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

There's every chance you remain iron deficient without (sexist) anaemia. Have you had your Ferritin checked?

The management of women's anaemia is another NHS failure

To play devil's advocate, though, ED had already told SP there was nothing she could do to keep DU out of the women's changing room. And SP then tried to request it of DU personally. That was the 'action', which, as DU has said, couldn't have been phrased in any way that would have got through the Respectful Enough filter.

one side or the other.

ED - I didn't see KS that day, I got advice from HR as to what to do

NC - it was clear that you would be leading the IX at this point

ED - i think it was clear early on that I would be leading IX.

NC - looking at the time, is it time to finish?

It does bring it home to you how treacherous female socialisation can be - I mean, I would actually have to be thinking to make sure my initial response was along the lines of "Oh dear, no one should ever feel upset" rather than "Oh my goodness, how awful" - because the first one feels so lukewarm and calculating. But then, once you have validated someone's POV, it is so much harder to backtrack and say, "Oh well, actually no, nothing terrible really happened, did it?"

As a lot of people were saying upthread, loads of us (like me) are easy to manipulate... 😬

When I am in charge of a public department I am going to have a poster above every computer saying WOULD YOU STAND BY THIS IN COURT?

Isn't it just? Awful.

They've decided to burn the witch before anyone has heard SP's side of the story here.

How on earth can the Tribunal do anything other than find in SP's favour now?

I can see why they wanted to hide the fact these emails existed.

Yep, that sounds like NHS Fife might be just a little bit fucked!

NC has demonstrated that ED is not TAW and that it was more doing as she is told

Just popping in for a catch up.... this stands out:

ED - I think she's responding to my email when I said it was totally unacceptable, I didn't know it was SP.

In other words she would have been sceptical of this allegation if she knew it was against SP and therefore taking it more slowly? Or am I reading too much?

Is this a universal experience? When my brother was about 4 we went to Alnwick castle and the parking attendant asked us to wind the window down and my brother immediately said "daddy? Is that you?" It was so embarrassing.

Until recently my own DS has called every man daddy and every woman mummy.

To be fair he makes a compelling argument for commune living and shared responsibilities. I have considered it...

Sorry for the tangent 😁 will be good henceforth.

J - yes, I think so, how long tomorrow morning NC

NC - I think the morning at least until lunchtime

J - now discussing timing for tomorrow. We may not finish with evidence and our questions tomorrow until say 2:30 or 3pm and we have applications to address.

My DS used to do that when he was a toddler. I always found it really embarrassing 😳

Alex Massie's been watching the trial too:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/b73c5e6f-639b-4cb3-bb50-6e9e47ac68d7?shareToken=561558898b06cf5faa9ebcdcba5301c4

J - we will resume tomorrow at 10 am, no other witnesses required.

Court rises.

End of 2nd afternoon session.

Oh I do like the sense of timing:
ED - i think it was clear early on that I would be leading IX.
NC - looking at the time, is it time to finish?

Blimey O'Reilly!!!

Thanks so much for all your sterling work today @ickky !

2nd half of PM TT Tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1890055346271731735.html

About blooming time they finished, I really need to do some work this afternoon!

Can see why KS is going to be added - and is probably going to say she thought the nurses had spoken to Sandie - pass the buck ladies but you are all going under the bus........

KS has got to be added as a respondent surely.

Yes, thanks @ickky , you've been brilliant.

I need to go out for a run to work some of the anger out of my body. I thought it would be easier to follow once DU was off the stand, but in some ways this is worse! Argh!!

Edited to add: thanks Ickky you are fab

Thanks @ickky

Yes this is looking increasingly bad for Fife, no wonder they've added KS as a responded as a result of the late disclosure.