NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #7

[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: https://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

Thread 6: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269635-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-6

I suspect NC can easily stretch it out to two days to question DrU. We would all have lots of questions for him and I imagine NC will have some even we haven't thought off 😂

I was aiming for light-hearted. Apologies if I missed.

Excellent news @Chrysanthemum5 crosses painting the bathroom off jobs for day off

NC could start off by asking Dr Upton why he is carrying that dreadful handbag. Is he trying to larp as someone of his mother's age?

Thank you, donated to both.

Just wanted to share that I was discussing this case with DH this morning. He studied sociology in the 90s and has always said "gender is a social construct, sex is biological reality" but hasn't really got why I am so cross, on a regular basis, about these things. However this case has definitely peaked him! He is outraged and genuinely disappointed that he has to go to work tomorrow and can't watch the tribunal with me. I wonder how many others have had similar conversations this weekend.

I read on Twitter that there is a TiM using the ladies toilets at the tribunal. I believe one of the individuals in the support posse. Which seems to me to be quite a statement

Also was DrU's gran in the support team on Friday? There was an older lady who was sitting with them who seemed thoroughly bemused by it all.
DrU certainly seems to have a supportive family which is nice for him. Sad for SP that she had to face questioning on her own but I guess she wasn't special enough to ask for supporters. Or maybe she's just an adult and capable of facing things on her own.

I asked this same question 5 or 6 years ago and was told that HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Authority (or something like that) only requires gender and they follow HESA. So no information about one of the nine protected characteristics - and a characteristic that many faculties need data on. Gah.

I wonder if at some point NC will raise the issue of GRC vs self-ID. I'm sure most of us agree that men remain men even with a GRC saying they're now women, but if Upton doesn't even have a GRC, where does that leave him and NHS Fife over the question of single-sex facilities? NHS Fife are saying that people can use the facilities of the gender they identify with - but is this actually legal if the people in question are self-IDing?

Standard suspension procedure meant that SP wasn’t permitted to discuss the case with friends or colleagues from work after the point where she was put on Special Leave on 30th Dec 2023. Her ability to bring supporters was significant impaired

I have real sympathy for DUs support crew.

I have always said that I want my DC to know that I am there for them, whatever comes, whatever they've done and however that makes me feel, that I would be there to back them up or help then face the consequences etc. I can't criticise his parents etc for doing what I hope I would do, even if I did not agree with my DC choices or behaviour I would not abandon them I hope. (I would however expect to behave according to the same rules as everyone else and not expect to have special chairs brought in for me).

As I said earlier in the thread, DUs alleged parents appear to be well educated, qualified professionals with extensive experience of working in many fields related to the issues at hand. His dad has web hits for presentations on things like "data research" and "data management" (which is possibly a skill set NHS Fife should have sought to exploit...) and his Mum (or who is reported elsewhere to be his mum) has allegedly previously worked in counselling and in hospitals herself.

While they may have originally thought they were supporting their child as they sought to stand up for themselves against bullying and harassment at work, they cannot have failed to realise that the issues were much broader, complex and less one sided than they may have originally thought once NC started speaking on Friday.

I can put myself in their shoes a little bit and feel real sympathy for the situation in which they find themselves.

yes, the following chapters of this court case could be:

Dr. Upton's male colleagues complaining about slander, as they are all under pre-emptive suspicion

or
All the male employees having to take part in an extra special pro edition of a diversity seminar.

I think DrU's parents are well educated - I would hope they have understood the seriousness of his current situation. Not sure what they can do about it though as he will face questioning tomorrow. Even if he didn't change his allegations to include allegations of patient safety in response to advice, he is still in for some tough questions. And he doesn't seem as strong as SP so I doubt his mental health will cope.

So his parents (and I guess his wife) will be left to pick up the pieces

Boiled: yes, and?

Hear hear

but the BBC are summarizing the court events - they would be falsifying information if they did not report correctly what someone said. They couldn't use other pronouns, even if they wanted to. Besides the pronouns are part of the case; the recent court decision about another case made that clear.

Hard to believe the posters want a public broadcaster to lie.

Being a parent to an adult to who may have behaved in a way that you do not agree with but that requires you to support them so publicly must be very difficult.

(Alternatively, they could be raging TRAs who cheerlead it all, who knows?! )

@ConstructionTime The BBC mislead often - in favour of TRAs. So they are not used to less obviously biased reporting.

@anyolddinosaur
That's true, but still not a very democratic move to demand that the BBC lie.

I looked at the opening post of that reddit as shown above, and thought that all of the things they accuse the CG crowd around Nurse Peggie of are things TRA have done many times themselves to others. Apparently these moves are only permitted to one side of the discussion.

Hmm.

I'm a retired NHS manager and one of my areas of responsibility for my trust was workforce information and workforce planning. In order properly to monitor how well an organisation is doing with regard to issues of equality and protected characteristics you have to record sex. Gender is not a substitute - unless the people saying that it is are under the misapprehension that sex and gender are synonymous. I suppose anything is possible.

If I were in your position - and I'm certainly not suggesting that you should unnecessarily stick your head above the parapet as I might - I'd contact whichever senior manager or director is responsible in your institution for maintaining the risk register and ask them if they are aware that your HR dept are saying this. I'd have thought there was a very real risk of your employer having a discrimination claim made against them if they try to keep so far ahead of the law and are waiting for it to catch up...

We need the 'trans woman' bit to be replaceable so we can substitute the next crap idea imposed on women🙄

Can't believe we are almost at thread 8 already.

Really hoping NC and team are happy with the disclosure over the weekend, and the hearing can go ahead without adjournment.

Perfect

@LoobiJee And note that they are only dropping gender self ID because they’re worried about Reform, not because they want to protect women and children.

They think we are so dumb, it's insulting.

@Manxexile I have pushed this all the way to the senior leadership team who just say it's HR's decision. So now I've got myself on the group looking at how we gather data on protected characteristics and will go via that route.

The problem is that senior leadership are cowards and they don't want to face down the TRAs so it's easier to ignore the rights of women