NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #24

[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
Thread 22: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5280174-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-22
Thread 23: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5285690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-23

If the court has good clerks they will simply tell him there are .....emails requesting continued public access. He may read a few to get the general idea but it may not be necessary to read all of them unless he was intending to grant the application.

Email sent. I even used my clerical title which I rarely do now I've been so long retired.

Fingers crossed there are enough emails to prove real public interest and concern at the prospect of the July hearings taking place in private.

I’d suggest not - it might be seen as interfering with the court’s job - and we haven’t seen the bundles so don’t get the full-full picture.

But we are absolutely allowed an opinion on open access justice and whether TT get to continue and why transparency is particularly important on cases involving transgender issues where policies and practices have changed without any public scrutiny - which makes these tribunals so valuable to public discourse …

I think Conxis was asking the thread, not asking whether to email the court with those questions.

As far as I remember the applications to be heard next week are: NC wanting additional documents from Fife, and forensic examination (not just metadata) of Upto;s phone; NC wanting to add an additional respondent (the one who sent the all-staff email); Fife's side wanting to restrict the evidence disclosure so they don't have to reveal some of the documents they've already been asked for and failed to hand over.

But that's going by what each side said they were considering asking for at the end of the last session - they may have changed their minds on some of these points since, or added others.

gah - I quote the wrong post - sorry!
someone else asked if they could express option about R3 and the phone. Oops

I have emailed. I hope NHS Fife are refused their application. I said this was a continuation of the bullying of Nurse Peggie and other staff who are too afraid to speak out. And that we need to be able to read accurate reports and the BBC are shit and biased.

Do we know what day next week the court officials are meeting to make a decision on access?

Meeting with the judge to decide is on Tuesday 15th.

Tuesday if I remember correctly and it's a closed session 🤬

IIRC, the Judge said he expected compliance with the previous order while they waited for the App hearing to take place. So he may have already made his mind up on that part!

I doubt the judge has already made his mind up. He was simply pointing out that the order remains in force as they didnt apply to vary it sooner. It is not up to NHS FIFE to decide which parts of an order they comply with.

Yes, I'm a litigation solicitor, so I know this. Judges often do make up their minds ahead of hearings, you know, especially when they're being asked to vary their own order from before, which they made based on the matter in front of them. It'd take some convincing to get a Judge to decide their previous order was wrongly made!

I think here it is the original order by Judge Tinnion which he is being asked to change, not Sandy Kemp's own order.

Whichever Judge made the order, they did so for good reason. If the Respondent felt that the order was wrong / too wide at the time, that was the point to apply to amend it.

The result of that App will be very interesting, as no doubt it will be opposed (and I'd say that the Applicant would be more prejudiced by a reduction in disclosure than the Respondent would be in making it...plus the rules do say that you have to disclose stuff, even if it helps the other party's case, so it's a rather interesting move on behalf of the Respondent!).

A little light entertainment for the thread
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-brutally-snubbed-scots-35043264?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Love it! That woman are got some front.

Email sent re remote access and tribunal tweets.

More light entertainment on the same subject https://x.com/ifellonithonest/status/1911419673813405927

Emails seem to be rolling in to the Tribunal service:
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-secrecy-35048128?int_source=nba

I'm so happy that we have all these threads of us live posting whilst watching the remote hearing.

If what is posted here and what is posted by TT is similar, it may well go to show the accuracy of TTs live tweeting.

Now off to reverse my car into a bin.

Thanks to another thread, I was prompted to email re keeping access to the tribunal open to the public. I've cc'd my (Tory/GC) MSP as well.

I love that making targeted donations has become such a thing - it's such a great idea because as well as a chance to vent our anger/express admiration, it's doing good - so far we've boosted the coffers of the Scottish Rheumatology Assoc., Sex Matters, and now FWS are going to get a windfall

The postings may well be similar.

Why do you have time to go reversing into bins? I thought you were too busy/on holiday/it's Christmas.

I have emailed, asking them to keep remote access and suggesting that they auto mute and switch cameras off at their end. I mentioned that TT is very useful, because it's good to have as wide a spread of reporting as possible, that some papers (no names) omitted what many see as salient points, or else seemed skewed.

Also that TT and online observation are of great importance to interested parties, who cannot attend, or do not have the luxury of not having to work.