Video Summary

The Hertfordshire Police have agreed to pay out £20,000 in compensation, £10,000 each, to Maxi Allen and Rosalyn Lavine, respectively, over what they say was a suspicion of harassment and malicious communications. In truth, it was just complaints sent by email to a school and some criticism, albeit not grotesque criticism, over WhatsApp messages

Transcript

The Hertfordshire Police have agreed to pay out £20,000 in compensation, £10,000 each, to Maxi Allen and Rosalyn Lavine, respectively, over what they say was a suspicion of harassment and malicious communications. In truth, it was just complaints sent by email to a school and some criticism, albeit not grotesque criticism, over WhatsApp messages. Somebody thought it was a good idea to screenshot those messages, share it with the uh standing head, and they in turn would share it with the police. And then the police turned up and arrested them. Police held them in a cell for 8 hours despite actually not really knowing what evidence that they would need to rely on for what they were investigating. They said that there was a lot of stuff within the folder that they would need to look through, but they've now decided that that was unlawful. So, welcome to the channel. If you're new to me, I'm a barristister practicing in England and Wales. And if you're not new to me, um, thank you for watching here. Please do make sure you subscribe and I'll be very grateful for that. So, as a barristister, it one of the most frustrating things for me is when, uh, police or other departments or other companies act either against the law or not applying the law properly or when there is clear law that they fail to apply it. So, I'm going to talk about something else with regard to the Supreme Court ruling regarding biological women and biological men in the second half of the video. But in this story here, it bears a striking similarity in some sense to many other stories that I've heard. And it's not entirely different to my proono case where the police turned up, barged their way in, seized a girl's phone, and I say that they had no authority to do so. My letter of complaint was in great detail to them and I'm waiting a full response to it. Just to be clear, I'm not challenging them to publicly acknowledge or deal with my updates here, but such as it is, I will await their full response to my letter of complaint. Now, in this case, I have to stress that these emails that were sent to and from, whilst I haven't seen the emails and I haven't sent the messages, the authorities do agree that there were no intimidating or threatening messages that were conveyed. Thus, it would on any reasonable and objective view, it would fall down on any uh prosecution because free speech needs to be upheld and communications are only malicious if they are malicious in nature. If they're complaints about something and they're unhappy about the way something is being run, that is entirely a legitimate way of communicating. So long as it is not overly persistent and it is not malicious and certainly not threatening or intimidating in any way. This is just civil communication. And for six police to turn up and arrest two parents in front of their daughter, drag them away and hold them in a cell for 8 hours, that is absolutely the wrong thing to do in my view. And you've probably seen that footage online and that's probably how you recognize the story. The police obviously originally defended these arrests, claiming that they believed that the parents would not attend a voluntary interview and that they needed to seize devices to preserve evidence, which sounds strikingly familiar from my case. But they've now admitted that the legal test for the arrest under pace was not met, rendering the arrest unlawful. Um although it is not conceded as yet that the investigation itself was improper. I mean any investigation fine but to justify an arrest or to justify a seizure is a whole other matter. I have a lengthy video going into the powers that police may rely on in the appropriate circumstances. But that is not to say that just because they say that they're using a power that it is lawful. Indeed, many many cases go to court because a police officer has purported to rely upon a certain power under a pace or elsewhere in order to enter a property to arrest somebody to seize property. And many of those cases it is found to be unlawful. And so my claim as it is at the moment in my case is that the police rely or purported to have relied upon section 17 of PACE as an authority to enter the property to arrest this young girl. But they didn't arrest her. They never did. And accordingly, I suggest that the subsequent seizure of the phone was also unlawful. But I'll update you on that in due course. It may take a couple of months to come back on that. But in this case, for this couple, they've now received £10,000 each in compensation for wrongful arrest. Have a listen to what they said about it. Looking back through the WhatsApps, the spiciest comments we can find, are you calling one senior teacher a control freak? I think calling them a control freak seem to be quite accurate. Well, that's why we said it. Somebody thought that it would be a good idea to screenshot everything I was saying and everything Maxi was saying. the acting head, she was reading all of these messages and she would show it to the police. There were no threats. There was no obscene language. Uh there was nothing of an inciting nature. I cannot fathom how a police officer read those messages and thought, "Yeah, we need to go and arrest these people." So I asked the detective in the interview, "What have you got that you have deemed malicious communications?" And the response I got was, "Well, I don't know. We haven't looked at all of the evidence yet cuz we've got a big folder. Now, talking about companies or organizations that are not applying the law as it is or as it has been confirmed. For example, in the Supreme Court ruling in for women Scotland confirmed the law under the Equality Act as to what sex means. It means biological sex. So, a woman is a biological woman. A man is a biological man. And if a single sex service is designated by a company or organization or an institution, it is supposed to be designated on the basis of sex, which means biological sex. And so single sex services for women, which would include bathrooms and changing rooms and any other service that is designated for women, should be for biological women only. And vice versa, any that are designated for men should be for biological men only. That is what the Supreme Court ruling confirmed. It also confirmed that if someone is discriminated against directly because they are a trans person, then that would be unlawful, save that it would not necessarily be unlawful to exclude them from women's spaces because they are based on biological sex. Whilst the Supreme Court fell short of expressly saying as much, what it did say is the protections in place for trans people remain in place. Those for example would be if an employer said I am not employing you because you are a trans woman trans man that would quite obviously be an arguable case of discrimination on the basis that they are a trans person. The problem is this has now been conflated with well if you exclude trans people from women's spaces is that not discriminatory against the trans person and that is why a lot of organizations a lot of companies including the NHS there are several trusts in fact you don't have to look very far lots of them did updates after the Supreme Court ruling and essentially said we we hear the uncertainty about this ruling we hear that people might be upset about it we're going to still support uh trans people and we await further guidance And it's the guidance that I'm going to talk about in just a moment because there is apparently guidance. It's been with the government for many weeks and they've refused to publish it. But there is a copy floating around because there's a copy been seen by the times. More about that in a second. But the Chesterfield Royal Hospital here made an update about this. The uh Leadeds and York partnership made an update about this. There was a statement here from Sussex Health and Care and also Nottingham Shear Healthcare also did updates essentially saying they are waiting for guidance on how to apply the Supreme Court ruling. But the problem is for the government at least is that the equality watchdog the EHRC has given this guidance to the government ministers almost 3 months ago and it appears that Bridget Phillipsson is deliberately delaying it to avoid some sort of political backlash. In other words, she doesn't want to take the heat when she looks at this guidance and she really ought to publish it because this is the guidance which will obviously doubtless say that sex should be based on biology which is what the Supreme Court ruling said. The problem for them now is that the Times has a copy of this or has seen a copy of this and has talked about it in an article which you'll find on the Times website. In short, not only does it say that trans women would be banned from women's spaces and trans men banned from men's spaces, but they could also be prevented from accessing those spaces just based on their appearance. So, if they appear to be a trans woman or trans man, they can be barred from those spaces. Even more than that, reportedly it also says that even if the biological sex matches, for example, a trans man who is biologically female but perceived as a man attempted to use the women's facilities, they may also be barred as well because they are likely to be seen by the other people using that facility as the opposite sex. So this is somewhat dealing with the confusion. Some will say unfairly, but it's dealing with the confusion to say, well, what about a trans woman who now appears to be a woman to some men's spaces? Obviously, some men may feel uncomfortable with that and vice versa. Some women may be uncomfortable with a trans man, biologically female, using the women's facilities because they appear to be male. The guidance reportedly says that they might be barred from those spaces if they appear to be the opposite sex. Now, obviously, this causes a bit of a problem, but it is not the problem, I say, respectfully, for the women to keep anyone that either is biologically male or appears to be a biological male out of their spaces. That should not be their problem. Their spaces should be protected for them. Likewise, men's spaces should be protected for biological men. The only option is going to be, which reportedly the guideline suggests, is a third option. Either a lockable cubicle or a third space entirely. Now, I've seen respectfully ridiculous suggestions that women who are uncomfortable with it should seek a third space. I've heard this suggested by professionals. I don't agree with that. I don't think we should be pushing women out of women's spaces just because some people want to use those spaces and some women are uncomfortable with that. I don't agree with that suggestion. Women's spaces should be for women only and men's spaces should be for men only. That would include bathrooms, changing rooms, and any other kind of facilities that are designated and based upon biological sex as was confirmed in the Supreme Court ruling. So, let's be clear, the Supreme Court did not change the law. It just confirmed what it always was. So, it did not retrospectively change anything. It just confirmed what it always was. The Times reportedly has contacted the EHRC for comments. So I suggest you go and look at their article, form your own views about all that as well. But I understand that there are many organizations that are simply refusing to follow the Supreme Court ruling using this excuse and that includes many NHS trusts that they are just waiting for guidance on it. And this guidance really may seem harsh to some, but it really is the only logical viable solution and that is to keep spaces designated on biology. But as I say, there are organizations including, as I read from the telegraph here, Britain's largest union allowing a trans woman to run in a female seat. This is in spite of and contradiction of the Supreme Court ruling, which means that sex is based on biology. So legally, this should only be a woman, a biological female running in that seat. Now, here's the thing. You'll very rarely hear a lawyer say that a case is a slam dunk. In fact, it might surprise you to hear that a good prospect of success is anything above 50%, it's not close to like 90% that you might expect it to be. In fact, for insurance purposes, they just like anything above 50%. Some of them will say 55 or 60 and specify. Um, but anything above 50 is more likely than not to succeed because that is the standard of proof in the civil courts. More likely than not rather than beyond a reasonable doubt as it is in the criminal courts. So anything above 50% is a good odds of success. 55 60 is not uncommon when uh doing an advice to an insurance company of the prospects and the merits of the case. And so they make a decision to fund a case which could easily be £100,000. They make that decision based very often on 55 or 60% chance of success which is just on the side of more likely than not to succeed. If you see a case up there at sort of 70 80% you might not think that is fantastic odds because you think there's a 30% chance of losing but that would be fantastic odds if you gave a case like that. Now cases like this where there is a Supreme Court ruling which absolutely categorically unequivocally defined sex based on biology. If you have an organization providing a women's bathroom or changing room or anything else that should be based on sex and they are not upholding that and they are actively taking steps to refuse to uphold that or they are aware of it and they refuse to uphold it, this would be as close to a slam dunk case as you'll probably ever see. Even then I say this cannot be relied upon as legal advice because every case is slightly different. Um, but if you take a situation, for example, a gym that doesn't enforce the changing rooms and they allow biological men into the women's changing rooms, that would be discrimination against any of the women in there that felt uncomfortable because the gym allowed it and they refused to do anything about it and prevent the males go going in those changing rooms and any other situation as well. Even in the workplace, because it's even stricter in the workplace. In the workplace, there are workplace regulations where the employer must provide single sex services. For companies and service providers, they may choose to provide single sex services if it is a proportionate means of doing so, which for toilets and bathrooms, changing rooms and all those sorts of things. Obviously, that is a norm for companies to do that. If they provide bathrooms, they should be separated on sex or at their very least they should be lockable cubicle. But given the situation, it's probably better that they are separated based on sex. So changing rooms, for example, would be better to be completely separate based on biological sex. And when they do that, they have to uphold it. And if they don't uphold it, and they call it a women's changing room, but they allow a biological man in there, it is as close to a slam dunk case as you can probably ever see. And to quote my learned colleague on X Colin Winter, he says that we need people to sue these companies who refuse to uphold this because that is the way that ultimately they will be held to account and ultimately they will have to comply with the law. And to be absolutely clear in my personal view here, none of these organizations and companies need necessarily to wait for this guidance from the EHRC or from anybody else because the law is clear. Supreme Court ruling did not change the law. It clarified what it always was. It clarified what sex always meant in the Equality Act, in the Sex Discrimination Act, in the Gender Recognition Act. It just clarified what sex always meant. And it did not, contrary to what some people will say, did not take away any rights from trans people. Those who are discriminated against, which is wrong, and I I do agree that this is wrong. If an employer were to say, "We are not employing you because you're obviously a trans person." That is discrimination and that is wrong. But then they have a different problem. For example, if a company employs a trans woman and allows them into the women's spaces, that would be discriminatory in my view against the women using those facilities, but they may also not allow them to use, according to the leaked guidance, may also not allow them to use the men's facilities because again, it may be discriminatory against the men in there because they have someone in there that appears on the face of it to be a woman. And so, there is a problem there. So the employer would then have an an additional burden to provide a third space, a lockable space. And even then, there may still be a complaint from the trans person. But on balance, if all of that went to court, the court would ultimately say, well, the Supreme Court ruling said sex is based on biology. It's women's spaces, men's spaces. It's a necessary and proportionate means to keep those separate, and therefore it's necessary and proportionate to exclude you from those spaces. and it is a reasonable adjustment to have a third space. That is ultimately what I think the outcome would be. It would take somebody maybe 50 or £100,000 going through the court process to enforce that. But ultimately that's what I think the result would be and I will come back in maybe six 6 to 12 months and tell you that I told you so because that is exactly what would happen because now that this has gone to the Supreme Court, it is not going to change. That is the ruling. That's how it should be. We don't really need guidance with respect. We don't really need guidance to tell us what is absolutely crystal clear in that ruling. But let me know what you think about that in the comments below. And of course about the police cases first half of the video.