NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #15

[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 once it was in to the second week it was looking like this would not happen. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 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 livestreaming, 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 don'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
Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272398-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-13
Thread 14: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272939-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-14

SP had asked Beth about her chromosomes and compared her to a TW in prison.

This has the definite ring of an untruth about it

ED - LS had been made aware of the convo SP/DU taken advice, and told to put SP on special leave. The holiday period meant that we didn't have the same people to take advice from, you have someone on call but you don't have your HR manager or your service manager.

Yep

What's the point to the Trump comments? Are they saying that if a person supports that awful man they lose all rights to dignity and must allow people of the opposite sex to watch them get undressed?

It looks like the comments have been suspended on both crowdfunds.

Fair, I don't disagree. But his beliefs needn't affect his technical ability to correctly diagnose and treat physical problem.

And yet special beth managed to get advice.

ED is an ally, clearly. Or she's decided she needs to keep her job and not do anything that will damage her pension or make her last few years of work more complicated than they need be. Easy for her: she referred it upwards and her senior managers said 'He's allowed in the CR' and so she has nothing to lose from doing the 'I was only obeying orders' number. I wonder how much encouragement she's been given to stick the knife into SP: 'stern', 'Trump supporter', 'strong beliefs'?

JR - so LS had taken advice, how did you know that

ED - she told me on the telephone

JR - when you had convo with SP, who called who

ED - I called her, phoned her to discuss next actions, and I had no access to advice to tell me what to do, I felt the safest thing for SP

My take is, Sandie has refused to buckle down and go with affirming BU, that will have caused ED extra work and now she’s having to give evidence in a trial that’s gone viral. So she’s angry with SP and she’s had months to think up justification for why she deserved to be punished.

New thread alert:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273636-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-16

Absolutely. Saying that SP supports Trump and his policies when your only evidence is that she stayed in a Trump hotel is ridiculous. Even if you are right, discriminating against her on that basis is a clear breach of the Equality Act. In most work situations you may not discriminate against someone based on their political beliefs, real or imagined.

This is what happens in court. It's performative but designed to make sure everyone knows the important points being raised.

Does anyone know why Sandie's fundraiser isn't displaying comments? Sorry if I've missed this.

was to leave her on special leave. And I would get back to as soon as I had been able to get HR advice. Special leave has no financial consequences, you get paid but don't come to work. SP sounded annoyed and it was okay to get paid not to come to work

Next time anyone tells me how short the NHS is of nurses, I will point out that SP was suspended for - at most - once getting stroppy with a colleague.

@Szygy The glibness and facility in the way Upton reels off his schtick speaks of hours and hours (days? Weeks? Months?) of being affirmed by those around him, imho.

His schtick is a script I suspect he has learned from other trans-identifying people (speculation on my part). I have watched trans-identifying influencers and there appear to be common phrases and mannerisms. We talk about 'the TRA bingo card' of these phrases because they've all been brainwashed into reeling off the same nonsense. I would not be surprised if he spent a lot of time during lockdown watching this nonsense (again, speculation). We are allowed to say the 'cult' word on here now, aren't we? I'm glad, because I think that is an appropriate description. Online TRAs describe the realisation that one 'is trans' as one's 'egg cracking'. It's almost as if one has been born again, like a religious conversion. The performance of the new persona must be maintained at all costs and mantras repeated if it is challenged in any way. I do see it as akin to an addiction or obsessive disorder and people who previously might have been pleasant and reasonable can behave in controlling and abusive ways while in the grip of these disorders. Affirming and enabling these behaviours is the worst thing that can be done for the person and everyone else. Unfortunately because of the mess of the law and the ideological capture of medicine and other institutions, there is pressure on us all to go along with this nonsense and most people do not understand how damaging it is to affirm. But everyone who has affirmed Dr Upton has contributed towards fuelling a disordered man's selfish addiction. I really do hope he snaps out of it one day and is able to cope and make amends for the consequences of his actions but all the enabling thus far will have made it incredibly difficult to row back from this. What was needed was for this to be nipped in the bud, his supervisor to say, no, you cannot use the women's changing rooms, without any need to justify and explain, and for his crying and shaking to be met with strong encouragement to take some time off and access psychological support (the problem being that those services are captured too; they need not to be, asap).

He's been completely unable, under oath, to conduct a conversation acknowledging reality.

We hope it doesn't permeate everything, but you'd think a legal tribunal, with his job in the balance,would be a bit of a litmus test

ED - I called her, phoned her to discuss next actions, and I had no access to advice to tell me what to do, I felt the safest thing for SP

Trying to make out she's also concered about SP's safety

JR - who made the decision to put her on special leave

ED - LS

JR - you extended SP's special leave why was that

ED - I had no access to HR advice and I didn't want to upset SP or expose her to any further incidents

JR - why was that

ED - clearly it was an upsetting situation

Agree. Or the "wrong" demeanour when doing their job.

I'm quite cross about this, and at the same time hoping that ED leaking her personal animosity towards SP will be a rich seam for NC to mine in cross examination.

My understanding of special leave is that you don't get unsocial hours etc. pay enhancements, but that may be different in Scotland.

Trying to make out SP was happy to have paid 'special leave'.

What about the unpleasant incident for Sandie - having to go into a changing room to deal with an unexpected personal issue at work and being faced with a gaslighting male who was willing to stay and argue the toss about his identity and self assumed rights over the space rather than having any empathy for her position and need for dignity and privacy. Did ED ever ask for her side of the incident or did they all just swallow the information fed to them by Upton?

They've glossed over the part where Sandie said she'd ask him not to use the CR and ED didn't say "No don't". That chat was with ED wasn't it?