NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #5

[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. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on 6 February.

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.

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

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

Thread 4: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268942-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-4

I was reading about a different transwoman "actress" the other day (who was apparently trying to get together money for "gender-affirming surgery") and I thought, hmm, women are surely actors these days. It wasn't a BBC article; I just assumed transwomen are more likely to want to call themselves "actresses".

I will be raging, but not remotely surprised if SP loses this one. But I will be gardening like fury and will take comfort in both the huge amounts of sunlight and the probably better verdict from a higher tribunal, a la Maya.

I picked this up from X, posted by Lucy Hunter Blackburn of MBM, and it's worth noting. Apologies of this has already been covered, I've not had time to go through the earlier threads fully.

https://x.com/lucyhunterb/status/1887558486885646461?s=46

"Something that had puzzled me was how it works that one lawyer is representing NHS Fife and a member of staff. I’m told by someone who does tribunal work that where the employer endorses the behaviour of a member of staff who is a co-respondent then it would be unexceptional for them to share a legal team. I don’t know if that means that the whole cost is brought by the health board, but that’s possible I think. Also, spotted in the tribunal today was from NHS Scotland‘s central legal team. That suggests that the approach being taken to this case isn’t just one that has been developed over in Fife but has input from NHS Scotland in some way."

I've amended LBH's typo in the original post when bringing this over here.

We've all been pretty incredulous over this trust's decision to take this approach & push this to ET rather than avoid that - costing ££££££s while in the red financially. I think from this snippet of detail that NHS Scotland is more invested in the outcome of this than was evident to begin with. There's certainly more than one trust across Scotland operating with the same rules as Fife have.

I can't post screenshots at the moment but she said this in reply to a post about her mum, Mumsnet and the loss of her grandad.

"Omg I am in complete shock at the donations! That’s my grandad and Sandie is my mum. My heart is so full of gratitude and love for every single one of you. Brought a tear to my eye"

I think that pictures are still not allowed because it won’t let me add one either - but the post I saw is the one @Mollyollydolly has quoted above 🙂

@NotMaroonButRaspberry At the time he began his transition Dr Upton was legally a man. Therefore the paper correctly named him as "he". Whether Dr Upton has now acquired a GRC we dont know, but probably not if he still has a male birth certificate.

With his record of sick leave I cant see his contract being renewed when it reaches the end or anyone else wishing to employ him. All the "kind" folk who have "supported" him have done him no favours.

I'm not feeling that confident about which way this case will go, but something cheering: I just went and searched on facebook for media accounts sharing their reporting (I searched for Beth Upton, selected posts, picked out the ones from official media accounts). This gets you places where comments are allowed and probably made by a wider group of people than those who actually go to the papers' websites and comment. The comments are overwhelmingly in SP's favour. Even if the case goes against her, it's clear what the public think.

Being trans isn't a PC. Gender reassignment is.

Dr Upton has AFAIK done nothing to reassign his gender. No surgery, no drugs.

Only a year before he began to transition? I wonder how his wife feels about it all.

Would anyone know what the implications are of a No Show by Upton tomorrow?

If one side has had to appear and give their evidence/side of the story and be cross examined, surely if the other side doesn't or won't, then it will go in favour of SP.

I am a clueless old timer so I haven't a clue.

I'm not either on first line

But it has the potential to further expose what women are up against

It'll likely lead to more push back

The equality commission has interpreted gender reassignment widely to including proposing to undergo a process to 'reassign your sex'. You don't need to have had any medical treatment/surgery to have the protected characteristic. It covers you from the moment you propose to undergo sex reassignment, which can be at the moment you say you are trans.

Being trans isn't a PC. Gender reassignment is.
Dr Upton has AFAIK done nothing to reassign his gender. No surgery, no drugs.

You don't need to be taking hormones or have surgery to be covered by the PC of gender reassignment.

You also don't need surgery or hormones to get a GRC.

At minimum it would affect the weight the Tribunal could give to Dr Upton’s evidence. If NC cannot cross examine him then the Tribunal can’t rely on his evidence as proof because it hasn’t been tested.

I sit on statutory conduct panels for a regulated profession which takes evidence under oath and we have excluded evidence in the past when a witness was no longer able to attend because it was disputed and the only evidence on particular points. I don’t think the Tribunal would go that far but they wouldn’t be able to give much weight to Dr Upton’s evidence without a cross examination.

Thank you @Mollyollydolly

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude Thanks for that information.

My understanding is that it would go badly for Upton. It would mean that his witness statement would go untested by NC. It would likely mean that the judges would give less weight to his WS. It would mean that where there were factual differences between the two accounts the judges would be inclined to prefer SP's account.

Thank you. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

And thank you (from a bit of a lurker), to all those contributing such riveting information and live reports.

Dr Upton has AFAIK done nothing to reassign his gender. No surgery, no drugs.

Oh come on now, he's had his ears pieced. That's gender reassignment surgery right there.

I hope DU's account isn't completely dismissed should he not turn up. His account of taking notes on his phone just because Sandie Peggie left the changing room and waited for him to leave before she changed is pretty worrying behaviour.

Rather than pulling a no-show from the start I'm starting to think that Upton will appear but then have a massive weepy womanly breakdown under questioning by NC and ask for time out.

Cos the big meanie questions by Nasty Naomi are just more harassment and bullying, an opportunity to bid for more 'poor me' sympathy and grist he can use for a potential claim.

All a bit “tone policing”. Her surname is Peggie.

Probably naive to the way their special feels have become weaponised and to the fact she was already a target of his copious note taking for the crime of not changing in front of him.

I didn’t get to watch this afternoon but going back over TT a second time as there were a few things that struck me.

The first was “It was awful to be compared to someone like that. Someone casting aspersions on my people”. This was in relation to TW (Isla Bryson) in women’s prisons.

What is DUs definition of “my people “? Self ID (sadly) means Isla Bryson has just as much right to identify as a TW as DU. DU doesn’t get to decide who is (and isn’t) in the club.

The second was “As a woman I've also experienced everyday misogyny
and patriarchy. I've been catcalled, touched on knee without consent, men have tried to hug me, made comments about my clothes. I empathise with that. Trans women and cis women are at risk. May not have same experience, but I was trying to understand based on my experience “

DU only transitioned in 2022, so in August 2023 had been a TW for a maximum of 19 months! I really want to hear how DU has been impacted by misogyny and patriarchy!

And the Scottish Greens are currently demanding the resurrection of the (unamended) GRR bill, which would usher in self id.