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

Booboobagins · Today 08:58
I'm not saying I wouldn't be angry, my point is she is discriminatory borne out by her and her husbands other behaviour.

Bullshit. Had you watched this from the start you would also have been aware that Dr U's counsel accused Sandie of homophobia too until Sandie pointed out her own daughter was gay and the family welcome her girlfriend into their home. Dr U's barrister quickly changed the subject.

This is a class witch hunt.

The missing patient incident just sums up their difference in experience.

In-experienced junior doctor - a child has gone from A+E, this could be child safeguarding

Experienced nurse - it was a fit child, parents realised A+E was a waste of time, they went home. Nothing to see here, happens every day.

I don't remember seeing anything about a patient who left the hospital without being seen. Only that Sandie said there was nothing to report when Upton asked about the patient.

Can someone fill me in on the background to this? What has the patient leaving triage got to do with Sandie?

I vaguely understand the barrister cab rank thing, but what I don’t understand is why NHS Fife wouldn’t google Jane Russell and her various tribunal losses and think, no, not this time. Let’s try someone new.

Is Jane Russell winning a lot of gender ideology tribunals that aren’t in the public eye or something? Because if not, she is the last KC I would use to defend an institution which was a true believer in GI.

Almost nothing: SP was the triage nurse, so triaged the child patient and wrote a brief report/note. The patient was presumably asked to wait to be seen.

DU (who in questioning couldn't remember the triage level of the patient), at some point later, collected the notes, called the patient and realized they had already left. Asked to speak to SP to check there weren't any further details that might be concerning - I think in questioning said that this was to "write a good report". SP was fetched and said there was nothing extra of note - but failed to look at DU while saying this. And also didn't say hi.

And surely Dr U could have asked Sandie to explain her reasoning if he was worried.

Jane Russell

essexcourt.com/barrister/jane-russell/

Bizarrely her bio lists her appearance in the Forstater v CGD EAT in a way that suggests she was responsible for gender critical belief being recognised in law as valid. Which I suppose she was, though I'm not sure I'd be trumpeting it.

There's no update on Friday's events at the trial on the BBC Scotland website but there is one on a Furries convention. Shameful.

"Forstater v CGD [2021] (Employment Appeal Tribunal) [2019] (Employment Tribunal). Appeared as Sole Counsel in the EAT against three silks and two juniors (and below in the ET) in a case which established that gender critical beliefs are protected as a “philosophicalbelief’ under the Equality Act 2010."

@CrocsNotDocs I have read on here that JR has a trans child, not sure whether it is true, but if it is maybe they thought her views would align to theirs.

Either way, they didn't account for the mighty Ms Cunningham.

Even the best barrister can’t make an unwinnable case winnable.

Because then it would be that individual that would have had a witchhunt against them and been suspended.

Wrongly labelled photo still there for me.

The "missing patient" incident is just that - Sandie is doing triage, probably tells parents there will be a very long wait as child is not an emergency, Dr Beth calls patient later, queries why child has left, Sandie says there were no concerns (i.e. child didnt have a serious problem) . No information on how long parents waited before deciding to leave but we can deuce they didnt come back later (it would have been in Dr Upton's notes, crowing about it) so probably didnt need to be at a&e at all.

Dr Beth was querying Sandie's competence to adequately triage. Nurses do make mistakes sometimes but after 30 years probably not very many.

Peggie is toxic because she has made derogatory comments (actually her and her husband) about trans people.

Where has Sandie Peggie made derogatory comments about trans people?

Why is Sandie Peggie responsible for comments her husband may have made?

Imo she deserved to be suspended behaving as she did. She did not take positive action but acted out obviously hurting the Dr.

How did she hurt the Dr? In your view the Dr's feelings matter more that hers?

This plus the evidence that she holds anti trans beliefs is why I hope they find in favour of the NHS.

Sandie Peggie holds sex realist/gender critical views that are worthy of respect in a democratic society, employers cannot discriminate against people holding those views.

I don't want to share changing rooms with anyone. Give me privacy any day, but if I found a trans woman in a changing room I would be venting at them, I'd take action to remove myself even if I was there first!

Sandie Peggie did remove herself from the changing room on at least two previous occasions and Dr Upton deemed her doing so as harassment. If you did the same in the presence of Dr Upton he would deem you as being a transphobic harasser too and report you.

Sandie Peggie should not have had to remove herself from changing rooms that are there for her use, her safety, her privacy, her dignity and her comfort and nor should any woman. Males, however they identify, should not be in female changing rooms.

That's quite the spin! Bloody hell.

What behaviour?

And what on earth does her husband's behaviour have to do with SP's work conduct?

Holy sweet fucking moly.

JR is well enough respected with a good enough record to have been made up to silk recently.

I should think she's a fine, competent barrister and we know very little of her overall legal portfolio if we only know of her actions in re: ETs that attract our attention.

ETA: agreed that that's quite the spin on the Forstater!

Are you implying Jam that there are matters more important to the BBC than furry conventions (and of course drag queens)?
How very phobic of you 😂

I have heard rumours JR is secretly 'gender critical'.

I thought they were far fetched until I read that para about her work in Forstater. 😄

Something that perhaps doesn't get enough attention is that, although it might be nice if everybody liked everybody, or at the least, nobody systematically disliked people because they have some protected characteristic, doing so is not illegal.

I'm loath to choose a particular protected characteristic, but for the sake of argument, let's suppose that climate change denial is considered WORIADS and hence is protected (I don't know whether it is or not). I'm within my rights to strongly disagree with that view; to dislike people who hold the view; to avoid ever making friend with someone who holds that view, and to drop someone like a hot potato if I find out they hold that view.

What I'm not allowed to do is harrass or victimise someone (in any context) for that reason; or discriminate against them for that reason in a broad, but defined and limited, set of circumstances laid out in the EA2010. That set of circumstances includes provision of public services, education, employment, etc., but it does not include private life. If I say to all my friends, or even, I think, in a TV interview I do in a private capacity, that I think climate change deniers are idiots, IANAL but I don't think the law can touch me. If I say it in a widely reported TV interview then maybe there might be a case that it's not possible for me to avoid discriminating against climate change deniers at work and a case might be brought on that basis, but I think (lawyers please do chime in) that it would make an interesting case, if I said "yes I think that but of course I leave my personal views at the door when I arrive at work" and if nobody could prove otherwise.

Basically wrong think, even telling people about it, is not illegal and it doesn't have to be WORIADS i.e. legally protected wrong think, though of course it helps if it is! People are legally allowed to think awful things and even, mostly, to say them.

None of this is to say that SP has anti trans beliefs beyond the obvious basic GC ones - but if my understanding is correct, it doesn't matter if she does.

Do we know which incident ED was a witness to?
I'm just wondering about the timing of when complaints were made. Could ED have started to investigate based on complaints about incidents she wasn't a witness to and then later had to withdraw as another incident and was added to the complaint which she was a witness to.

For anyone who would like a refresher as to the EAT and who the various legal people were representing. Hint, despite the David and Goliath description in the JR bio, Maya Forstater was represented by 1 silk (Ben Cooper) supported by 1 solicitor (Anya Palmer).

The other legal representatives were for CGD and 'interested parties'/intervenors such as Index on Censorship (opposed to MF) and EHRC (Karen Monaghan).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c1cce1d3bf7f4bd9814e39/Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf

Anti trans is surely a misnomer. It is pro females surely? Or have I just committed a cardinal sin there....

It's difficult to unpick but seems unlikely.

DU sent an email complaining about SP on Christmas Day (FFS) and SP was on Special Leave and then suspended from 4th or 5th Jan I think we're mentioned.

KS sent an email 29/12 which NC has clearly got issues with so relevant to case in some way

The CR incidents logged by DU occured in the late summer/autumn and the CR confrontation on 24/12 at midnight