NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #20

[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 last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It is planned that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 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 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
Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274332-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-18
Thread 19: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274571-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-19

I reckon NHS Fife management, HR and lawyers are just going to start randomly calling female nurses into meetings and punching them in the face. Think that would be about in keeping with their current 'strategy'.

I can imagine JR curretly holding her head in her hands and sobbing. In July I imagine we will hear a lot of "I am instructed"

Getting personal, JR’s voice when she was hectoring Sandie was quite snippy. NC’s was simply authoritative when she was challenging DU. I keep hearing JR’s whine whenever she’s mentioned

Is that bias on my part, because I give no weight to her side’s arguments? Or is she genuinely less pleasant to listen to than NC?

This has got nothing to do with Wes as NHS Scotland is devolved. I hope he is asked about it though.

Given the timing, I wonder if this was arranged before the decision was made to extend the tribunal into July. So NHS Fife didn't know at the time (though they perhaps should have) that Upton was going to hide multiple pieces of evidence and then refuse to give a straight answer to any questions other than his height.

Oh yes, I know. Maybe we shouldn't try to rationalise the irrational!

As for Wes, I imagine he's glad that this shit show isn't happening under him!

Most of the failure to disclose if I recall was down to NHS fife.

In any case, even if the case had concluded last week there still wouldn't have been a decision from the court for a few months.

Either NHS Fife has the shittest legal advice in the world, or it continually acts without taking legal advice! This decision doesn't get any more sane after sleeping on it. 🤯

Poor old nauticant - I imagine she thought she'd get a day off.
I still can't believe NHS fife are still pushing this.

Late to the overnight party, so just wanted to add my

WTAF

to the thread.

Right, have clearly been mulling this over in my sleep because I have a stonking headache this morning:

Surely, if they’ve found “new” evidence for Sandie to answer to, this should have been given to the tribunal, which would put them even further in the soup with the judge and panel, no? And if they don’t have new evidence, then the tribunal has already established that the doc cannot actually remember any points where Sandie put patients in danger, only the CR situation, which is completely he said/she said.

And if, as someone upthread said I think, that there are new accusations and they amount to Sandie misgendering the doc to people on the investigation, please someone tell me - how do you say “there’s a man in my CR and he shouldn’t be there” (because that is the problem, not that he’s trans) without misgendering?

I am beyond incredulous. As a PP said, my gast is fully flabbered.

Whilst Wes Streeting may not be involved in the detail of this particular case, it clearly has huge ramifications applicable to the risk NHS and also the reputational damage to the NHS brand as a whole is not nearly contained at the border.

Peter Daly on Twitter makes sense here and a reliable legal mind not prone to hyperbole.

Even if following usual whistleblowing strategy to push C to run out of money he points out that he doubts legal folk involvement and positively pure TRA heave ho. That makes sense to me as KS is clearly a TRA - is also top dog who hugely influenced initial approach and who there is an application going forward to make R3. I suspect she was pushing for this before tribunal started, convinced the world and the courts would go their way and was so incensed by J decision not to enforce preferred pronouns that she told HR staff to do this against legal advice. I firmly believe that this was organised before TT and designed to arrive at the end of SP testimony knowing that SP would have used male pronouns for Upton. An extreme form of further harassment from a cult leader drunk on what they think is their power and not expecting that power to be challenged. KS from the off has shown her capacity to believe her own authority is all that is required.

I wonder if someone in greater authority now has the unenviable task of trying to manage her.

Peter Daly post https://x.com/peter_daly/status/1891231372364116411?s=46&t=OcVj6Ek4vpx69DdiZCpI2g

I can't believe the Telegraph says Upton gets to come and give evidence at SPs disciplinary on Friday.

Can you get any more witch hunty or bullying than that?

But remember guys, he didn't want her to be punished or get into trouble....

I just don't understand why we have to keep going to tribunals etc - at what point do HR and lawyers say 'Ok that mess with gender identity trumping sec was a total shit show let's get back to the actual law'

Actually I know they just won't. In my organisation our EDI team in HR have told me they expect the law to catch up with their interpretation of it so they are ok with what they say

The thought of that was giving me a tummy ache last night. And (given the union are captured and none of her colleagues will be wanting to drop themselves in this shit) no one to stand with Sandie.

Perhaps a combination of

1. they expected evidence to be over by last Friday - which allows talking about the case to witnesses not yet called
2. they want to stop others coming forward to support Sandie or to challenge Beth
3. they have not acted promptly or with HR oversight so far and thinking that had they done so Sandie would have been dealt with long ago
4. when they initiated this meeting they believed DU's version of events.

A combination of not considering any scenario other than that they hope to be true and firefighting + a huge dose of gullibility/believing the doctor. Which is what they have done since the start. Except they now may be worried about a nurses' revolt?

Q: if other nurses wanted to object to DU what would UNiSON do? Could there be a wholesale moving away from Unison in NHS Fife about this.

I'm just catching up. Poor Sandi, I really hope she is ok and someone has her back.

Heads at NHS Fife should roll for this.
And the nonsense heads in Scottish Parliament who make decisions without actually thinking through what it means for real people at the bottom of the food chain. All flag waving how welcoming and kind we are. If they had a bit of sense about them then maybe Scotland would be in a much better place.

@Appalonia I hope you don't mind but I've used your post to request some sort of 'shock' face. 😲
Neither Apploding👏 or agreeing 👍 seem appropriate and certainly don't love it nor find it funny.

I wanted to just “react” to this, but love hearts and laughing faces don’t really cut it. I know you were being hyperbolic, but truly, they might just as well. It is absolute witch (woman) hunting.

I think this is at the heart of it all, actually. This Upton clown is painfully well-connected, Fife is not a big place and everyone is literally terrified of him and his family. I imagine that is why he did his entire rotation at the one hospital - if he had to go to another city, people might not know how speshul and important he was, and might treat him as just another junior doctor.

So we can check NMC/HCPC registrations for the health professionals on the publicly available registers?

It may have crossed my mind to do so.

I'm wondering now if the good Dr will decline to get involved / make a complaint. Then Dr U can be the good guy again.

If NC has asked to (re-)examine some of the witnesses in the light of new evidence, wouldn't this new proceeding be somewhat problematic in relation to the Judges order to witnesses not to discuss the case with others or seek out commentary about the case between now and July?

On the plus side, Dr Upton did manage to say under oath that Sandie didn't call him a rapist.

Hope Carol Potter has had a good drive into work this morning. I wander what the first meeting of the day is? Maybe with HR and legal team? Time for her to assert control over the Mean Girl gang

Surely NC can contact J to point out that the twats are clearly going to have the opportunity to massage evidence and create a brand new set of documents to use?