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

As SEEN says, well done all!
https://x.com/JournalismSEEN/status/1911686073178091881

As SEEN says, well done all!
https://x.com/JournalismSEEN/status/1911686073178091881

I wonder how many errors NHS Legal actually found and, more importantly, how they can be confident that they weren’t mistaken themselves?

Presumably the courts will have to introduce recording/voice recognition at some point?

I wonder who the complainant was about TT's 'inaccuracies' . I wonder if they have a conflict of interest or are the type of person that think using words to mean the things they've always meant is 'inaccurate' you know like calling empirically provable obviously male bodies 'he'?

I listened to the first few days and was thoroughly appalled at the cult like Orwellian anti-scientific speech coming from one respondent who unbelievably seemed to really be a doctor, and even more appalled that the majority of the reporting in the early days bore absolutely no resemblance to what I'd heard with my own ears and amounted to pro-gender ideology propaganda (bbc I'm looking at you).

I complained to the ET immediately when they revoked access and pointed out that SP's evidence was open justice whereas if they restrict this for the respondents then it is a very unequal playing field for complainant and respondents. Not to mention the fact that except for TT much of the mainstream reporting was so inaccurate in relation to what I'd actually listened to as to amount to misinformation.

The problems they had are very fixable. They could have a livestream not a conference call for a start. And I've said before and will say again, there was not the same level of disruption for SP's evidence. It was almost as if there were people very invested in trying to shut down open justice once the illogic of the respondents' position was shown to all.

The NHS is behaving like a cult, funded by taxpayers money. It's really not ok.

I’ve done the same.

I've just emailed too - let's hope they are inundated with requests for it to remain open.

Given there has been plenty of response on X about this as well as on here, I think there's little doubt about that.

How will we, the public, find out the outcome of this part of tribunal as it’s behind closed doors?
Does the court release it? Or Sandie Peggies solicitor? I doubt Fife will release anything as they don’t want to draw the public’s attention!

When will we know the result of the NHS application for silence?

Dear Mumsnetters,

You are awesome. We understand that the tribunal has received hundreds of emails in support of the Peggie tribunal remaining 'accessible to the public'. This is what we've been told this morning. We haven't seen the actual emails as there are so many. What would be helpful is to see copies of emails, redacted to remove personal details as you wish.

You can either attach a screenshot as an image here or on X, tagging Tribunal Tweets or email Tribunal Tweets - [email protected]

Thank you!

Fantastic!

@Justabaker - done!

@Justabaker Emailed you a screenshot!

Have emailed you a copy :-)

@Justabaker I have forwarded you the email I sent

@Justabaker Emailed TT a screenshot of my mail to the tribunal

Done.

And have clarified that my sign-off indicates my chromosomal makeup, and are not kisses.

@Justabaker Done. Emailed you.

I'm really curious as to how it is in the public interest for a public sector body to have these proceedings behind closed doors?

A lot of this case - regardless of how it goes - is related to public confidence.

Now NHS Fife can claim that tribunal tweets might be misrepresenting. That's fine. Maybe they are. But the problem here is precisely that there are question marks over the conduct of this NHS trust and it's staff and having question marks raises issues over public trust.

You can't expect the public to accept this in a case where silencing of internal and external criticism has been the very pattern of concern of the public and other cases in this area of concern have highlighted concerns over the abuse of power to silence... It's absurd. All you do is further undermine public confidence.

If NHS Fife is interested in their reputation and restoring public trust they need this case heard publicly so no one can cry 'cover up' or 'they just abused their power and silenced AGAIN'. This is relevant if they win - if they win in private, it undermines their own victory.

Unless of course, they are starting to realise that even if a ruling goes their way it's going to be a pyrrhic victory and will undermine the thing they care more about - the morality of their ideological cause.

If NHS Fife think tribunal tweets is misrepresenting, of course the only recourse to that is to further open up proceedings so that it's available to more people rather than saying the case should be filtered by 'approved' reporters - again that's about gatekeeping and who controls censorship. Power dynamics are a massive part of this whole subject.

I hope the judge has this understanding and acknowledges the entire case is about public bodies being publicly accountable...

Emailed and sent you a copy

This is one reason I am glad the UK's Supreme Court livestreams (although that would not be easy or possible in all courts) as there can then be no bias in any live reporting on any side or if there is then there is the evidence of what was said on the video.

I think you should email this to the judge and to TT if you haven't already!

Justabaker · Today 11:34

Dear Mumsnetters,

You are awesome. We understand that the tribunal has received hundreds of emails in support of the Peggie tribunal remaining 'accessible to the public'. This is what we've been told this morning. We haven't seen the actual emails as there are so many. What would be helpful is to see copies of emails, redacted to remove personal details as you wish.

Thanks, I've sent a copy of my email.

Here's a screenshot of my email @Justabaker .

Copy sent. Great to know the response has been so strong.