The fundamentalist Christians who bankrolled the Darlington nurses
As a tribunal came to pass, we look into Christian Concern are who appeared alongside the nurses in their case against the County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust
In this edition of The Teesside Lead I’m looking to scratch the surface and look into probably the biggest news from the region this week.
You’ve probably seen the result of the Darlington nurses’ tribunal, in which it was found County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust had indirectly harassed them by not having adequate single-sex changing space provision. If you’re paying close attention, you may have seen the name “Christian Concern” in the corner of all of their banners.
Today’s edition shows the hardline Christian fundamentalists and anti-Semites who have supported the Darlington nurses in their case.
If you want to support this sort of journalism in the Tees Valley, just sign up for a free subscription to get The Teesside Lead into your inbox twice a week. If you’re able to support financially, an annual sub is just £49.
The best way to support, as always, is sharing the stories you read across the web.
Get in touch if you have any story tips at teesside@thelead.uk or via Bluesky.
Leigh
What one would expect to be a positive story shared on Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen’s social media this week was overtaken by anti-migrant comments. The mayor shared the story of Yurii, who fled Ukraine to settle in Norton, and has rebuilt his life as a telecoms engineer in the region.
The comments were full of people asking why he wasn’t conscripted, calling him a “draft dodger”.
It really blows a hole in the argument against migration that’s frequently made about people not integrating or paying taxes. Some people just don’t like foreigners, it seems.
On Friday the long-awaited judgment in the tribunal of NHS workers at Darlington’s Memorial Hospital was delivered in a case concerning a trans person’s use of female changing spaces.
Rose Henderson, a trans woman, had used a female changing space at the hospital from when she started working there in 2019, although complaints weren’t made to the hospital until 2023.
The tribunal ruled that Rose Henderson had not harassed her colleagues, and all claims against her had failed.
Meanwhile, the claims against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust had been partly upheld, namely that an adequate third changing space had not been provided (although it doesn’t specify who that would be for), and that the trust had not taken the nurses’ complaints seriously.
A freedom of information request shows that up to December 2025 County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust had spent £603,188.23 on legal fees related to the claim.
In coverage of the case, there are claims of the nurses’ victory, when the ruling isn’t black and white at all. This is because of the way the media works. There are quotes claiming victory from the nurses because they have been supported by Christian Concern - a hardline, fundamentalist pressure group with anti-abortion, Islamophobic and homophobic beliefs, and perhaps most importantly, a press department.
Rose Henderson’s voice in all of this, after being completely absolved by the tribunal, is absent.
After the ruling, the nurses held a press conference.
The Darlington nurses’ legal team included Bruno Quintavalle, a barrister who formed the ProLife Alliance - a former political party which found fame by bringing legal action (which it ultimately lost in the House of Lords) against the BBC in 2003. They claimed political censorship after the corporation refused to transmit a party political broadcast which featured graphic imagery of aborted foetuses.
He was supported in court by Pavel Stroilov, who wrote in 2022 that “the West has accepted the notion that human rights are all about LGBT and nothing but LGBT,” before lamenting the way “dissenters against cultural Marxism” are “cancelled” in the West.
The phrase “Cultural Marxism” is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory with its origins in Nazi Germany where a group of academics in Frankfurt, who were incidentally Jewish, were accused of being responsible for the ongoing undermining of so-called Western and Christian values. The phrase was used repeatedly in Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik’s so-called “manifesto”.
Christian Concern shared a news article on their website claiming victory in the Darlington nurses’ case around an hour before the judgment was published. They’ve said the nurses’ legal fees will be around £500,000.
The hardline Christian group has supported a number of high profile legal cases concerning children receiving end of life care, like Archie Battersbee, who died in 2022.
Our sister title The Lancashire Lead reported last summer on how they supported a college teacher who had been sacked for alleged Islamophobic social media posts.
On the group’s web page summarising the Darlington nurses’ case, Christian Concern lists what’s “at stake” in bullet points. The first point reads: “Radical gender ideology dismantles truth and biblical teaching, putting Christians at risk of losing their jobs for holding to their beliefs. Christians must be free to uphold God’s good design for men and women.”
It isn’t until the next point the group says: “Women deserve access to safe single-sex spaces at work.”
The group is lead by Andrea Williams, who has decades of campaigning against what most people would describe as social progress in the UK. She describes the Abortion Act of 1967 as a “moral catastrophe”.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Teesside Lead to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.