News & Events
News & Events
Outer Temple’s Sarah Crowther KC and Sapan Maini-Thompson successfully acted for the English Blackball Pool Federation in defending the discrimination claim brought against it by the transgender pool player, Harriet Haynes. This is the first judgment to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16, which was handed down a few days after the end of the trial. Although the decision in FWS was sufficient to dispose of the claim, having heard expert evidence from Professor Joseph Formaggio and Dr Blair Hamilton for the Claimant, and Dr David Alciatore and Dr Emma Hilton for the Defendants, the court also set out its conclusions in relation to the sport exception under section 195…
News 1 Aug, 2025
Outer Temple’s Employment Law barristers Sapan Maini-Thompson and Charlotte Elves have been published in the May 2025 ELA Briefing in a case analysis on the landmark decision of ‘For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers’. Outer Temple’s Sapan Maini-Thompson and Charlotte Elves have written a case analysis for the May 2025 ELA Briefing. In the landmark decision of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, the Supreme Court has ruled that the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act has a biological definition and the acquisition of a Gender Recognition Certificate under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 does not change a person’s sex in equalities legislation. In this article, Sapan and Charlotte have covered the relationship between the Gender Recognition Act…
External Publications, News 1 May, 2025
For a long time, one of the hottest and most contentious questions in Equality & Diversity has been “What is a woman?” Last week, the Supreme Court answered this question in a ruling that is set to cause rewrites of policies up and down the UK. There have been various suggested answers to this question: anyone who says they are a woman; biological women plus trans-women who hold GRCs; or just biological women. Last week, the Supreme Court answered the question, at least so far as the Equality Act is concerned: a woman is someone who is biologically female. As the judges were at pains to point out, that doesn’t undermine the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. Those with that…
News 23 Apr, 2025
Sapan Maini-Thompson successfully represented a Claimant secondary school teacher against an Academy Trust in a claim for unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability under section 15 Equality Act. The Claimant, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was dismissed for an alleged safeguarding failure ending her unblemished 34-year teaching career. The Tribunal decided the Trust had no reasonable belief that the Claimant was individually responsible for the averred failure. The Tribunal found the Claimant had been unfairly blamed for a “system failure”. In addition, by failing to investigate the implications of the Claimant’s forgetfulness (arising from her disability) in relation to a separate safeguarding incident for which the Claimant was also blamed, the Trust’s decision to dismiss was discriminatory. The case…
News 22 Nov, 2024
We are delighted to welcome Jessica Franklin and Sapandeep Singh Maini-Thompson to Outer Temple Chambers as new junior tenants. Jessica Franklin and Sapandeep Singh Maini-Thompson joined the Outer Temple team in October, further bolstering our junior cohort of specialists to fulfill ever-growing demand. Jessica Franklin joined the Bar in 2021 after a successful career in advertising and marketing. She now specialises in personal injury law and employment law. Jessica’s employment practice is particularly focused on discrimination, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing claims. She has a particular interest in personal injury claims brought in the Employment Tribunal and she has been instructed in claims involving not only psychiatric injuries but also physical injuries arising out of discrimination. Her personal injury practice extends to…
News 22 Oct, 2024
