NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #32

[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

Links to previous threads #1 to #29 can be found in the header of thread #30.

Thread 30: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375337-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-30
Thread 31: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375819-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-31

One of my hobbies is genealogy. That means I quite often read old newspapers. I was interested to discover how Australian papers in the 1930s would run bizarrely detailed reports from the divorce courts. I suppose that's what they had in rural Australia before TV arrived.

The only place I see regular court reporting these days is in local papers, in those places where local papers still exist. The national media don't do it unless it's a sensational murder trial or a celebrity libel case.

But these tribunal cases are really important because they're about holding institutions to account, and it's not just that the BBC or the Guardian are dodgy on trans, it's that they default to defending the institution against the pesky individual who stands up against the institution.

I also think a lot of this is the distinction David Goodhart draws between the two types of people, Somewheres and Anywheres. Even if an institution is supposed to be serving a community (a local NHS trust or library board or whatever) it's going to be run by the lanyard class i.e. the Anywheres who have no visceral connection to the Somewheres who are going to be most of the public served by the institution.

Institutions being captured by ideology is something we know about on FWR; I think the other half of the picture is that these are basically businesses with contempt for the customers.

I don't think it's exclusively a public/private sector thing either, except the ideologically captured public sector is insulated from some of the pressures that might cause a business to self-correct. E.g. we've seen banks saying "if you don't like our social justice policies we don't want you as a customer." It's long past time these institutions realised that they aren't philosopher kings handing down wisdom to the plebs, they're hot dog vendors who need to convince the plebs to buy their tasty hot dogs.

Alternative media can be a problem because their standards often aren't very good. But it doesn't follow that traditional media still have the standards they used to. Many years ago I was involved in a long and frustrating correspondence with the Guardian, who were being dishonest about an area I had specialist knowledge of, and that whole thing soured me on trusting journos with credentials. Journos without credentials can be valuable even if they're rough around the edges.

I think we need to start by recognising the collapse in trust for institutions. I know that is difficult for centre left people. I have lots of friends who would watch Yes Minister for the first time and assume Sir Humphrey is the hero. I don't believe that for a second, maybe because I am Sir Humphrey.

I have a question wrt to the “patient care” misconduct allegations made by Upton. These have been dismissed by Fife’s internal process due to no insufficient evidence. Surely there should have been some comeback on Upton for that?

I think a few complaints might have been lodged with the GMC after part 1 of the trial. Not least, failing to report a risk to patient safety in a timely manner (whether or not the incident didn't happen).

Nah, JR will probably be quite enjoying it. It's fun in its own way doing an absolute cluster fuck. Not much she can do to hurt her own case, and remember barristers do love the arguing 😁

DH and I had a conversation about AI yesterday. We concluded that given the absolute nonsense that we are feeding into it and the absolute idiocy on there is on the internet, it's inevitable that you are only going to get shit out because it doesn't have a filter to decide what's of value and what's of utter crap.

DH used the example of AI and certain maths questions that are known to come up with the wrong answer. This then is hilarious and becomes a meme which reinforces the mistake rather than correcting it.

And this is something that should never be underestimated. When people in the media, in institutions and in the cabinet have personal connections to people who identify as trans their influence is significant.

It’s also the story telling effect of one persons war story having more impact than thousands of deaths that are seemingly just numbers. And it’s hard to tell a senior colleague that they are talking bollocks - when it’s about their own child.

My MP drafts emails like that all the time.

Tip for NHS Fife - you can give ChatGPT a word count to summarise to… and possibly get it to omit potentially defamatory remarks

Hello fellow genealogist.

It's such an interesting hobby, and it tells you so much about the world TODAY compared to the past. There's so many things I had no idea about which are actually socially very significant.

People think it's just about finding out your ancestors. It's not.

Try asking AI to generate an image of a left handed person, it can't do it.

Can I ask any of the legal people here, if DU loses and is found to have harassed Sandie by using the CR could he then sue NHS Fife as he was following their policy?
Although I’m aware they don’t seem to have a written policy and we are unsure who actually gave him permission to use the CR!

No it doesn't.

I have no idea why people seem to think the BBC speaks with one voice, represented by a particular headline in a particular news item.

I don't watch the BBC or listen to the BBC for their news. I'm interested in drama, documentaries, arts, radio. They make some absolutely superb programmes and I listen to the radio most days.

Yes, the culture at the BBC is problematic and has been for some years. I dislike the fact that they are captured. I also dislike the fact that the government has been interfering with the BBC for some years and has been forcing them to take a particular "editorial line" in the way that they produce their work.

However, I pay for streaming services, and pay the BBC license fee, and keep my own mind clear.

Does the SC ruling now mean that the issue in this Tribunal will no longer arise? That a female changing room is for bio females only?

Or not. If organisations continue to flout the law, what redress does a woman have now? Would every woman in SP's situation have to take her case to a tribunal or is there a seamless process to ensure that organisations observe the SC judgement and if not hefty sanctions apply? I don't think flouting the SC ruling would be a criminal offence, so what's the redress does anyone know.

Or am I talking out of my rear end!

I'm obviously a bit confused but I hope I'm not the only one!

Allegations with non contemporaneous reports, Datix or notes should be handled very carefully.
I have no idea what the forensic expert will report next week. However, I would be curious as to why the investigation concluded there was not sufficient or no evidence to substantiate the allegations if Upton disclosed good quality, contemporaneous notes etc.

From LC’s tribunal evidence, it certainly seems as if there was nothing to stand up the whispers, gossip and rumours.

If I felt confident that we had reliably conscientious, objective, etc journalists (from a range of publications) reporting expertly and fairly on the tribunal at the end of each day, or a couple of times a week, I do think that would be preferable to the inevitably confused minute-by-minute ride-along.

But we don't have reliably conscientious, objective, etc journalists (from a range of publications) reporting expertly and fairly on this or many other tribunals.

Which is why Tribunal Tweets came into being, I presume.

We are where we are

It's well worth reading from the source. Some of the reporting (looking at you BBC...) has been so poor.

Happy reading!

@WannabeEDIOfficer
im catching up so not sure if anyone answered you about the locker room.

The CR where Peggie & Upton’s incident was is actually a locker room. The “official” female changing room is in the Basement but it was suggested in Part 1 that it’s rarely used because it is so far away from the dept.

The locker room has a swipe card access control and above this is a sign saying “female staff only”. There is one toilet cubicle inside where some staff members change.

In part 1 we heard (from notes kept by DU pre-emptively) that sometime between Sept-Dec 2023 SP and another staff member had left the room and stood outside until DU had finished in there. SP said she would use the toilet cubicle due to hygiene reasons. Esther D agreed with that POV. Louise Curran - also a nurse - seemed to not have got that memo and appeared to admit to changing in the loo herself.

I wish that was so, but Chief Constable Jardine actually resisted the JR and presented shockingly haughty arguments. She was allowed to depart from the legal duty of impartiality whenever she wished to, the challenge was pointless and should never have been permitted etc. The judgment was withering.

x.com/TonyDowson5/status/1945443410451525781

I read this, at first glance, as "didn't automatically tug the foreskin..."

Which would be appropriate, I think...

You assume that a hospital will follow the correct protocol and have a proper policy in place...

...as you may have gathered, this isn't an assumption you should make.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

That's a LOL for each version. How many more will come, I wonder...?

I’m happy to pay the licence fee for Radio 4 alone, despite some of its output being infuriating (looking at you, Woman’s Hour). This week I caught an interesting Sliced Bread on chopping boards (confirmed my belief that wood is best) and, recently, a terrific series on the effects and outcomes of the 1945 election
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002d8v1

I’m not swearing. I’m mostly stunned silence interspersed with sniggering and occasional hooting at the more egregious statements. Obvs guffaws at the Fifer asides (can’t tag BezMills yet on this thread - superb work thanks!)

To be pedantic, that's all the snapshots taken; some of them may have captured the same iteration.

I go for breakfast and there's another 5 pages of the thread......

My recollection from earlier evidence is that ED, also a nurse of 30 years experience, had never had to deal with a contemplated or actual suspension. And that's come through from other witnesses.

What stood out to me most in the Fife statement was the outrage that Sex Matters might seek to shift public opinion, as though that were an illegitimate thing.

It also gave the impression that NHS Fife saw its institutional duty to take a view on whether to oppose that pressure and work to change public opinion in the opposite direction. In other words it sees itself as opposite to Sex Matters not just in the tribunal but in matters of political policy. It appears that institutionally it has forgotten that as a public body it doesn’t have a political role.

Its almost as if NHS Fife management (love ‘lanyardocracy’) found providing healthcare to be too dull and boring and decided to spice up their workday with some campaigning, too.

This very important- lived experience is allowed to override science, data and facts. It is shocking how the medical profession has become so captured but probably not surprising. We know from history medics have believed all sorts ideology. You would hope a scientific background would protect you from falling for ideology but it clearly does not. People have fallen for the be kind and pseudoscience messaging hook line and sinker.