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

2nd half of this afternoons TT tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1888973915029991514.html

Incredulous that the J is waffling about timings, the tribunal start/end times blah blah. Honestly I just don't know how barristers have the patience. I'd be tearing my hair out!! Gah!!!

Sadly I have experience of the Judicial Conduct (Standards) Investigation Office - for anyone who wishes to see why the Judge cannot express disbelief or disdain is set out in the guide to judicial standards Bangalore 2002 - just google it.

Yes. DrU is being allowed too much time grandstanding. Hopefully the J is noticing the marked difference between his and Sandies answers which were quick and to the point.

We’ll start roughly at 9.30am tomorrow says the judge. I’ll guess at 10.14am.

FFS we’ve seen other hearings run much tighter wrt timings, so we know it can be done. Wasn’t the Phoenix hearing timings even down to “back sharp at 7 minutes past the hour”?

Here's the thing. The only reason a Dr is able to cut into your body, or intimately examine you is because you have given informed consent.

If the consent you have given is not reasonably informed, then the Dr is guilty of ABH.

If I request a female Dr, and DrU examined me, I would absolutely consider my consent not to have been informed, and I would be asking the police to pay a visit.

My head feels utterly scrambled after listening to all of that!

Thank you @GCITC That's really helpful

Off to Google for padded rooms so I can protect myself appropriately tomorrow.

Particularly as he's decided to end this at 4:15/20 today instead of letting NC continue even if it's a bit later today.

They keep talking of the over run, and then J decides he's had enough way before we get even close to 5!

I hope someone puts some questions to Wes Streeting over this farce.

He seems a very hands off judge. I've seen judges constantly tell witness to just answer the question, start with yes or no or don't know (and then expand answer if necessary), and that long detailed answers are not needed because it's all in the witness statement. The problem is Dr U has been given free rein to just waffle on and give very long, irrelevant answers but if NC interrupts JR pops up to say 'let the witness speak' and the judge is going along with that. Having said all that, I think it's useful to let Dr U speak as the stuff he is saying is just mind boggling.

Health is devolved, so I don't suppose Wes Streeting can do too much.

Does anyone know if I can use the same link/codes tomorrow?

My attempt at explaining it Shortshriftandlethal is that there's no real differences between the sexes, and the only difference between groups of people that's relevant is how those groups claim what they think about their own respective identities.

Maybe not the best way to organise things in society.

and that the next two witnesses will be asked to comment on what he said.

The judge did specifically ask DrU, in a very nice tone of voice, whether he could manage tomorrow’s start time 🤣

We did just get confirmation of the nature of Searle's email, though, which I think had been mostly speculation before. She did indeed email 17 consultants pre-judging the matter, and it sounds as though it may even be only because that email was disclosed late that she didn't end up as another respondent. (I want to write respondant when it's a noun, similar to how dependent is an adjective and dependant a noun, but google suggests it doesn't work that way. Pity!)

Yes

After watching quite a few of these hearing, it does not surprise me in the least all the time wasting.

It is infuriating and boring, but they all with the exception of Judge Goodman dilly dally and waste astronomical amounts of time.

I can understand why it takes so long to get a court date.

To be fair i can see why the judge has had enough for one day. Shame though, as in boxing parlance, DU was on the ropes. His acolytes will reaffirm him before tomorrow and NC will have to start again.

My email from them said the link and pin can be used for the duration of the hearing so yes, use same link and pin

Not in this particular case but it would be good if Labour were aware of what is actually happening on the ground.

I'm only halfway through thread 9 and I am just so so so happy to see (via this thread, not irl) DU repeating all the non-arguments in their blazing glory.

Finally an end to 'no-one's saying transwomen are biologically female!' 'No-one's saying there's no such thing as physical sex!' 'No-one's saying a straight couple can experience homophobia!'

I want to shout, see? see what we've been dealing with for the past 8 years and have been told we're wrong to disagree? Not only wrong, but hateful?

Yes, the same one will continue to work - and likely will even continue to work if they have to take a break and reschedule weeks/months later, if I remember correctly from some previous case.