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

Another delurker with massive thanks to @nauticant & @ickky.
DARVO raised a cheer from me too.

I don't want to go after IB, she is very young and will have been indoctrinated since primary school and so barely stood a chance, but who appointed her as Equality and Diversity Lead NHS Fife? Surely a role like that requires qualifications and sufficient life/work experience?

How has NC got the measure of DU but NHS Fife are so blind to it?

Interesting. Also reminded me that

Tribunal Tweets

@tribunaltweets
·
Feb 6

JR: August- December 2023, how often did you see sP on shift? DU: Not sure, approx a couple of times a fortnight, dependent on shifts.

It took 6 weeks to sort a rota to prevent 2 staff seeing each other who only crossed paths a couple of times a fortnight??!

out of the dept as a visiting doctor

P2 - when you told C that DU could use f CR, SP said 'if I see Beth again I'll have to say something' what do remember

ED - my recollection is that the convo ended without that being said, I offered solutions

P2 - any memory of

All this "we want Sandie to be safe" and work, and "we want Sandie to be supported on her return to work", reads very much like "Nice shop you have here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it".

it's Not that I doubted.

Translation
I was thinking what the fuck, that can't be right surely. I'll check myself

I think legislation can be retrospective it’s just they don’t do it very often because it generally is considered to be extremely unfair.

Ahh, useful. Thank you.

Maybe somewhere round this part:

https://x.com/tribunaltweets/status/1889256452725916070

I've missed 3 threads they were moving too quickly!

Has Dr Upton actually said it's a protected belief? I.e. that the assertion "I am a biological female" is protected in law as a belief?

If so, that's not true. And it can't be protected as a fact because the law doesn't do this (that's why it's only a belief that sex is immutable, according to the law).

This was a key point I sought clarification on a few threads back, whether it has ever been found in a court that the belief that you have a gender identity that differs from your sex is protected in law following the Forstater appeal judgement (where her lack of belief in it was was found be protected). It's not.

So Dr Upton has no legal protection for this belief.

Yes, Dr Upton is protected by the PC of gender reassignment but that just means that a man who identifies as a woman should be treated no less favourably than a man who doesn't identify as a woman. Ergo, if all men are told that they can't enter women's CRs, this is fair treatment - the PC of gender reassignment and any gender identity belief they may hold are both irrelevant in the fairness of this treatment.

Which makes the general 'prisons' comment very relevant - unwanted close proximity to a male, and there's nothing you can do about it.

OK, thanks for clarifying. It seems less intrusive to me than, for example, asking whether or not you're pre-op, but I presume that would definitely be frowned upon! Obviously I don't go about asking these things at work or whatever, and I don't want to victim blame (not that I think Dr U is the victim) but it does seem like if chromosomes had been mentioned it would only have been because normal conversation was rendered impossible by the nonsense speak.

Another angle could be that she was deliberately chosen for that role, so that they could hang everything on her, get her to do the dirty work of enforcing this shite.

She's young/naive enough to go along with all this, but the senior levels also know that she will tow the line and is easily manipulated.

'if I see Beth again I'll have to say something'

ED - no

P2 - is the CR officially in the basement but everyone uses the lockerroom

ED - confirms,

P2 - what facilities are in the basement

ED - I have not used them since the 90s, quite large though

P1 - can you explain floor coordinator to me

ED - a nurse takes responsibility for the coordination of the dept, responsible to help ensure decisions are made, communicating to the coord team, things that have to happen for the patient, and also the redeployment of staff

Ahh so clever.

Would not like to argue with NC!

I think you're being a bit unfair to IB and her generation. My children aren't much younger than IB and none of them think GI has any credence.

Don't get me wrong, they would all treat trans people with respect as they've been brought up to be decent people, but not one of them thinks TWAW and they certainly don't want them in SS spaces/sport etc.

if an area was under pressure

P1 - is it managerial

ED - it's just a nurse in charge, there are several areas to the dept, resus, minors, majors, peds. It's quite a large department

P1 - advice from IB in August, you hadn't had a chance to speak to C until October had you

I'll have a look in that section later thanks

The Haldane judgement was in 2022 and the appeal in November 2023. So by 24/12/23 it was clear without a GRC a TW was legally male. Given the two year requirement for a GRC it is highly unlikely DU held one so was legally male. As such should not have been entering female SSS.

Twitter is saying the nurse has lost in favour of Upton?

@ThatDaringMintCritic this may help? It doesn't have all the abbreviations but obviously not a transcript.

x.com/boswelltoday/status/1890391601211453675?s=61&t=708dEn_EkpuN3JVBO9mR8A

considered letting other charge nurses know? And asking them to tell SP.

ED - I did pass it on, they totally did know, I think SP knew but I wanted to speak to her myself

P1 - now discussing Michelle HR person who was off sick on 15 Jan, and replaced by Anne Hamilton.

Lol! It isn't over till evidence is concluded and the panel reports.

Is there any legal basis for Scotland's self-identification rules? Surely the SC judgment would only be relevant if Upton had a GRC? Or have I misunderstood?