NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #10

[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 February 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on Thursday 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
Thread 7: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5270365-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-7
Thread 8: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271511-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-8
Thread 9: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271596-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-9

Biglly words i want to do that 😂

The issue is not the PC of GR. It is the fact that individuals and institutions have swallowed the stonewall law that having this PC changes someone’s sex

Still catching up, just spat my drink at this bit:
BU - perhpasnothing. My upset may not be avoidable. may be based on prejudice. If a patient sees me and thinks women shouldn't be doctors and goes over my head and speaks to a male doctor, then [sorry having to pause here]

So sad

And then adults tell children the equivalent of this

At best, he's delusional.

A small village in Shropshire? I doubt he would call himself Clive…..

But has DU achieved Gender Reassignment?
By his own words, he
a) is a biological woman; and
b) does not have a GRC. (Can someone confirm he said this?? I understand it to be the case but am now doubting how I know this. It's all doing my head in!).

I just feel sick at what Sandy's been through. She asked for help and tried to sort things out, and then ends up with an email slagging her off in the workplace, gets suspended and can't speak to Co-workers for months. It's horrific.

That was so bloody weird I became convinced the whole performance was a monster piss take for a moment. I’m still not sure.

The comments on that article are about 2/3 how can he be a dr/he needs struck off and 1/3 men and women reaching the top of mount kilimanjaro it's quite a sight

Place marking. Truly astounding stuff today. Looking forward to tomorrow!

I’ve just caught up with the threads and I think NC has done very well. It’s not like TV trials where there’s a gotcha and a confession.

She has exposed DU as a dangerous, deluded narcissist, lacking in empathy who was insistent on getting his own way. And how there was nothing Peggie could have done or said to him that he would have listened to or respected.

By his own words, he a) is a biological woman; and b) does not have a GRC. (Can someone confirm he said this?? I understand it to be the case but am now doubting how I know this. It's all doing my head in!).

I think he side stepped the question and said that whether he had surgery or a GRC would make no difference to his status as a woman. His position was that people have deep knowledge of what sex they are and it is this that makes them a man or woman.

The government doesn't even see how this will impact public trust and general order on the streets when the next pandemic or something similar comes around.

Covid
Government: We should trust in scientists and doctors to identify this virus and develop an appropriate vaccine with the least possible side effects (agree)
Flat-Earthers: Vaccines are made by Russian aliens who want to inject us with transponders to read our thoughts
(which is not that far from what Elon Musk is trying with Neuralink, only he sells it as "We're the Good Guys" as this could have some beneficial results for certain conditions, but I doubt it's the final goal)

GC / Material reality
The public: We need to make decisions based on scientific reality
The government: We are probably all Llamas.

This case has been eye-opening for me, and I think for many other people following it. Upton wants to be a civil rights activist, but I wonder whether they have unwittingly awakened a new audience to the gender critical movement. I think I might have become a TERF today, and it's all thanks to Upton.

I think it was, really. He knows we know that no patient would think he was a woman. It's a taunt.

Welcome to TERFdom.

But whilst we have Gender Reassignment as a Protected Characteristic, he is an Untouchable. The NHS can't do a thing about him, can they?

There must be some degree of unfitness to practise that would get even a TW kicked out. What if he announced he doesn't think a particular ethnic group deserve medical care, or that he thinks crystal healing is the best treatment for schizophrenia, or that women's wombs wander around inside their bodies causing medical issues? Surely his fitness to be a doctor would be questioned and I think saying you don't believe sex is definable and is a nebulous dogwhistle falls into a similar category.

I don't know what to make of today. I hope tomorrow is more on the facts of the complaint and timeline, and able to expose the truth.

Not to derail, but I have just read this though, which makes me feel a bit better.
https://www.iba.sport/news/following-trumps-order-on-transgenders-iba-to-take-legal-action-against-ioc-for-allowing-khelif-and-lin-to-participate-in-paris-2024/

Dr Upton is not doing his future career any favours. Aside from the question of patient consent and fitness to practice, what hospital will take a chance on hiring him in the future?

I'm just catching up on the Telegraph article and got to this bit: 'In her evidence, Ms Peggie has admitted raising the case with Dr Upton of Isla Bryson, the transgender rapist who was initially placed in a woman’s jail.'

SP didn't admit she brought up Ilsa Bryson, though, did she? I thought she said she brought up a case of a man in a woman's prison that had been in the news but she didn't know his name or that he was a rapist.

Having caught up with the day's events, I have a number of thoughts.

1)The perception of Dr Upton thinking he is the cleverest person in the room. Well yes, it's reckoned to be a common problem for doctors on the stand. If you spend your childhood as the cleverest person in every class, and then only meet other people like that when you got to medical school, and then go to work in a non-research clinical environment where the doctors are often the most academic in the room, it is easy (especially if you're an arrogant arsehole) to assume that you are always the brightest person in the room. But the court is not our room, it is the room of lawyers. And they probably had just the same experience until they hit university, too...

2)I had been rather presuming that the main fault lay with NHS Fife, for their (by the sounds of it) ludicrously misogynistic policies and the usually incompetent NHS HR process. Having read the accounts of Dr Upton on the stand, however, he has convinced me that it was in fact likely that he did know he was intimidating and scaring SP, but he merrily cracked on. Which I find disturbing.

3)I am deeply concerned if a practicing doctor really does not know the difference between biologically male and female. Because it is an essential distinction to make in so many clinical scenarios. But I am equally concerned if he does know the difference and denied it on oath, because that sounds like it could be a probity issue.

4)There are threads discussing this case on a doctors' forum I frequent. Quite a few people seem to be having their eyes opened. The more light...

There are a lot of us about nowadays. I even have a (very cheap) one year digital sub to the Torygraph because it's so good on this issue.

Still catching up. I think there tribunal are going to throw this into the long grass on the basis that the investigation was a joke. Not helping in this instance but we still have the Darlington nurses to go yet. So fat the 'investigations' have been shoddy (see Jo pheonix) and so they are going to have to up their game pronto. But that still won't work, because if proper investigations are carried out, then a tribunal won't be necessary. As I said earlier who are the internal legal teams?

I feel similarly from today and it's just from hearing the tribunal

The dominance and gaslighting is too awful to hear