NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #6

[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

Thread 5: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269149-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-5

Aah ok, it was Sandie's Solicitor that said her suspension should be lifted and advised on the law with regards to single sex spaces.

The time line here is so muddled. I hope they go through it at some point.

I've just had a look at the Scottish Society for Rheumatology website and I see they offer two annual bursaries for nurses - it would be nice to think our donations contributed to that.

I used 'Marie' as the name to appear on the screen, but looking at some of your very um.. creative usernames, I guess that won't work for everyone, so either leave it anonymous or put in initials - or a publishable variant of your username cos it's nice to see FWR pals there

Come back on Monday! It's all over for this week.

Absolutely - someone googled their annual income as £38k - so this fundraiser is equivalent to 15% of that in one go. I am glad something good has come of all this.

I guess not surprising, given that the judge himself is painstakingly transcribing everything in copperplate in longhand, but that’s good thinking.

I once worked for a huge ‘household name’ company where jaw-dropping trickery went on that adversely affected many employees (can’t say more but it was explosive). Management denied all existence of ANY paperwork whatsoever, which was just breathtaking, it was so audacious. But they got away with it.

Thanks, that's reassuring. I suppose the judge is giving them a last chance to submit something over the weekend - we shall see...

Thanks all
And thanks to the legal bods on here eg @prh47bridge

Naomi Cunningham will also be representing Faye Russell-Caldicott in what looks like a similar case next month. Further details on Crowd Justice.

Hopefully they give their heads a wobble and have miraculously managed to compile all the relevant "missing" documents and emails by Monday morning.

They'd be very foolish at this point to not just capitulate.

Thanks to all on here for the updates and commentary.
Registered on here as I've been glued to these threads all week.
I work at the same hospital and it's incredible how hushed up it's been.

Thanks, I've had a look and they could do with some gardening.

Now heading for £7400. 👏

@wellnotexactly Can you tell us what the current situation is regarding changing rooms? Is the “women’s” one still effectively mixed sex?

Thanks, I've just pledged my support

I see there is a recent donation "from one of your friends and ED colleague".

Good to know there is at least some support from others in her department.

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I've just read some of the messages left with 'our' donations - they are lovely❤
Given that most of us have probably donated something between £10 and £50, that total of £7300+ from £800+ when we started shows how numerous we are!

I imagine DU’s notes are on his phone (or have been deleted). I wonder if it was clear from the disclosure order that such notes would be caught? Of course, if you’re a rape victim your phone gets confiscated for years in case there’s anything relevant on it, but presumably that just happens to women.

Have we got pictures/images back then?

Edit wixed up mords

I was working just got in and have been following the threads on my phone all morning.
I actually thought today was amazing.
We've basically had two days of very robust questioning which bordered on bullying imo, one day of validation and then .. Naomi Cunningham stood up today and was on another level.
She blew the whole thing apart actually talking about facts rather than fantasy. Forensic, focused, the opposite of everything we've heard so far. It's a real education watching and following these tribunals. You don't need to be a lawyer to be able to see what's going on, to cut through the bullshit and see who the serious people are. I hope she makes NHSFife squirm next week.

Naomi is bloody amazing. If every I'm in trouble I want her on my team.

Thank you for all the updates today. Roll on Monday.

At this point I don’t believe they didn’t take notes. No meetings are unminuted when dealing with HR issues. Either they asked for the meeting to be unminuted which is dodge city or they are hiding the mins. TEAMS can do live transcriptions so busyness isn’t a reasonable argument even for all the irony of U’s contemporaneous notes from the off.

Oh you of joys!!!!

Ive not read the whole thread(s) so may have missed this.

Are DU's notes disclosed already or will they form the "whoops we forgot" disclosure?

Many moons ago I worked on a case in which the heavy-handed impressions of manuscript notes made with a biro on the preceding page were crucial to our case. The page with the notes had been torn out but it was possible to read the indentations on the subsequent page.

That's why the disclosure process is (or was?) called 'discovery and inspection'. You inspected the original paper documents.

I don't know if there is an exact digital equivalent of that.

Apologies if this has been addressed now- I’m still catching up on thread 5 (thanks @nauticant ) but this (quoting Arabella who is quoting NC):

'2nd respsondent has made potenitally career ending allegations against claimant, whould raise clear fitness to practise questions'
'if those allegations are untrue, obviously potential consequences for 2nd respondent'

This is hugely significant.
If Dr U has made false allegations regarding patient safety in order to harass and potentially end the career of another staff member this cannot be ignored as a fitness to practice issue. He cannot use his trans status to deflect from this in the way he can about the CR issue.