NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #30

[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
Thread 29: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5374921-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-29

I've got to admit, I feel a bit sorry for EP. Midnight, christmas eve, a shift of drunks and domestics, and right when she's thinking thank god that's over I can go home, she's cornered by 6'2 of hysterical, blubbering Upton. She just wants him to go home ASAP so she can go home, so she fawns all over him as he blubbers about meanies in the changing room (in A&E, where they see the worst RTAs, where people die on every shift, where you're dealing with people with dementia, I mean seriously some of the worst things). She's under pressure to appear supportive because that's expected. She can't just tell him to grow up, which is what every adult would be thinking. And we don't know anything about how they were handling Upton in the department generally but it's not a stretch to imagine they were tiptoeing around him, trying not to end up exactly where Sandie ended up.

In the medical world c with a line on top is 'with'.

I said this before about IB's testimony - there is an air of unreality about the whole thing because when EP talks about SP's aggression and mentioning rapists and prisons and all that, and the devastating effect it had on poor DrU, hanging over it all is the fact that NHS Fife admitted that there was no evidence that any of it ever happened.

There's always the 'well, that's what I honestly believed at the time' defence, but the failure to even consider that there might be two sides to the story knocks the 'honestly' bit out of that defence!

And to add, as I'm currently knee deep in NHS complaint procedures, if there is no evidence from independent witnesses to the actual incident other than the two people's statements then and only then can they either say that there is no way to tell, or they can, having weighed up all evidence from both parties, decided on the basis of which version is more likely.

It's shocking that they jumped to burn the witch without anything other than his word.

Being sympathetic is one thing.

Going further and then suggesting that Upton needed a body guard, is where it gets ridiculous.

Precisely because its midnight on christmas eve and very very busy.

I would too if she hadn’t followed it up with a letter condemning Sandie and complaining about her tone. She clearly is on the doctors side.

I am copying this across from X (credit: Mr Malky - who now appears on my feed thanks to algorithms):
Dr Pitt is squirming and sweating (and rubbing her hands between her knees) as she tells the court that a 6ft bloke in his twenties could be intimidated by a 5ft 2 nurse in her fifties

Out damn spot!

I think that if it is established as a point of law that DU had no right to be in the CR then it will magically (legally) become entirely reasonable for SP to have been quite offensive about DU's presence there.

I wonder if Kate Searle will be asked about Pete the plumber?

The A&E department at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy must sure be busy treating the injuries of all the hospital staff their colleagues were prepared to throw under a bus to just accommodate one deluded, entitled bloke. 🙄

Just catching up with this. Am I right in thinking that Kate Searle's "we all support Beth" email was sent before anyone had asked Sandie for her side of the story? In other words, on top of everything else that was wrong with the email, they completely dispensed with the presumption of innocence?

The handling is a FU from start to finish, we agree.

But if DU had a right to use the changing room then SP was not harrassed by his presence there, she should not have said anything to him at all, and Fife gets away with trying incompetently to do the "right thing."

SP's claim is founded on DU having no right to be there. Fife should never have allowed it in the first place, that DU's mere presence was harassment which Fife refused to address colluded and encouraged, and the whole action against her was unlawful start to finish, even if they had followed a proper procedure. That whatever she said to him was reasonable and appropriate. That in fact she was not just wronged by poor process but by the process being used against her and not for her.

Ah, no, they have to tend to the wounds caused by hurty words first. Those ones are the priority.

Do we know when that will be? The popcorn delivery truck needs to know when to arrive.

As EP has finished her evidence and the tribunal has risen for lunch, I think it is okay for me to say that EP is a very slightly built woman. I don't know how tall she is but the suggestion that she's not aware of the physical differential between her and Upton is laughable.

I have a sudden desire for a day trip to Dundee.

I wonder if the decision to escort Upton to his car was more in the nature of "I can't listen to this anymore I want to get home and start Christmas, so let's get him out of here and pop him into his ride home"

A bodyguard thats much smaller than him.

in A&E, where they see the worst RTAs, where people die on every shift, where you're dealing with people with dementia, I mean seriously some of the worst things

In this context, I'm not really clear what they mean when they talk about Upton's safety - do they know?

Isn't it difficult to avoid a certain level of brusqueness in these conditions, particularly between busy staff?

But they seem to have had a huge amount of tolerance for Upton's fragility.

If she gave DU (6 foot male bodied) a protective escort from the hospital to his car, who gave her (female and allegedly short) a protective escort back from his car to the hospital?

That thought crossed my mind too. It was about getting to heck out of there.
But she can't really come out and say that...

😂😂😂

I don't think she believed he needed a body guard. It's been worded that way to save face. I think she just wanted him to leave as quickly as possible and assumed he'd calm down overnight. I very much doubt she saw any of this coming.

Her sense of self-congratulation and performative virtue by adhering to the ideology was impermeable.

Are all the witnesses from the defence side? (Sorry if that's a stupid question)

The claimant's witness were in the first part. Now and until the end it's the defence's witnesses.