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

Perhaps that concept is what they were referring to when stipulating that they wanted the original emails with the metadata, rather than pdf printouts/copies of the emails?

I hope someone called Tamsin Emma Ruth Fielding logs on with her initials. 😈

Wow well what a day!

I await with bated breath the BBC article that will be produced about today's proceedings in which they somehow make out that Sandie is still being a big meanie pants.

So pleased to see that her dad's memory tributes have surpassed £7k. Amazing! That much in such a small timeframe, hopefully it gives Sandie and her family some comfort knowing how many people are supporting her through this. X

My reading is that they want the meta data as it would presumably show alterations, authorship, timing of alterations etc.

I work in a different department so I'm not down that way very often - I'm not 100% sure which changing rooms are actually involved in this case I'm afraid!
I do know in a newer part of the site there is a 'unisex' changing room which is basically only used as a storage cupboard, though.

Does anyone know if there’s an order also to produce ‘the chat’ notes from Teams meetings?

Would BUs “notes” on SP (and presumably every other employee he interacted with) also need to be disclosed? I would be very interested to see the scope of his note taking…

I wonder if conferences for the Upton/NHS side over the weekend will lead to the plan to surrender completely. It just seems as if the longer this lasts, the more they look like a bunch of fools, and not entirely honest fools either. And every minute the tribunal lasts, it's costing the NHS trust money (think of the Green Party). It's evident that they never had much of a plan, and just thought Sandie Glennie would be intimidated and either quit, or accept the situation.

^ This
And also it would avoid SP having to go to professional conduct to clear her name after the ET is finished

I wonder if they would have requested the metadata had the information been submitted as ordered. As it wasn't, it looks like there is something to hide so they want to be able to know it is definitely the originals, as the seed of doubt has been sown, germinated and is currently 10 foot tall sunflowers.

Based on comments in previous threads, this tribunal has attracted NHS Scotland attention/support in addition to NHS Fife.

I have no expectation that this tribunal would be discontinued. I have no expertise on which to base that.

Yes The judge asked even it's we'll meet at 2pm note, it should be included.

Slight tangent here but just picked the is up on X:

The case of James Esses against UKCP (for involvement in the removal of Esses from a UKCP organisational member for his GC views) was settled, with details undisclosed but as a result of that case alone, UKCP's indemnity insurance has risen 3000%.

https://x.com/jamesesses/status/1887793084307525976?s=46

I can't imagine what this case will do to NHS Fife's insurance covering litigation costs.

I don't go to that many meetings (I am a Charity Trustee), but I always have a physical notebook to take a few notes/add to my to-do list (not least because mobile reception is dire). Traditionally we used to record them on a dictaphone but we now use Teams recording (and a free bit of AI tech to draft provisional minutes/action points). Our minute taker says that it saves her hours of work.

We are not a techy organisation.

Many threads ago somebody mentioned that the judge had started a shiny new notebook - probably a Moleskine if he is anything like my DH= so I can see why he might have asked for written notes.

I’ve been involved in inspections by regulatory bodies, and also preparation for court cases involving my employer. There are clear procedures to follow, one of which is having a document room and a team on standby to retrieve whatever information is requested. We have rehearsals and everything.

From my perspective, the apparent less than thorough search for related documents is, at best, sloppy and careless and at worse a deliberate attempt to “not find” emails which they know won’t support their side if used in evidence.

so yes, in my industry it would be all hands on deck all weekend, Uber Eats on the directors credit card and you comply with the court order or else. I fail to see why NHS Fife would be any different.

Thank you - I'll be refreshing my memory on Faye's case tonight.

And hello to Faye who is on here somewhere!

Exactly. We had yearly 'dry runs' in case UKVI came to do an actual audit of our student visa system. There were some files asked for in advance and some at random on the day, so I had my team on standby to grab what I needed when asked. I'd assume when you know there's a case going in that you'd do the same.

I'm reading through the SP transcript as I missed those days

This is key

JR - I'm surprised, throughout these proceedings you have misgendered DU, and instructed your legal team to misgender them. You've chosen
misgender him.

Do we have to lie or not work?

Can we talk about where we are with this. It's beyond

We'll look back at this one day and it'll be up there with the most intense periods of history

Well, that was certainly a dramatic turn of events this morning.

Any decent sized org would have a data rights teams & legal dept set up specifically to deal with stuff like this. Companies can end up with huge fines etc. Due to failure to comply with regulations over data use/storage & that's not touching on what employers are required to do to show they're complying with employment law & workplace regulations as in this case.

NHS Fife really should have a dept/depts on top of this, and especially given the huge interest in the case & the massive PR nightmare they've walked themselves into. If there's someone somewhere in the chain being obstructive on disclosure, I suspect NC will get to the bottom of that in due course with her questioning whoever is going to answer for NHS Fife.

It seems there is a bit of a Twitter storm over all this, they are on fire with some of the commentary.

HANG ON! Trying to catch up here.

Someone sent an email with the header 'hate incident' about SP to SEVENTEEN colleagues BEFORE any investigation as to whether there was merit to the trumped up, witch hunty claim?

Surely that's slam dunk discrimination / harassment/ bullying.

Yeah. Hmm. But how did he know she was in the room, or left the room? He said he was very very careful to not give ‘an indication’ that he was looking/watching at the women in the female single sex changing room. I’m paraphrasing as I can’t remember the words exactly. But that is the gist.

He wouldn’t have been looking at any women in there, so how could he have known it was SP?

I would be shocked if those emails had disappeared. Even back in my day, (15 or so years ago), we had to export and archive all emails regularly to free up space in our mail boxes. The IT department archived them somewhere...
(It was impressed on us that even deleted emails would still be retrievable by the IT people. So be careful what you write).

Am really hoping Dr Searle is on the witness list.

I'd like to know what was in her email, how she decided DU using the changing room was OK without checking a policy or asking any of the women who use it and most of all, as Patient Safety Lead what the terrifying risk to patient safety was of a doctor doing some obs.