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

And I've got a real soft spot for Gregory's Girl. We were shown it in a Standard Grade English class as part of a discussion about the new towns built after the war (IIRC).

Edited to add this for anyone who is wondering wtf Gregory's Girl is -

https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/gregorys-girl-the-sweet-teenage-love-story-set-in-scottish-new-town-turns-40-3211109

Do you think we will find out how many people have written to ask for the hearing to be streamed?

@Waitwhat23 - how on God’s green earth are those “attacks” rather than raising valid concerns?

oh my god, have people been saying things that are real again? much hurt feelings all round, sad times

I was filmed where I grew up - I was in primary school at the time & can remember the ‘buzz’ when it was all happening & afterwards when it was released. Lots has changed since then, the school was knocked down & rebuilt. The clock (where JS meets one of the girls who eventually leads him to meet CG) is still in the ‘town centre’ but that part has been demolished & the clock moved to a newer built area which is now closed off/inaccessible. The large park is still there (it’s a lovely spot - total contrast to the hideous 1960/70s built housing that surrounds it), the house that was supposed to be Gregory’s is still there.

I’ve never seen the follow up film, although part of it was filmed where I had family living, and there was much whinging about the disruption at the time 😁. The original is like a wee visual time capsule of what the town was like back in the 1980s. Which nowadays is very nostalgic for me.

Sorry, slight tangent there! It’s still one of my favourite films too. I love the innocence & naïveté of it & more specifically the Gregory character.

And concerns from constituents no less, as Tess White points out in another post on Twitter -

'I will never apologise for standing up for access to single-sex spaces and the rights of women and girls. My colleagues and I have raised legitimate concerns on behalf of our constituents. Ariane Burgess has serious questions to answer over her baseless claims '

Arianne Burgess is a Scottish Green MSP for anyone not familiar. Which tells it's own story.

@Waitwhat23 And that's the best they have?

That's why everything has to be a "dogwhistle". To a neutral observer a question in parliament might be raising a potential problem or summarising of a point of political disagreement.

But a neutral observer might then think "well that's a good point, what's the counter-argument?" And that cannot be allowed because the counter-argument is likely to be obvious nonsense. So it can't be a valid concern or even a disagreement, instead it must be a coded attack.

And the other reason is that when (for example) someone holds up a placard that says "decapitate terfs" at a demo and no-one has held up a similar placard about trans people (and if they did then the person holding it would probably be arrested very fast) well then the only way to make it look as if you are still the victim is to pretend that phrases like "biological female" are somehow just as bad. They're a "dogwhistle", see, which secretly means something just as violent and nasty as "decapitate terfs" to anyone in the know.

And raising them in the mildest possible terms, too.

And it's rather telling that some of these 'attacks on trans people' don't actually mention trans people at all. If A talks in entirely general terms about women's rights or safety and B assumes A is attacking trans people, what does that tell you about B's thoughts on who is a threat to women's rights/safety?

Was Gregory's Girl the one with the lost penguin wandering the corridors?

Gregory's Girl is the one where a young John Gordon Sinclair falls for a girl who is better than the boys at football.
He tries to go on a date with her and she and her friends swap him around as she doesn't want to date him (it's also fab about how teen girls manage teen boys).
He ends up with Clare Grogan, who he has ignored for 99% of the film, and he immediately declares that she is his perfect woman.

Yes, I remember all that, and the lying down dance - but is it the one with the penguin?

Yep. Person in a penguin suit randomly wandering the corridors, occasionally being given directions to rooms by teachers, for no ascertainable reason.

Gives the whole thing a wonderfully surreal edge (as well as the whole hitchhiking to Caracas thing)

How did I miss the penguin suit? In my defence I was half asleep watching it.

In a roundabout way, it reminds me of a play I went to see in the late 90's when my friend was part of the Lyceum Youth Theatre. The play was about a teenage party and the assorted doings that happens at such parties (fall outs, snogging, secrets), one of which was sneaky biscuits. As there's always a lack of food at teenage parties, a group hid some biscuits in a secret place so they had a stash to eat, confusing anyone who wasn't aware there were biscuits. It was surreally funny (though perhaps you had to be there!)

We did it for years at our parties and it was always funny to see people go 'wtf! Where did you get that Jammy Dodger?!'

The hearing on whether the next part of the tribunal will be limited in access is taking place now, in private.

https://x.com/alasdair_clark/status/1912130449851249068?s=46

“The Edinburgh employment tribunal is currently hearing (in private) arguments for and against NHS Fife's request to limit access the online livestream to accredited media. No words on whether a judgement will come this afternoon, if it does we'll have the latest on @thecourieruk”

“In a written submission, counsel for
@mbmpolicy @tribunaltweets and
@SexMattersOrg argues that such a measure would contravene the principles of open justice.”

it’s just a waiting game now I guess…

I thought the hearing for NHS Fife to request secrecy in July was this morning so have been wondering when we'd hear the outcome.
For anyone else wondering, I just saw this on Twitter from @alasdair_clark :
The Edinburgh employment tribunal is currently hearing (in private) arguments for and against NHS Fife's request to limit access the online livestream to accredited media. No words on whether a judgement will come this afternoon, if it does we'll have the latest on
@thecourieruk
In a written submission, counsel for
@mbmpolicy @tribunaltweets and @SexMattersOrg argues that such a measure would contravene the principles of open justice.

I'm quite familiar with the area although I grew up elsewhere - I had family who lived in the village and later on in the east of the new town estates.

Just to pick up on this, the 18 month GDc suspension is an interim orders suspension to stop him practicing whilst the criminal process unfolded. The GDC will now schedule a hearing to decide what to do about the conviction. Given he’s on the sex offenders register I cannot imagine for a moment they won’t erase him.

Is there likely to be anything said today? Assume this is just arguments with decision at a later date.

Nurses vary. Most everyone in A&E wears scrubs & definitely everyone in ITU but on the wards the nurses very often wear the traditional uniform of a dress.

Update from Scottish D/Express:
Over 600 (634) emails to Ed tribunal as of Monday, all calling for tribunal to continue as open in July :-)
not known if decision will be made today.

Six hundred and thirty four? That's fantastic - well done all!

Hope the judge read them all!!

sex matters & MBM & FWS & TT submissions are on SM’s website:
https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/submissions-for-the-preliminary-hearing-on-15th-april-2025-of-peggie-v-fife-health-board/

This grapevine is either actively lying, totally misinformed or everyone sent their emails late.

Seeing that it has turned out to be over 600 emails, I struggle with the last being realistic. So we are left with two first options.

634 emails is fantastic. Who on earth said it was only one?

Wowee!! That is amazing!!