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

As someone who spent over 45 years up to my eyes in Labour Law and Tribunals and court cases, I agree.

Neither am I impressed with a lawyer who butters their c.v. up to the point of it being somewhat misleading with regards to their role in a particular ground breaking case.

I know what you mean, I have posted in a number of places that legal representatives have a job to do, and if they didn't do it 100% it wouldn't be a fair trial - or as near to fair as we're likely to get.

JR's cross examination of SP was felt to be OTT and some posters were upset about it; other posters made the point that she was only doing her job. Was there an extra edge to how she spoke to SP, above and beyond trying to make her case? That may have prompted some negative comments.

The fact that she is mentioning her role in the WORIADS case like it is a good thing on her CV has caused a bit of harrumphing here, given that she was on the other/losing side.
"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 “philosophical belief’ under the Equality Act 2010."

But you could argue - prh47bridge may like me for this - that JR and her team DID contribute to the establishment 'that gender critical beliefs are protected as a “philosophical belief’ under the Equality Act 2010' because the EAT had to have two teams of legal people arguing to the best of their abilities the merits and demerits of the case, and she was on the 'demerits' team.

Like Liverpool are going to have to beat another team to win the Carabao Cup, it wouldn't be much of a Cup Final if there wasn't an opposition

We can now say that our GC beliefs are protected because of a tribunal where two sides put forward their best arguments to the best of their abilities, it wasn't a walkover for WORIADS, and JR played her appointed role in the victory for GC beliefs.

That doesn't mean we have to like how she talked to SP, and we can only hope that she is being truthful about the missing docs, though, because that would be impossible to defend.

Oh I thought she said twice to her manager Esther then was told to speak to D&I who advised she speak directly with Dr U? But I missed SP’s evidence and I’ve not checked TT

This is wrong. The cab rank rule applies for all cases, both civil and criminal. However, it doesn't mean the client has to accept any barrister available. It means the barrister has to accept any work in their speciality provided they are available and the client is willing to pay their normal fee. So yes, the defendants deliberately chose JR.

Been catching up on all of TT and read the section of SP's testimony about this. What I understood from her account is that SP talked to ED about not wanting to be in changing room with Dr U. ED said she would seek advice. SP then didn't hear anything back from ED. Subsequently (I can't remember when she said), SP spoke with LC (Louise Curran), the charge nurse, in the handover room and asked if she knew was happening about the situation. LC told SP that ED had spoken to the Equality and Diversity department and the advice was that SP could change elsewhere.

I've never been 'subjected' (for want of a better word) to the cab rank system for civil cases!

ETA: I used preferred barristers though, rather than randoms! Though maybe that is cab rank! 🤷‍♀️🤣 Hmmm. I'll shut up now!

If JR is taking on a lot of gender cases that are not successful, or heading for failure, she shouldn't be mentioning them in her bios, nor taking any more on. Clearly she's not very good at them!

She'd have been wrong if she hadn't asked him to do observations as well I reckon. As then she would have been indicating she didn't think him capable of doing something all other doctors get asked to do by nurses so she would have been singling him out.

DU's sense of self is built on wet sand. I can believe he feels unsafe / threatened by people who speak directly and don't conform to the 'highly accommodating' bracket of social norms pertaining to 'politeness'.

Not that long ago, DU could have accessed therapy to help him be more resilient, now this would be deemed victim blaming. I think DU is a victim, but of the framing that casts him as one, not of SP's behaviour.

Was she involved all the way through that case, or only for the appeal which overturned the original judgement?

She was involved in the first tribunal and the appeal.

It really is worth reading through TT. I've just been doing it as wasn't clear about several things. If SP's account is correct, I think the way the hospital dealt with her concerns was appalling. Allegedly, she was told it was her who could go and change elsewhere and this was only after asking the charge nurse what was happening and having this advice reported to her second hand.

Booboo Peggie did remove herself. That's why DrU and Fife NHS suspended her. Afraid your actions in removing yourself would have resulted in disciplinary action against you for your transphobic behaviour.

In the tribunal it was clear that SP isn't on FB, her husband is. Would you like to take responsibility for the views and posts of all of your male relatives?

Yes. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Appears to be a defining characteristic of his complaints.

Transactivism, innit. One hundred percent compliance, or else.

And it's not even compliance, because if you look like you're not enjoying the compliance it's still wrong. In fact, if you look like you're enjoying it, but they suspect it's not genuine enjoyment then that's wrong, too!

I remember a transwoman complaining that the bisexual woman he was sleeping with wasn't making it clear enough whether, in the act of sex, she thought she was having sex with a man or a woman, therefore, the transwoman was still pissed off.

because, of course, the underlying issue is that not enjoying the compliance is frequently both required, but then subsequently complained about.

No, I am not saying that at all. Of course a barrister must advise their client if their case is weak, but they cannot compel their client to accept that advice and act accordingly. If the client insists on going ahead with the case despite their advice, the barrister must do their best to represent them. And if the client comes up with some ludicrous explanation for the evidence and insists it is true even though their barrister tells them the court is unlikely to accept this, the barrister must present that explanation to the court.

Yes, that is cab rank. You can choose your barrister. A barrister cannot choose their clients.

Well of course you are not being fair here - don’t give Liverpool false hope.

My wife supports Liverpool, I don't, so that's a definite no comment from me!

I like it. Yes, she did contribute by representing the losing side, but I agree that her bio is misleading.

You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as the saying goes. The point in using her is that she will be fully familiarised with the ideology, the cases etc. So cheaper than a barrister who needs to learn it all from scratch!

I'm a lowly accountant, who used to deal with insolvencies and restructurings. We used to have a handful of favoured lawfirms/individual lawyers (we'd contact the partner and they would pull together a team as necessary).

We'd discuss which Chambers to use and give pretty strong hints about who we wanted to give us their Opinion. Diary availability was also a key consideration. It was up to the solicitors to sort this out for us. (I suppose it was a fairly niche area, where the key players were well known).

NHS Scotland chose to get a London KC. With so many people going on and off sickleave, I am going to be charitable and suggest that it might have tricky to nail down who did what and when. Essential, but tricky, especially if people involved weren't asked the right questions.

On the contrary, if she is quietly gender critical you could argue that she is excellent at them.

I noticed in the Supreme Court case there was quite a lot of 'I am instructed to say' from the barrister representing the Scottish Government.

And if the client comes up with some ludicrous explanation for the evidence and insists it is true even though their barrister tells them the court is unlikely to accept this, the barrister must present that explanation to the court.

I totally accept this.

I'm glad I'm not a barrister, though, it must be a bit cognitive-dissonance-ish and you must need a thick skin and an Olympic-level ability to compartmentalise when you have to stand up in court and say things like
'he then launched an unprovoked attack on my client's fist with his nose..'

It's a job that has to be done if the justice system is going to work as well as it frequently/ sometimes/ occasionally/ usually does.
The UK [or Eng/Wales] legal system has come up with some really important decisions around gender issues - unlike other jurisdictions, where the legal system has been a cold cold place for gender critical feminism.

That's been asked about many of these Employment Tribunals and my view is that even when the defendents/respondents spot that they're on a hiding to nothing, or, at best, a Pyrrhic victory, they choose to fight on to signal to particularly constituencies that they're so wedded to the right ideological cause, they're willing to go down fighting.

But that's a bit like the, uh, woman playing chess with a dog.
"That's a very clever dog you have there!"
"Not really. She always loses."