NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #13

[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 was expected to continue for 2 weeks although at the start of the second week getting everything done in this time period was looking less certain. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on Thursday 6 February.

Access to view the hearing remotely was obtainable by sending an email request to [email protected] headed Public Access Request (Peggie v Fife Health Board) 4104864/2024 and requesting access.

However, as a result of problems with the liverstreaming, apparently as a result of a very large number of observers, remote public access to the hearing was suspended on Tuesday 11 February. It was suggested that it might be reinstated at some point but I wouldn't count on it.

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
Thread 10: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271723-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-10
Thread 11: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272046-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-11
Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272276-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-12

From what know about how the NHS is run, I don't doubt this for a minute.

This is exactly what I am thinking. Is this deliberate so that we cannot appraise ourselves to the facts 🤷‍♀️🥹

I'm going to have to read about 3 threads later!

I'm currently rolling my eyes at JR saying an adjournment is "unnecessary" which is exactly what she said about the case at the beginning!

I have some empathy- I can’t imagine employment tribunals usually have hundreds of remote observers. Must have been a little unsettling for the panel!

I'm very interested to see what becomes of this failure to disclose/ admitted failure of JR to advise client.

It is well within the remit of NC to apply for costs to be awarded on the basis of the misconduct of the respondent. They can be awarded at the Tribunals discretion if they are rewarded then it is on the Respondent to recover losses on the basis of professional negligence of the Respondent legal team.

There is plenty to come out of the woodwork here but basically Sandie's should not have to go to additional costs as a result of that failure to comply.

@nauticant On it like a car bonnet, as usual. 👍 Thanks for the new thread.

Same here. Unlikely we’ll be back in. There must have been huge numbers of it’s caused this issue.

I got the same. I have some sympathy for the staff, not their fault the system is shit.

I am wondering if restricting this would make this court in contempt of the court that approved open access?

I've just received the same email. So cross.

Given the clear lack of fairness in reporting by msm last week, it is vital that they do everything possible (and there is a lot they haven't tried) to offer open justice.

Thanks nauticant and all others for the commentary.

This is an option to follow live without signing up to X, assuming these threads won’t have as much live transcript content from tomorrow:

https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

For the newbies (like me!) it’s basically a dupe of the TT twitter / x feed that works for those of us not on that platform. I used it today when they came back to discuss the new emails and afternoon adjournment.

Disappointing, I got the same email.

TT will be the one to follow from tomorrow then.

I don't know about contempt but it doesn't seem in the spirit of the earlier finding re keeping it public.

Again it seems very unfair that Sandie's family had to all be dragged in to this and now people like NHS Fife's managers will retain a much greater degree of anonymity.

Love and treats for Nauticant
Well, virtual treats anyway - lots and lots of gratitude and admiration xx

I am biological and I'm female therefore I am biologically female.

I am biological and I'm annoying therefore.I am biologically annoying.

Don't you have to pass some sort of verbal reasoning rest to get into medicine?!

It's a shame none of us have journalist ID.

Anyone got one?

I bring this forward from the last thread because it didn't get answered.

Someone said that:
and gender (identity) added as a separate protected characteristic.

I asked:
Why do you consider it should be a separate protected characteristic?

I really would like an answer. We all have a sex. I would say that the majority of don't have a gender identity, so why should something which doesn't exist for most people be protected?

I wish NC would ask him these questions:
Do you have a p or a v?
Do you have periods?
What, specifically makes you believe you are female?
And the question she asked a witness in the ERCC trial, when she asked them if they could say if the male trial judge was a man or women. To which the witness said that they didn't know...

I know he'd just give a word salad answer, but the cheek of that man, pompously stating on oath ' as a woman'...

The absolute gall of that man! It makes me so angry. And all the absolute idiots ( including all the # bekind women ) who have enabled it...

Placemarking, I imagine people will copy and paste some of TT's coverage here.

I've got a BBC pass wonder if that counts as journalist id. Don't have a press card anymore.

Do we think that Upton's manager at NHS Fife was fully aware of the fact that Upton thinks it is acceptable for him to intimately examine a woman who has asked for same sex care (which, I am fairly certain, is a right that is specifically protected by the equality act).

I want to know where they stand on this. I want to know if they understood exactly what they were supporting.

I really hope they got a nasty shock and are having a good hard think.

Oddly (!!!!!) there's no article on the BBC about today's proceedings farce. If you want to read about feral pigs, on the other hand...

In defence of the tribunal's IT woes, over the last 10 years or so a huge amount of funding has been removed from HMCTS, the body responsible for running courts and tribunals (AFAIK in Scotland as well as England - can anyone confirm/correct?) - on a par with what's been done to local government. So it's entirely understandable that the IT system is a bit shonky and fell over as it did.

No. The court approving open access did not make it compulsory.