NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #4

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 January 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks.

Access to view the hearing remotely can be obtained by sending an email request to [email protected] headed Public Access Request (Peggie v Fife Health Board) 4104864/2024 and requesting access.

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse

Thread 2: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2

Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268347-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-3

The hearing is being live tweeted by https://x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.is/xkSxy.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Male

JR is going to appear in my nightmares.

Her absolute shift in the way she speaks, questions, her tone, her language.

She should be ashamed to the end of her days for what she has put SP through.

For someone who says he doesn't look at women when they're changing he didn't hesitate to say where all his female colleagues were precisely.

This makes me feel all sorts of emotions, none of them good, about my beloved DM who was in hospital during Covid, very ill, and we weren’t allowed to visit her, so we had to trust she was being looked after.

The idea that any medical professionals could have been spending their time making ‘contemporaneous notes’ on their phones about entirely normal interactions with colleagues, and building grievances, and generally occupying their time in totting up the micro-aggressions they perceived against them, rather than just getting on with looking after desperately vulnerable patients, is horrific to think about. That’s what makes me feel ‘sad’.

Reminds me of Laurie Penny (paraphrasing) about a child getting exposed to by a man. It was along the lines of the child shouldn’t look as they would be rude if they did.

There's quite a good view of the changing room on the clerk's screen. It's very small.

Oh i missed that. He thinks it's a 'shame' that due to transphobia he can't stare at women in the women's changing room?

Really?

Cutted. up. pear.

Oh my GOOD GODDESS - he is pontificating on how to get changed AS A MAN IN THE LADIES. The fucking brass balls of this guy. He sounds really happy to be able to give this little lecture.

Yes!!!

I hope he's asked whether he thinks women do that. Why he does it. Why he thinks women might be uncomfortable with it. Why he continues to do it even though he knows that.

Certainly from experience on here, the more you question a TRA, the quicker they fall apart and their entitlement is given full rein.

His voice - light, young man's voice. He is around 30 - his voice sounds younger than that, actually. I know voices vary, but from the sound I would put him more like early 20s.

We're not going to get to Naomi today, are we - this is taking forever!

it's not monitored per se, but in my experience witnesses are strongly encouraged to stay in a room by themselves and not talk to anyone. They are allowed to talk about the weather etc with others, but generally they stay by themselves. If you saw them in a cafe in a heated discussion with their lawyer you would tell the tribunal. It's not a polite fiction - lawyers take witnesses being under oath very seriously and can get in deep trouble for talking to witnesses. I've personally never experienced anyone game planning when they are under oath.

Sandie's Dad's page is now £1915. There is still good in the world, even though this man's testimony is making me feel the opposite.

It limits his ability to connect with his colleagues apparently.

Oh god, now he's anxious because she didn't leave when he's in there.

He's making himself out to be in danger!

Didn’t he describe lockable cubicles? Why isn’t he using those if he’s trying to be so modest?

He doesn't sound upset at all.

I sounds quite excited to be telling his story. Tbh.

Now he's complaining that she DIDN'T leave the CR when he was there.

The previous complaints of been about her leaving.

He can be anxious about her presence in the room but not the other way round?

In other words, he knows that if the women catch him looking at them in a state of undress, they'll have grounds for a potentially very damaging complaint that the hospital would have to take seriously because it could be a criminal offence, so he's very careful to make sure he's not caught looking.

It has also just occurred to me that there's a big difference between not giving the impression that you're looking, and not looking.

He doesn't like it when she leaves the changing room, and he doesn't like it when she does use the changing room. 🙄

I know I’m just pointing out DU went straight to harassment rather than any other explanation.

FFS, it's important to him that everyone's comfortable so in that case get out of the women's changing room

Yet writes notes and considers 'escalating' when a woman waits until he's gone for her own comfort

'normally, I'm in a changing room, she knows I'm in a changing room, she leaves'

So now her staying there and not leaving is upsetting him. She can't win.