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

She felt he needed some sort of emotional crutch at the very least, and she went above and beyond what was needed in that situation.

Technically, yes, but they're all doing a marvellous job in support of the claimant so far :)

Even if she did say that, I think it is far less problematic than a man being in a female changing room.

Is DU English? Asking 'cos it's not unusual for English people to hear a working class Scottish accent as aggressive, even when we're being nice.

One assumes she didn't return to the hospital instead went to her car and went home.

Remember its Christmas Eve and the C Elves are busy. She didn't know she was going to have to justify her actions to a certain C Elves.

Completely gob-smacked by the lack of impartiality and SP assumed "guilty" before anyone had even spoken to her to find out what had happened; that email is beyond belief 😡

Bit disappointed with the cross-examination though and was hoping CE might have thrown in a few more killer observations.

And because of the implication that Sandie Peggie was somehow going to physically attack him!

Or maybe they will try and say it was in case she "attacked" him with more of those scary, literal violence hurty words which as we know is the very worst kind of violence!

Just thinking about EP saying -

'it was my job to look after people' (from TT)

is there any evidence at all that she spoke to Sandie to see how she was and to get her side of what happened?

Either that night or even in the few following?

I wonder whether there was an element of "get him out of here" i.e. before he does anything (else) regrettable. But tbh I find the idea that she'd taken the nurturing role and then just felt she ought to stay with him till he was on his way home quite plausible. I have a lot of sympathy with the triage she seems to have done between what needed to be done right then, and what could wait (and even more so, with her sending her email right there from her car so she could go home for Christmas without that on her todo list). It was interesting the way CE surfaced that that's her core skillset. I'm not sure why it is important to establish that EP thought the situation less urgent than BU did, but JR came back to it and tried to knock it down in re-examination, so it presumably has some significance I'm not quite getting.

Monday, 3 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Wedneday, 5 February 2025
Sandie Peggie
Maya Forstater
Mr Peggie (Sandie Peggie's husband)
Nicole Peggie (Sandie Peggie's daughter)

Thursday, 6 February 2025
a row about disclosure particularly over BMA documents
Sheila Bell (Sandie Peggie's mum)

Safety required because "words are violence". Core mantra of the luxury belief system.

Does anyone else remember a science fiction story called Trial Sample by Ted Reynolds?

In it, to have peacful relations with any alien civilization, a human and an alien would swap places for a year. If they could live in each other's lives without anyone in either civilization ever acknowledging that the substitute was an alien then they would swap back then the two civilizations could trade. But if one - just one - alien (or human) wasn't able to go along with the fiction that the human (or alien) living among them was anything other than what they were pretending to be then contact between humans and the aliens was forever closed off. Obviously there was a lot of pressure on everyone not to acknowledge the truth.

This situation reminds me so deeply of that story.

It was me, the radiographer from earlier! Getting B6 as one is waaay easier than for nurses. At one stage the only way we could recruit was to guarantee B6 after 6 months post degree! All B6 radiographers in my ex-Trust were pretty much 100% clinical with the odd ‘keep the QA records up to date’ type additional duty. B7 is a different beast; clinical, in charge of a unit, like CT or Emergency; or reporting (reading images), a thing many staff aspire to do as you can wfh, no night shifts, possibility of private work.

Given that crybullies hone their craft from childhood, I wonder did anyone from an earlier hospital placement give Fife a (verbal) heads-up to not do anything to provoke or thwart DU in any way. Over and above their usual gender policy.

Years ago I saw a management training video about disciplinary processes featuring John Cleese as a judge saying something like, "We'll start by hearing the charges, then we'll pass sentence, then we'll listen to some evidence for the prosecution. After lunch we'll review the sentence in light of what we've heard then maybe listen to some evidence for the defence..." The video doesn't appear to be available online, which is a shame. However, the more I listen to Fife's evidence about what they did, the more I am reminded of this video.

From yesterday's TT

J No docs before decision to suspend taken.
J Is there anything in bundle that would tell us about discussions you held with ED
GM No
J If discussing if someone being suspended and it's based around risk assess could you have discussion in absence of risk assessment in writing
GM no
J All risk assess carried out in writing?
GM yes

I see the judge has a personal supply of anvils. Including the extra-dense gravity-distorting ones - I felt that all the way from Cornwall.

Yes. I think NC will say that since it was unlawful for DU ever to have been in the changing room, it was entirely appropriate for SP to speak frankly to him, and that if he was upset it was down to his own harassing behaviour.

"Sentence first, verdict afterwards!"

Cardassian Law

"the verdict is always known before the trial begins. And it's always the same."

"In that case, why bother with a trial at all?"

"Because the people demand it. They enjoy watching justice triumph over evil every time. They find it comforting."

memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cardassian_law

Thank you - I do wonder though, the Supreme Court result wasn't known then, you'd think they might want a witness to refer to this (maybe an EHRC one! 😃)
Or another nurse emboldened to speak

The thing is, though, we don't know just what Upton was like, how emotionally volatile he is, or what it would have taken to get him to leave. I am willing to believe that he really is that difficult. Look at the situation he engineered. This didn't happen just on xmas eve, the incident was weeks in the making, and TBH, you could almost argue inevitable.

He was a large man having a tantrum at work, in an environment where everyone around him has been made to some degree responsible for making sure this doesn't happen. It may well be that Upton needed that level of pandering.

My entire family are fewming about NHS Scotland wasting money over this when many of them are waiting for treatment, long diagnoses pathways and basically getting a shit service

Ditto. On all counts.

To be fair, being called 'Pal' by a Glaswegian is one of the most terrifying things that can happen to anyone...

From a legal, rather than emotional perspective, the SC result hasn't changed anything relevant to this case; it was only about people with GRCs and it is well established that DU doesn't have one.