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

Bloody hell I’ve been in meetings and only just caught up!

after all the court cases we’ve had, how do they not understand that these tactics don’t work?? There are ALWAYS receipts

NHS like Open university HR & management coming across as mind boggingly bad!

The one in the dress that came back for their coat and scarf? Spot 'em a mile off, even with dodgy video stream.

All I can say is, speaking as a pedant, judges have to be disinterested but not uninterested - which is why they are two separate fecking words because they mean two separate fecking things!
Sorry about that <wipes spittle off lips and smooths down hair>😄

I suppose they can get irritated by a barrister's manner, but I guess they are trained not to let that get in the way of their dispassionate assessment of what was being said, not how it was being said.

I hope that's how it works anyway!

So what will they be doing at 2 ish given Dr U has been put off until Monday?

True but I also think the problem is that the genderist arguments are so bonkers and lacking in logic that it's difficult to have any authority. Her starting position is that the earth is flat, in fact even more bonkers than that, so I think it's like trying to fight with one arm tied behind your back.

I think JR is a true believer but it still all makes no sense and trying to discuss / argue about it makes that very clear. Especially in a medical case.

Whereas NC has real facts.

Thank you so much to all of you reporting back on the proceedings. 💐

I'm now imagining 100s of Mumsnetters rearranging their diaries for Monday - don't pretend you're not already doing it! 😂
(I'm retired 😎)

More thanks to all the tireless scribes on here.

Yes that is exactly what I heard.

So not an investigation but enough of one to investigate what happened, compare it to the law, decide that nothing she had done was wrong, advise to comply with the law, and yet, not an actual investigation at all.

Yep, I'm planning to work through the weekend so I can be free Monday!

Schrodinger's Investigation!

Thoughts for the legal team who will now have to rip up whatever plans they might have had for the weekend.

At least just about everything is keyword searchable.

The interesting part of the exchange is that JR clearly did know that FIFE were covering things up - but is arguing that they didnt need to be disclosed. So this is not just a cock up by the defendant that their legal team didnt know about. This is the legal team being complicit in withholding information that could be damaging. If NC shows that it is then the judge is not just going to be irritated with NHS Fife but with their legal team.

My manager has moved a long meeting to Monday.

But, ha!
I don't need to be there. 🥳

The rules may have changed, but disclosure of documents/relevant material used to require you to list as destroyed or privileged documents that were claimed to come under that category, if that was the reason they were not being provided. You didn’t just pretend they didn’t exist.

I wondered the same thing, far left, long dark hair, but the picture quality is very poor.

Things happened that some people might call an investigation but those things didn't identify as an investigation so weren't one 😂

I've missed a bit - so someone with some sense said 'yep, this is wrong, you've broken the law, needs to be single sex changing and SP back at work' so someone decided given this wasn't the answer they wanted they should bury this and do another investigation that would give them the answer they wanted? Even if against the law?

They really thought they could crush her didn't they?

It's all a bit 'we have always been at war with Eastasia'

Quite

I'm trying to catch up from this morning but given that SP has been accused of bigotry/hate incident, harrassment and professional incompetence, then presumably all this about the emails is because NC is showing that the initial complaint and suspension was about the "hate incident".

NC seems to be drawing attention that the issue of professional incompetence is not recorded in the first investigation and only comes up much later - kitchen sinking the complaints and themselves being vexatious/indirect harrassment by process. If NC can show this to be true it may be possible to strike out the professional misconduct from the hearing/charges which would protect SP from having to go on to a Professional Conduct process at the end of this ET - hence talking about the very high stakes involved... Go NC!

Would not like to be Fife's solicitors "instructing" JR after this morning's debacle

Luckily for me I can class watching this as work, as I will call it CPD ensuring I am up to day with the contemporary issues facing HR and taking learnings from it, so I’ll definitely be watching around my other commitments.

I really hope there are punitive consequences for this flouting of the law. Identifying as complying with the law isn't good enough.

I haven't been watching so I can only guess from what has been reported on here, but I would imagine they will be discussing the terms of the order NC will be drafting.

And it would make their defense of not returning her to her in initial shift pattern because of the need for supervision because of the patient care elements allegation, completely baseless.

I wonder how stupid captured The Righteous think the tribunal are?

On the one hand, in a busy A&E department there are copious contemporaneous notes taken of "I saw Goodie Peggie didst spake unkindly unto mine delicate self; Also Goodie Peggie didst not spake towards mine delicate self which was also unkind; Then Goodie Peggie didst cruelly wait outside the changing room instead of gifting mine deserving self her undressed body; But also then Goode Peggie didst be in the changing room with me which was frightening unto mine sensitive soul; Furthermore Goodie Peggie didst look upon me with her evil eye' Simultaneously Goodie Peggie didst not deign to cast her gaze upon mine radiant self which was disrespectful..."

On the other hand, it was a busy A&E department so we didn't have time to document all the procedures and decisions leading to potentially career-ending consequences.

A quick glance to discern the obvious clearly didn’t count as an actual investigation that could be relied on to take longer and come up with the preferred result.