NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #18

[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 in July (current best estimate). 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 caused by 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
Thread 16: 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
Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273827-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-17

Isn’t V Valentine on today?

I mean, I say that "you can't refuse to employ a doctor who doesn't understand how sex works" but then again... https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/trans-dr-beth-uptons-biologically-34659416?int_source=nba

Come on now , who did this? I know it was one of you. <Looks around sternly>

Well, it is Valentine's Day after all.

Is anyone else concerned about the judge's tetchiness with nc or is this 'normal'?

It does make you wonder if someone else will eventually sue Stonewall etc for their piss poor 'education' programmes that have left them liable.

And it was his own barrister pulling that titbit out of him. ❤

Just out of curiosity, has it been said at what point Upton found out that SP had spoken to ED about him being in the changing room?

Obviously it doesn't become official until Xmas eve when he makes his complaint, but am I right in thinking that he'd already flagged to his manager that SP was behaving inappropriately by refusing to stay in the changing room and get undressed in front of him before that? That was the point when he demonstrated how kind and reasonable he is by not escalating this.

It's normal@Bayonetlightbulb. Also, bear in mind that NC has been ruthlessly exploiting the situation caused by the mess the NHS/Upton side made of their case knowing that as a result she had a lot of latitude to play with because of the knock-on effect on Sandie Peggie's case. So the chair (judge) was annoyed about that but largely had to go along with it.

I wondered that. It's the same in my field of work. Supervision might be a meeting or a chat, looking at priorities, progress or problem solving if there are complex issues, as well as professional development. It would be considered a detriment not to have it, although the person providing it might not see you actually doing your work. There's mention of oversight of interactions in this case though, so it sounds much more intrusive - being observed and monitored.

Does anyone know if it had been the case that Sandie asked about chromosomes, what is so bad about that? As far as I can tell, she raised her issue that Dr U isn't a woman and therefore shouldn't have been in those changing rooms and Dr U countered by saying that he is a woman / female and had every right to be there. If people (TRAs) are going to insist on denying reality and coopting language then surely they need to expect that people will have to fall back on eg reference to chromosomes to make their point. What could Sandie have said that would have allowed her to get her point across and been deemed to be acceptable? I expect nothing, but perhaps something like 'You have a trans history' or would that be transphobic too? Is it inherently transphobic to refer to chromosomes?

I had similar with a friend who works in the NHS last weekend. She quickly introduced the case, though hadn’t been following closely. She assumed gender ideology would win, though she seemed pleased when I said I thought there were already cracks showing in the case.

Unfortunately, they probably had to sign a waiver saying that Stonewall is not responsible for anything ever...

She conceded that it depends how you disagree.

However, as she had been told that Dr Upton had a right to use the changing room, I think from her POV his sex was irrelevant, so any mention of it was offensive.

What isn't clear yet is whether/when anyone further up the chain queried any of this with NHS legal

https://www.nss.nhs.scot/browse/legal/employment

(I assume they are involved now, and that this will be addressed in July).

Agreed. She looks terribly young...

And based on the evidence of DU there must be a very strong chance that the views expressed in the Tribunal are not WORIADS. He thought he was so clever - but in expressing the wildest claims from the back of the internet, was like watching someone fire footballs into the back of their own net. Again, And again. And again....[and repeat]

I mean did none of the TRA notice how unbelievably hard it was to get a judgement of WORIADS for GC views? Didn't it occur to anyone that they might have to go through the same process to get that for GI self ID?

It's just that it's over the line in terms of being personally intrusive @guinnessguzzlerand, arguably, can be called private medical information.

I think I worked out she was early - mid twenties... So yes, very young.

I would agree that support represents the idea of a helpful positive collaboration whereas supervision, particularly enforced rather than agreed (ie SP would have to have agreed she had done something which merited supervision given that she has not required it before in 30 years experience). As far as I can work out SP was in the dark to what any supervision might be needed for or the totality of the accusations against her so not in a sufficiently informed position for supervision to be productive. What NC is arguing is that the supervision was being deemed necessary to ensure SP did not behave in a way they might deem inappropriate (subtext - to satisfy BU and keep him happy) but this they have to deny because it would be entirely unmerited given failure of IX to establish any risk to patient care other than BU’s say so and so their strategy has been to claim it was support rather than supervision.

I have a suspicion that the Supreme Court will have ruled before this is rescheduled……….tic -tacs me thinks

Where are all the grown ups? Where are the lawyers, the board members, the safety and risk people? The safeguarding people? Where are they all? This is a complete car crash.

Send in the clowns….

No, they ran out of time.

Again I’m no expert but from what I have gleaned from experts such decisions can’t be applied retroactively and so shouldn’t impact panel’s judgement whatever decision. They have to consider the contemporaneous framings.

Her LI profile is now gone...

Yes, in the initial part of the hearing JR was using "you don't want an adjournment do you?" as a stick to beat the panel to get what she wanted and at some point NC appears to have decided that an adjournment would be very handy indeed and the way the hearing developed made an adjournment unavoidable.