NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #16

[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. However, it is going to overrun and there will be an adjournment with the hearing resuming, possibly, in July. 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
Thread 15: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273119-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-15

I don't think it's DSD's, I think it's social media and a weird, wanky power trip.

Snails are true hermaphrodites, as are most plants, because they have fully functional male and female reproductive organs in the same organism.

There are no human hermaphrodites. And all DSD's can be categorised as male or female.

'her beliefs haven't changed'.

WTAF.

From last thread

RethinkingLife · Today 09:21
.....
KS has alway seemed to have a substantial role in this. I don't understand if KS will definitely need own counsel or if everyone is so aligned that JR is happy to be counsel for all 3 respondents (if KS is joined as one).

Interesting that KS was the only witness that requested anonymity in the same hearing that NHSFife asked for the whole hearing and for DU to be granted anonymity!

From the Case Management Order https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Redacted-Peggie-Case-Management-Order-06.01.2025.pdf

32. On 5 December 2024, the Respondents’ solicitors provided an updated draft order which differed from the earlier draft in that (a) the name of the witness to 25 be anonymised was provided (there was only one such witness, K. Searle)

Fife and KS knew her supervision role and the all-medical staff email was a massive fuckup and tried to protect themselves in a closed court. There is a kind of justice that she now has to wait months in anticipation of being called as a very public respondent.

would retain that role, as being fair to SP.

JR - email, cc'd you, what is that

ED - correcting Belinda, Lottie has been filling in for AS, but someone else is contact person

JR - now about the return to work, 19 April what form

ED - face to face

JR - what was said

NC needs to ask how they proposed " supporting" SP on her return to work.

What they seem to mean is to ensure she has no contact with DU or if she does she behaves herself. They will try to impose their belief on her - that DU is actually female and that it is she/SP who has a problem with "bigoted beliefs".

This is a total abuse of the suspension system.

And presumably in the normal run of things, women enter and leave the CR all the time. Leaving when another person is there is surely not banned and a matter for complaints? Even if you were avoiding someone else because you didn't get on, can you imagine a woman taking that to management/HR as a complaint about another woman? They'd be told to grow up and that it's not a playground.

Where was the investigation into patient safety in all of this? There's been nothing and yet discussing bringing SP back to work.

Why immediate suspension if this wasn't the main issue?

My questions are rhetorical

Is the content of KS's email in the public domain? Is it likely to be read out in court?

I'm reading support as supervision and monitoring

ED - we felt it was going well, no issues, managed rotas so no interaction with DU, we felt it was going well

JR - a couple of more emails, from AG to you, what was she telling you

ED - giving me a timetable for the IX, and could I attend then

JR - your reply

ED - told I was on a day off, but available anytime after 12, I had a dental appointment

JR - now your IX report what date is that

ED - 26 April, JR - I have no further question.

J - time for a break, back at 1:40

NC - can we have a slightly longer lunch as there is much to consider from that

J - time for a break, back at 1:40 NC - can we have a slightly longer lunch as there is much to consider from that

Does 'supporting' mean supporting SP to get with the programme and understand that she's supposed to pretend Upton is female by staying in the changing room and letting him make sure that he is not giving the impression of watching her get undressed?

I suspect they might be going down the SP is a crazed bigot Trump supporter and we suspended her because she was trying to force her (wrong) beliefs on others which is against our policy and discriminating against DU.

Can they not see the irony?

Yes!

bingo

I think Fife's "justification" was that KS was known to be Upton's supervisor so if she was not anonymised his anonymity would not work.

They just done seem to get it.

she wasn’t uncomfortable because she potentially held GC beliefs and it was a political point she raising, she was uncomfortable purely because it made her feel uncomfortable.

They seem to have trouble differentiating the 2 things. You can always be potentially persuaded to change beliefs but you can’t be persuaded to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.

We've already had transactivists try to impose this in schools.

In their programs, if a child doesn't want to play with a 'trans child', it's not acceptable. Could be bullying, transphobia, blah blah blah.

material.

J - until 1:50 then. How long for your xx NC

NC - realistically we will go into tomorrow

J - what witnesses do we have tomorrow:

JR - Isla Bumba, Louise Curran, Lauren Harris.

J - ambitious, but lets see.

Court rises.

Morning session, part 2 ends.

I hope NC will ask what would have been done if SP had complained about the same behaviour from a member of staff who wasn't lying about being male.

Because that's the actual comparator.

I'm still not clear what she was supspended for, was it for the wrong beliefs or because they thought she'd actually harassed DU.

I think this will come out in XX and this is what NC needs a long break to consider how to get out that it is the beliefs that caused the suspension.

2nd half of morning TT Tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1890001147639029858.html

I find the whole 'GC beliefs are protected' thing deeply unsatisfactory, tbh. Acknowledging the reality of sex is not 'GC beliefs'.

my teen child had a PSHE lesson in which they were told that if a girl pretending to be a boy used the male changing room and the boys complained, the boys were bullying and in the wrong.

It will be interesting to see when the "Hate Incident" turned into a Hate Crime.

It was clearly recorded in Trust minutes as a Hate Crime in March 2024

(Minutes of Staff Governance Committee March 2024)

WN advised there were 16 violence and aggression (staff) incidents
reported in December 2023/January 2024, 128 incidents since April
2023. There were 8 no harm, 7 minor harm, 1 moderate harm
incidents. 2 incidents were reported to the police, 1 in AU1 and 1
in Ward 42. 1 incident has been considered a hate crime, a
protected characteristic incident in the female changing area and 1
sexual harassment incident in theatre recovery. In the report there
is a comparison between HSCP and Acute Division incidents.

https://www.nhsfife.org/media/4kulbqyp/staff-govenance-comittee-final-boardbook-final-20240513.pdf