NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #21

[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
Thread 20: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5275782-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-20

Yes, you’re right. I should probably have qualified my suggestion somewhat…

They're usually easy to spot, though. Still annoying, of course.

Precisely. The trans lobby has weaponised the privacy laws too. So GRCs cannot be requested, refs to prior names/docs are taboo… Neat, because it makes the single sex exemption unworkable, even if an organisation is minded to invoke it.

BUT in truth such privacy rights were never meant to absolute. Rights rarely are. And yet…

Hmm, I'd like to bet that either the wolf-whistling didn't happen, or it was tongue-in-cheek as per Dick Emery getting wolf-whistled.

Yes.

The Fawn response.

Every woman understands this. It’s hardwired into our instincts.

Just discovered that Sainsbury's has Tunnock's teacakes on Nectar offer. I have some arriving tomorrow! 😋

Is wolf-whistling still a thing? I thought it went out in the 70s.

He said he got wolf whistled? Whut?

I think it was the 80s, but probably before DU was born.

If he did, I imagine it was sarcastic by somebody taking the piss out of a bloke in a dress.

Depends how good the judge is at following the linguistic gymnastics TRAs use to argue their way out of blind alleys.

He made a few other questionable claims, so we’ll see.

I hope perjury is enough to get him struck off.

You know wolf-whistled ..

.. the guy had these kind of pointy whiskers, big ears, his eyes came out on sort of stalks and there was a siren in the background going 'arroooggaa'

DuesToTheDirt · Today 14:50

Hmm, I'd like to bet that either the wolf-whistling didn't happen, or it was tongue-in-cheek as per Dick Emery getting wolf-whistled.

I'd bet the farm on it having as much veracity as Sandie abandoning a patient in anaphylaxis.

Is that what the TRAs are claiming Sandie did? What lying evil wee muppets they are.

It wouldn't surprise me if this is all a bit of a perfect storm, where people realise they've been, well let's just call it conned. Massively.

Men being able to erase their past wrongdoing at the GMC, DBS checks relying on, er, honesty, privacy laws being leveraged for people who are clearly not kidding anyone, Bad Stonewall Law being relied on across the country, and the news that getting a GRC is a piece of fucking piss, and most of the time you don't need it anyway in order to change all your other documents and access vulnerable women.

And did I see they've lost track of a thousand paedophiles, due to shiny new birth certificates?

And now, nurses being told their employment is more or less conditional on them taking their clothes off in front of disrobing men.

There are going to be loads of people for whom so many pennies are furiously dropping at once. Positively plummeting in fact.

Thunderously hitting the floor and making a right mess of all the scales scattered there

Just seen this:

Transgender Women of Britain PLEASE READ
I’ve been following the appalling behaviours shown my the media, politicians and TERFs/GC bullies and bigots and I’m getting angry
On July 16th In Dundee the terfs are going to out in force? And the media 3 ring circus???
How about organising a “Supporting Beth Upton”
I’m imagining something like the episode in Grays anatomy when all the women staff lined up to support a woman who had raped?
We not hundreds of trans woman standing in silence two lines we could clap Beth maybe but we need to respond
Take to the streets, weve got nearly five months we need a Greenham common style peace camp for the 11 days that the case is going to last
Or a stop the City.. ? [btw I was at both - Green CND]
Enough is enough
My name is [...], and I’m a proud tran Womam
We can do this?

I thought I'd relate a conversation I had yesterday that might amuse or appal posters on here. I was talking to an academic colleague and the Sandie Peggie case came up. I was thinking she might have something interesting to say about balancing different people's perceived rights, but her lofty response was to say that when she went travelling in Europe she went in saunas where everybody was naked all together and it didn't bother her in the slightest. She managed to make it sound like this kind of thing (including the Middlesbrough nurses too) was very bourgeois and little-Englander. Guess what she does for a living? She heads a unit called the 'Centre for Social Justice'. You couldn't make it up, eh? Maybe that's what social justice is all about nowadays . . .

There still seem to be quite a lot of people (mainly older?) happily continuing to believe the 'born in the wrong body', 'can't help it' narrative that was being pushed a generation ago. I don't really blame people not wanting to sully their minds with male - do we still have to say paraphilias? - but that lack of public understanding of what some people are doing makes discussion hard.

What is it like on the ground? 30 years ago helping chaps, often hobby cross-dressers, not people with a gender belief, choose their frocks was a big part of the job for charity shop volunteers. I know at least two blokes who got barred for overstepping boundaries. I wonder has that quick move from 'poor man' to 'dirty eejit' happened elsewhere?

That's why I was asking people about their own experience of sexual assault (well described by another poster as a BAM moment) and pointing out the huge number of rape and assault victims that SP (and every other 30 year veteran nurse) has worked with over the years.

Your academic colleague is entitled to her view, but she should acknowledge other people's expertise and experience.

@AlexaAdventuress
That woman was describing a mixed area where consenting adults could go with whoever they wanted (partners, friends etc) knowing that there will be people of both sexes present.
That's very different from a private area that is designated as women only but a self selecting group of men enter (without the women's consent or knowledge), and the men that the women feel comfortable with (partners, friends) are not present, because they do not include themselves in that self selecting group.

I'd bet the farm on it having as much veracity as Sandie abandoning a patient in anaphylaxis.

If anyone in Fife's health authority has their wits about them, it out to be very easy to check how many times Upton and Sandie were rostered on the same shifts, given that he was only there six months and she was doing two nights a week. Then, assuming they keep proper records of their patients, it should be possible to identify how many incidents of anaphylaxis there were. Sandie was able to straight off; Upton could only waffle about a 2 month period when it might have happened.

Clearly Sally Hines isn't an isolated case. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that my colleague is a friend of hers. The other thing that this reminded me of is that people in academic life often have a surprising amount of difficulty saying anything intelligent about things when they haven't had a few days to prepare their Powerpoint presentations. Maybe that's why all this EDI stuff is so popular. You don't have to think very hard to demonstragte adherence. A few retweets and rainbow lanyards and Bob's your uncle. Or perhaps I should say, Bob's your aunt.

Hmm. Yes. The absolute arrogance of the privileged woman safely cosseted in her expensive spa … governed by a contractual agreement of a voluntary nature ie she freely consented to purchase the service (cf. work/prison/school which is compulsory) in full knowledge of its mixed sex nature (cf a situation presented as single sex but which is in fact mixed sex) , governed by Ts and Cs and a social contract which regulate behaviour fairly strictly, and the knowledge that staff would be pretty promptly on hand to assist in the event that fellow users acted unusually… to mention just a few factual aspects on which the case differs! It’s certainly not a justification or supporting argument for abolishing single sex provision across the board.

And I speak as someone who has used nude, mixed sex saunas in Northern Europe… it’s a very specific cultural phenomenon and only “works” because of some pretty tight unwritten rules about sauna etiquette. Interestingly I notice the rise of rules stipulating swimwear, and/or more clearly delineating whether the session is mixed or single sex. There could be a number of reasons for this.

It doesn't apply to Sandie, but the updated legislation last autumn introduced a legal duty for employers to proactively take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. You would have thought this might lead to sensible employers pausing to consider their approach to SS changing rooms, not digging a deeper hole.

EHRC are now getting involved - asking NHS Fife if they did an EQIA, what their policies are and how often they are checked etc, and asking the cabinet secretary for health (I assume the Scottish one) about guidance to the NHS on transitioning at work and mentions the 1992 legislation.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/equality-regulator-engages-scottish-government-and-nhs-fife-regarding-staff?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Orlo

edited to add: with all these politicians, media, and now EHRC getting invovled, before the tribunal has even concluded, could that cause problems for the outcome, like the respondent arguing it is influencing the outcome etc?