A former Inclusion/Audience Development Coordinator has lost her claim against Belfast Film Festival for discrimination, harassment and constructive dismissal.
Sara Morrison was employed by the Belfast Film Festival (BFF) for more than four years between February2020 and November 2024, when she resigned.
Her tribunal took place in November 2025 and was extensively covered by this blog, funded entirely by readers.
In a ruling dated 17 July 2026, employment judge Lisa Sturgeon and her fellow panel member Michael McKeown (a third panel member having stepped down mid-trial after a recusal application) decided that “the claimant’s claims are dismissed in their entirety”.
What Sara Said
The case hinged on actions taken and emails sent by the Belfast Film Festival after Morrison gave a short speech at a Let Women Speak rally in Belfast in April 2023 (read it here). There was a noisy counter-demonstration nearby, which attempted to drown out the LWS event. During the speech Morrison called out several organisations, some of whom were participating in the counter-demo, saying:
“These organisations, these women’s organisations: WRDA, Alliance For Choice, Women’s Policy Group Northern Ireland, The Women’s Sector Lobbyist, Rape Crisis Nl… have morphed into a deliberate campaign of bullying and intimidation into silence through harassment and bullying the very women they should be protecting and exalting.”
There was a reaction on social media to Morrison’s speech where she was identified as being a BFF employee. The BFF were tagged in various posts and they received several direct emails.
Permission Not Sought
The judgement’s first significant finding is that Morrison had a contractual obligation to ask permission to speak at the event, which she did not seek. The judge noted that when the BFF’s Managing Director, Michele Devlin, was asked to take part in an election video supporting a Sinn Fein candidate, she sought (and was granted) permission from the board to do so. The judge also found that using Devlin as a comparator for the purposes of the tribunal was inappropriate. Although Devlin was a BFF employee, she “she did not occupy the same or a materially similar role” therefore the appropriate comparator was a “hypothetical… employee, who occupied the same role as the claimant and whose circumstances were otherwise the same or not materially different, save that they did not hold or manifest the claimant’s political opinion.”
Having established the hypothetical comparator, the tribunal was required to decide whether Morrison had been treated unfairly due to her political views. In all cases the judge found she had neither been harassed nor discriminated against.
For example, Morrison contended that a number of internal texts and emails sent between the BFF board and Michele Devlin amounted to discrimination and harassment, particularly a message sent in June 2023 by BFF Board member Mark Cousins to his fellow directors and Devlin. Cousins related his experience of being approached by Morrison in a bar where she:
“raised the subject to me of her speech at the trans-rally… I found the whole thing troubling for several reasons. (1) there seemed to be the suggestion that Michele of spreading false information; I told Sara that I had heard reports of her speech from several sources including other board members. (2) there was no hint of regret for, or doubt about, what she did. As you’ll know ‘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-Islamic right.”
Cousins went on to write: “I therefore feel that we need to accelerate the process by which this is sorted, if possible. Michele, as you know, on Friday, I’m supposed to present with you our pitch for the big Hearth project. Sara is named as part of the team for that project. I think her name should be removed pending the resolution of this. We can’t have an Inclusion/Diversity Officer who, many
weeks after making such an ill-advised speech, still stands by her actions completely.”
Employment Judge Sturgeon found this was not, as Morrison had contended, an implicit request to have her sacked because of her political opinions. Sturgeon sided with the BBF, stating: “The language used does not advocate termination of employment. The email seeks acceleration of a process already underway and proposes that the claimant’s participation in a particular project be
discontinued pending resolution of the matter. The words used are expressly temporary in nature… Accordingly, the tribunal rejects the claimant’s contention that the email constituted a call for her dismissal.”
The judge found that on the Belfast Film Festival’s action “were largely directed towards addressing stakeholder concerns, maintaining organisational operations and responding to issues which had arisen unexpectedly within a very small organisation.”
The BFF was mildly criticised for a series of events which saw Morrison being locked out of her staff email, removed from the BFF website and Festival programme and being asked to return her office keys, all whilst she was off sick. The email situation seemed particularly odd as Devlin generated a new password for Morrison but then sent it to the account she was locked out of. Morrison’s subsequent gmail telling Devlin she hadn’t received the new password was ignored. Several months later Devlin sent Morrison a new password inside a large file without drawing attention to it. This, the judge ruled, was “deficient”, but put it down to “administrative error, oversight and inadequate follow-through rather than any deliberate or targeted conduct towards the claimant.”
The removal of Morrison’s name from the staff website was found to be legitimate as it was part of the removal of the staff page from the website, and it was accepted that her removal from the Festival programme was purely because she didn’t work on the Festival that year, being off sick. The requirement to return her keys “was made in a practical and routine manner and was directly connected to the respondent’s operational requirements arising from the claimant’s absence.”
The claim for constructive dismissal was assessed by looking at the grievance process Morrison underwent whilst still employed and the events leading up to her resignation. “Viewed cumulatively”, the judge wrote, “the tribunal accepts that these matters would reasonably have caused the claimant considerable distress and may have contributed to her perception that the respondent was not adequately supporting her”. But “having considered the claimant’s perception, the surrounding circumstances and the reasonableness of the alleged effect in each instance, the tribunal is not satisfied that any of the conduct had the purpose or effect of violating the claimant’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for her.”
Game over
Or is it? Today Morrison said it was “disappointing that the Northern Ireland industrial tribunal has dismissed all of my claims against Belfast Film Festival. I disagree with the judgment and I am considering my options.”
She went on to say: “This case matters beyond me. It is the first time a Northern Irish tribunal has considered a gender-critical belief discrimination case. It will not be the last. I believe the tribunal got this wrong, and future cases will need to be judged on their facts.
“I would like to thank my family, who have been through this with me over the past three years, and in particular my mum and Ian. I want to thank my legal team, Naomi Cunningham, Dr. Charlotte Elves, Simon Chambers, Alistair Norton and Erin Stewart, who fought this case with everything they had.
“I want to thank the Free Speech Union, especially Carrie Clark, who supported me at the start of this journey when I had nothing, and everyone who donated to my CrowdJustice and has been with me every minute of the way. Without your support this case would never have reached a tribunal.
“Above all I want to thank the thousands of women and men who sent me their support, and in particular Maya Forstater, Fiona McAnena and everyone at Sex Matters, Stella O’Malley and everyone at Genspect, Women Won’t Wheesht, Freedom in the Arts, Graham Linehan, For Women Scotland, Murray Blackburn Mackenzie and JK Rowling…
“To the women who have fought this battle before me and alongside me, many of whom contacted me out of the blue to offer their support, on the worst days, hearing from you kept me going. To the women and men of Belfast and beyond, who stood by me, thank you. I owe you. Especially my wine friends.”
Belfast Film Festival have been approached for comment. You can read more about the case on this website – I suggest reading the introductory interview with Sara, the Week 1 round-up and a summary of the BFF’s closing arguments and Sara Morrison’s closing arguments. If you want some breathless drama, try the Recusal Special newsletter.
Read the judgment in full, here.
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