NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #26

[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 doubtful whether pubilc access for remote viewing would be reinstated but recent developments (as of mid May) suggest that this might actually become available again.

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
Thread 24: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5301295-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-24
Thread 25: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5318518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-25

Quite!
It was quite plain on the evidence so far that case by case would simply have been “aye”!
There was no policy at all. So what case would they measure against or what criteria to use?
It seemed to be what the lawyer realised they had to say - NHS Fife were obviously clueless

AnneKipankitoo · 19/05/2025 19:35

I missed out the c and read it as naughty aunt.

I got nauti right off, but you'll remember that I thought you were Sri Lankan, so no gloating from this corner!

I'd love NC to ask if any case, ever, had been refused. Or on what grounds they might.

@SinnerBoy , I tried to do a laughing emoji reaction but it did not come up. Maybe MN says it is not allowed any more.

@KnottyAuty Thanks for the effort good reminder 😁

I tried on another thread - it's no longer showing for me.

It has been removed @WearyAuldWumman . Some were using it mockingly.

Me too.

Thank you.

Does that mean we can agree that the “thanks” emoji can sometimes be a “slow handclap “?! 🤣

Eeep! That hadn't occurred to me!

Sorry not sorry!

Dang!

scrabbles around

😂

Thanks for the summary @KnottyAuty. I think I had imagined it was Fife who started it and were pursuing it because I primarily see Sandie as defending women's rights and Fife throwing public money down the drain.
It is helpful to be reminded that Sandie is taking Upton & Fife to court. (While Upton and Fife are defending their ridiculous behaviour.)

Fife started it by taking disciplinary action against Sandie; they didn't need to go to court to do that.

Interesting thought - part of Fife's problem is that they completely botched the disciplinary process as set out in their own policy So it guarantees that some of Sandie's claims will be found. However I wonder what would have happened if they had gone completely by the book?

Letting a male in a female changing room is harassment, and sex discrimination, it says so in the new EHRC guidance, as well.

If they’d gone completely by the book Sandie likely wouldn’t have been suspended. Didn’t documents show their own HR had called it ridiculous?
So this wouldn’t have ended up in court. And no one would have realised the NHS has these policies in Fife, Scotland and in fact it seems to be UK wide.
I, for one, am grateful to them for botching it! Although I fully appreciate Sandie probably isn't

If they’d gone completely by the book Sandie likely wouldn’t have been suspended.

They'd have told Upton that the H & S regs required him to use the Men's changing rooms. They knew he was and is a man, he does, his medical certificate, which must have been part of the basis on which they offered him employment will clearly stat the name Theodore, so there really wasn't any doubt.

Or repurposed a store cupboard and said 'we have a unisex changing room available for anyone who doesn't want to use the facilities for their biological sex and of course any cheer leaders, allies or people who don't give a monkeys who want to join them, but the women's/men's are single sex and divided by biology'.

I was in a meeting recently where a teams member of staff said he wouldn't use gender neutral facilities as it would out him as trans. So for him it's the women's or nothing and I suspect Upton is the same

Oh I wish somebody had just said 'you do realise everyone can tell anyway, don't you?'.

So he was happy to mention it in a meeting, but not to use the GN loos, because using said loos would be "outing"?
I suppose he thinks he passes. What say you?

I knew instantly he was trans but equally this is a very TRA heavy group so no point in saying anything. I just pointed out that continuing to use the wrong sex facilities was illegal so I hoped our organisation would be be clear in order to ensure everyone could comply

I think this is where we all need to call on the hand maidens and allies - they’ll use the unisex to provide air cover … it will be fine 😬 those who say it’s been fine need to step up now