF had just instructed Think People - experts on the end of a phone. Why didn't anyone call them for advice on this very serious matter?

McGivern said they could have called Think People, but they didn't. The decision was taken to roll this allegation up with all the others being considered by the investigation "and just get on with it"

Cunningham said the real reason was because everyone knew the complaint a complete confection. No one at the BFF took it seriously or bothered to investigate it properly because "no one ever believed it was true". However it did have a use when it came to justifying the investigation.

McGivern said she couldn't speak for anyone else, but she saw it as a complaint. "I neither believed or disbelieved it. If it was true it’s not really the way I would like someone employed by the Film Festival to act.”

Cunningham drew her evidence to a close wondering why on earth McGivern thought she was a suitable person to sit on the decision-making panel for Morrison's grievance appeal, given the grievance was about the investigation into Morrison's activities, in part precipitated by McGivern's concerns. McGivern seemed to insinuate she did little more than sign off the work carried out by a senior person from Think People - a Mr Emmett Owens - who McGivern waxed lyrical about for a good minute. Cunningham suggested McGivern failed to question or interrogate Owens' work because it gave her the result she wanted to see - no blame on the BFF. McGivern disagreed, and there her evidence ended.

One Last Big Push - also stop scrolling if you don't want to see something rude

As I said, a long day. Unless there are more surprise recusal applications, plagues of locusts, or the River Lagan bursts its banks (we are on the ground floor at Killymeal House, tbf), tomorrow will be the last day of witness evidence. There is scheduled to be a day off on Thursday (so no tweets or newsletter then) with Friday being the day for closing written submissions.

Tomorrow's witnesses are scheduled to be Lisa Barros D'Sa (BFF co-chair), Laurence McKeown (BFF director and founder) and Moyra Lock (BFF employee).

Thanks very much indeed to everyone who has donated, supported, emailed, tweeted, read and shared any of my work over the past eight days. It means a huge amount to me that I was able to come over here and do this. I'll get my head down now and hopefully wake up feeling refreshed and ready to go again. I normally say do share this email to anyone you think who might like it, but please do bear in mind there's an image at the bottom of this email which will definitely be offensive to some. Exercise caution and discretion. And don't blame me if someone gets upset - I warned you!

Back tomorrow 10am sharp. Or in tribunal land - sharp(ish).

Good night!

Nick

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