NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #29

[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 resumed 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] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions were provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005. 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.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse
Thread 2: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2
Thread 3: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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
Thread 26: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5335861-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-26
Thread 27: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5372582-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-27
Thread 28: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5374630-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-28

A few comments from observing yesterday afternoon, once I finally managed to get sound and video.

IB was very reluctant to answer questions, as evidenced by the long paused before answers on many occasions. She used several techniques, often repeatedly, to avoid straight answers to questions:

• "not necessarily" to mean that we can ignore the people the question was centring
• "maybe potentially" to mean "you have a point, but you can't get me to admit it clearly"
• "hazard a guess that I would be female" to mean "you know, and I know, that I am obviously female, but it would be more than my job's allyship's worth to admit that"
• "that would be excluding/isolating" when referring to a trans person, but the same action in reference to a GC woman would need to be "referred to HR"
• "potentially" means "yes, but I don't want to admit it"
• "to an extent, yes" in response to "your job is to advocate for everyone's rights"

Unfortunately for IB, the judge is likely to have seen right through all this, and I would be astonished if in the judgement her wriggling obfuscation is not highlighted.

In my opinion, her most effective ploy was repeatedly referring to following statutory guidance, but she could hardly answer every question with that, and she really had nothing else. Copying and pasting other DEI policies didn't come across anywhere near as well. And as several posters have highlighted, her bias towards (LGB)TQ allyship was blatant, and NC shone a searchlight on it.

Why, thank you!

As soon as I posted, I realised I should've written "They/Themperor", but I didn't edit it because I'm trying to avoid perfectionism 😂

You are probably right in terms of maintaining the right to comment It's just so hard to refrain when people talk stuff like this, tell us they don't know if they're female or not, and expect us to respect it. Frankly I consider that an much bigger personal insult to everyone's intelligence. I'll request to delete it though.

The only debate would be about whether a neo-phallus (post-op transman - so female) counts as a penis. I would argue that it does not, but I don't know what the law would think.

In Scotland, a neo-phallus counts as a penis in the definition of rape.

Sexual Offences Act 2009 Section 1 Rape
"(1)If a person (“A”), with A's penis—
(a)without another person (“B”) consenting, and
...
(4)In this Act—

• “penis” includes a surgically constructed penis if it forms part of A, having been created in the course of surgical treatment, ..."

However, i isn the Sexual Offences Act 2003 applicable to England and Wales there is no such provision, and Section 1 Rape subsection 1 reads
"(1)A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a)he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
(b)B does not consent to the penetration, and
(c)A does not reasonably believe that B consent."

Note that it uses the pronouns 'he' and 'his', where the Scottish legislation uses 'A' and 'A's'.

😆

I think Isla’s assertion that omen can rape too refers to women with penis is.

which flies in the face of stating that transwomen unlike other men are lower risk.

I'm honestly not. I think it's entirely predictable that her client NHS Fife would be attached to that particular copium argument.

Why in EARTH was that post deleted?

Yes, but she's a barrister, or at least she identifies as one.

That is EXACTLY how Equality professionals behave now though. All she did was say the quiet part out loud. They have to forget about women as if they didn't, they couldn't 'support' trans people. I've seen it document and equality impact assessment after assessment. Under the section on women, impact is always nil.

No idea, and I can't even remember what it said!

JR has to make the best she can out of what she has to deal with.

Fifer : Ye ca' mak a silk purse fae a sow's lug

I know we can't record the tribunal but I so want the WFTCHTJ on a sound file so I can play it on loop. I reckon it would lull me into a lovely comfy slumber at night.

Heh heh the thread police are on it already. Have at it, we've had better than you.

Fifer : ah kent his fether

Oh, absolutely I agree most women have a fine tuned instinct to be able to sex someone from a quick glance at their silhouette, regardless of how they dress or style their hair or wear make up. Whereas many men seem to clock breasts (whether real, implants or falsies), long hair, make up, skirt and instantly think woman. Whether they then revise that on closer observation or not. Which is why I think so many TW think they pass because they think they have ticked off these things and therefore must meet all the womanly criteria.

interestingly, DH’s position was that he observed an androgynous person in a photo and he couldn’t tell and when I explained skull shape, shoulder to hip ratio, hand size, gait, Adam’s Apple he was “oh, yeah”. I also described the jacket buttoning/unbuttoning behaviour DrU did when standing up and sitting down, which is classic man in a suit habits and not something women do. He looked less convinced but took it on board.

Fondly remembered from my youth when IIRC it was the last broadsheet format with only classified ads on the front page.

I wouldn't blame JR. Barristers have to argue the case whatever they really believe and Fife has a right to defend itself. The only way Sandie can be truly vindicated is if it's established that Fife had a proper defence, just as when the investigation cleared her; that is significant because Fife had full power to make its non-case.

Besides, the more they talk, the more absurd the whole thing is shown to be. It's Operation Let Them Speak on steroids.

IB and DU have turned out to be quite excellent GC Allies.

I think we should honour them in some way.

Fifer : thon are worse than a man short

I don't know why this is, but men remove jumpers by pulling them over their heads from the back of the collar and women cross their arms in front of them, take the hem and lift it up.

I knew a TW once who would always sit in that man-spreading way.

Good luck today, to everyone watching. May your internet connections be strong and your Tunnocks at the ready.

I'm catching up in-between work (damned work and bills) and shouting WTF??! at particularly stupid utterances.

It's not in the scope of this tribunal, but if I were a Fifer, I would be asking questions to anyone in authority about Isla's recruitment process and her job's value for money.

Good luck today, to everyone watching. May your internet connections be strong and your Tunnocks at the ready.

I'm catching up in-between work (damned work and bills) and shouting WTF??! at particularly stupid utterances.

It's not in the scope of this tribunal, but if I were a Fifer, I would be asking questions to anyone in authority about Isla's recruitment process and her job's value for money.

What is his podcast please? I've found some great new podcasts though various threads here but I don't think I know this one?

TT are getting warmed up

(flexes CTRL-C and CTRL-V fingers)

We've got Super Panavision going on in our room again today.

I propose to refer to Judge Alexander Kemp as 'Big Sond' from now on.