NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #22

[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
Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5276925-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-21

It's the best. Most easily obtained in Ireland, but widely exported. I hope the supply to GB hasn't been cut off by Brexit.

You'd think.

i'd also like to think it's the beginning of the end to mixed sex changing rooms/toilets, everywhere.

If It's necessary to have single sex spaces for reasons of propriety in the NHS, then it must be the same everywhere else, too.

I'll look out for it, @DeanElderberry

Thanks for the new thread nauticant

For those who closely followed the hearing do you remember how Jane Russell KC was using the prospect of an adjournment as a stick to threaten the panel with?

Well, I wonder if she's pleased with NC then running things in a way that made an adjournment inevitable ...

Been looking out for something in the BMJ about this case but unsurprisingly nothing. However, in this week's issue there is this, in an article called 'How should I deal with a rude colleague?'

How disappointing. Nothing about running around a busy a&e looking for somebody to walk one to one's car.

I suspect she ordered herself some boxing gloves and a punchbag to be delivered to her home/hotel by day 7!

The intended quick, mostly anonymous, ET seems to have been grabbing a lot of media attention well beyond Scotland. If she hadn't interrupted, had managed to teach Dr U to reply succinctly and released a few more docs....

I still ALMOST feel a teeny bit sorry for her not being a little more thorough in her prep for what she expected to be a slam-dunk case.

From previous thread - 'Has anyone seen an audit about how much public money was spent on Stonewall diversity training? If this is now found to be incompatible with the law - EA and Workplace Regs - how can they be held to account for all the mess/further expense created? If there’s a clear link between the Stonewall advice and Tribunal claims lost where’s the redress for the public purse? How would anyone find these figures? I feel a dossier coming on…'

Perhaps the EHCR should be sending letters to other employers?

I suggest that they start with the companies on Stonewall's top 100 diversity champions.

One can only hope and pray!

I wonder how many of Stonewall's diversity champions have looked closely at what they have signed up to, and whether they still think it's primarily concerned with homosexuality?

@NotbloodyGivingupYet that might fall under the 'support from your clinical supervisor' bit! The last sentence about 'keeping a record of the details of the interaction....as the matter may need to be escalated further' might lead one to speculate that Dr Upton was aware of such advice about 'rude colleagues' and the contemporaneous note-taking was advance preparation to 'escalate'.

Availability is episodic and not helped by my family’s practice of almost sweeping the shelves. 🥰
I think people are fully switched on allies, gathering career-boosting credit points or unknowing, indifferent and/or unaffected.

I don't think it is, necessarily, I'm afraid. The reason is that mixed sex changing rooms in hospitals are for staff and are governed by the 1992 Workplace Regulations - if you have to wear particular clothes for work, then your employer must provide separate changing facilities for males and females. This seems especially clearcut in the case of hospitals, since they require you to change at work into your scrubs or whatever.

Where it's a question of service users/customers (e.g. sports centres, shops) then there is no such requirement. I guess because those people always have the option not to use those facilities if they don't want to.

BU mentioned incivility in his testimony.

I assumed he was referencing the Civility Saves Lives campaign, led by Dr Chris Turner a consultant in Emergency medicine.

I’ve been fortunate enough to hear him speak, he delivers a powerful message.

I’m not sure BU took it all in.

Well, that segment of the BMJ article I shared upthread started by referencing the Civility Saves Lives campaign, so yes (speculating again) he could well have cherrypicked the bits that served his motivations while ignoring the real point of the campaign.

I don't feel sorry for JR, largely because I think the constant interrupting was extremely rude and unprofessional, but I think it's probably very unfair to say she would have regarded this as a slam-dunk case. She's a KC, and you don't get to be one without taking on complex cases and doing them well. She's also been hampered by the fact that both respondents appear to have lied to her, or at least suppressed the truth.

She was junior counsel to the QC acting for Garden Court Chambers in the Allison Bailey case, and GCC lost that one. And any barrister working in the employment and discrimination fields will be aware of the string of ETs that have been brought and won by the GC side.

I do wonder what NC would do if she was asked to act for the GI side in one of these cases - OK, it's unlikely to happen, not least because of her association with Sex Matters, but the cab-rank rule would normally dictate that you shouldn't turn down a case, doesn't it - any barristers or instructing solicitors on here??

I think there will be many more fights to come. Look at Mumbles Yacht Club's shiny new changing room policy:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14422391/amp/Yachtswoman-Tracy-Edwards-sailing-club-trans-member-changing-rooms.html

Admittedly this is club members, nit staff....

Thank you. Sterling work. I've probably missed the post, but have you noticed the interesting intervention from the EHRC? They've pointedly reminded Fife about the 1992 Health and Safety Regulations and asked to see a copy of their impact assessment.

Question about cab rank came up previously and response was that it’s the convention in criminal not civil law and the ET is the latter.

Thread 22. Blimey. If this isn't indicative of seismic shift in the discourse, I don't know what is.

Re Dr Upton and incivility I am lately reminded of a phrase: underneath every ponytail is an arsehole.

I know nothing of Barry's Gold, but allow me to recommend a visit to NI. The range of traybakes on display in shops in every town, however small, is eye-watering. But you have to buy what you fancy, when you see it, because the next town will have a different selection.

Eternal thanks to @nauticant and all other stalwarts for continued services.

I really hope Sandie doesn't settle because then Fife, other NHS boards and public sectors could just carry on.

Thank you for all your hard work @nauticant . I do think these threads are a great resource for the newly empeaked (enpeaked?), there's nothing like a live tribunal for excitement.