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

I’m really hoping nurses are being peaked all over the UK.

This is cutting through, my husband has just been reading out bits of news articles on this to me - clearly he hasn’t noticed I’ve done absolutely fa this afternoon/evening except read about this case 🤣

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25324561.ewing-swinney-must-show-leadership-peggie-tribunal/

We are now at the stage where people are calling for intervention from government.

So the incompetent numpties fucked up by releasing a press statement... realised they fucked up so tried to edit it..... and edit it again...... while not realising that everyone and all can see their tracked changes and who has edited what. Is that right?

I bet ALL involved get promoted.

Delighted to explain!

Earlier today Maya transcribed a damning letter from KS from the bundle for Twitter. It explodes the idea there was ever an attempt at due process or any desire to ‘support’ SP.

At around 2.30 today NHS Fife published the first iteration of a long statement that basically said:

• Sex Matters are meanies and because of TT tweets everyone can see all our dirty laundry and none of it is reasonable because NC is also chair of Sex Matters so she shouldn’t also be allowed to be barrister-ing.
• we would have fucking settled if we could but we can’t because DU insists on setting terms that SP will never agree to. We would have had it sorted by now if it wasn’t for him, sorry her, sorry then FFS! (They would not have had it sorted)
• the death threats were only against them and were caused by the Sex Matters and TT meanies.
• That fucking judge should never have allowed the dirty public to see our very important but invisible work of due process
• We’re not really allowed to say anything and we really believe in protecting the privacy of our peeps — except of course when we want to write emails about the fragrant DU and nasty old SP to all and sundry
• and on and on and fucking on as infinity.

In court CE expressed concern. JR revealed she knew nothing about it. It was revealed that the case has been moved to Dundee cos of death threats to Claimants lawyer — not how it was presented in statement. Judge will review and consider on Monday.

NHS FiFe removes statement only for it to return shortly after with a disclaimer saying they weren’t suggesting the death threats were instigated by Sex Matters.

Statement re published

Statement amended again and all mention of Sex Matters is removed expected for the added disclaimer. Now that makes no sense.

We are inferring that although the statements has clearly been prepared over a number of days with many inputs — I suspect KS is pulling the levers — the decision to publish came in before doc was finished and in an angry knee jerk to Maya daring to publish KS letter and expose them further to the great unwashed.

Sandie Peggie could elect to carry on, and most likely would do so, there'd be no defence, just about anything reasonable put forward by the Claimant would be accepted by the panel, and this would lead to an even worse judgment against NHS Fife.

It could happen but even NHS Fife wouldn't do this.

I'm hiking the mountain called Ben Upton

The whole thing is jaw dropping. I can donate what I’ve saved in Netflix subscriptions to the crowdfunder because there’s nothing there to match this drama.

Would ending the trial early prevent any precdent being set?

Decisions at the Employment Tribunal level are not binding as precedent.

I've just saved the NHS Fife statement with the Sex Matters paragraph as an HTML document to show what it looked like at 9.45pm, since it seems almost certain that once I close the tab in my browser it will be different when I try to open it again. Perhaps someone should tell NHS Fife that playing silly beggars with revised versions is pointless since we've all seen the earlier versions and they will all have been saved in one way or another.

Please

OK, so would ending the employment tribunal being damaging for either party?

Sorry, am I reading this right? SP’s lawyer has received death threats??

Bloody hell. Hoist by their own petard.

And yet when I read iterations 1 & 2 of NHS Fife statement, it read as if the threat was to NHS Fife (defending) hence them arguing for restricted reporting???!

What an absolute clusterfuck if so.

@TheKeatingFive You should note that was a somewhat liberal summary, writing the unwritten inferred sentiment of the release rather than just the actual words.

Oh, wow, can you imagine NHS Fife appealing. 😁

The NHS Fife statement is getting to be like the opening credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they keep changing the subtitles. Any minute now NHS Fife is going to announce that a moose once bit my sister.

I have no idea what NHS Fife were thinking (presumably the adults are already on school hols?).

I’d be busy googling how to change my name by deed poll and booking a hair re-style apt (and possibly iris-colour contacts) by this stage.

Threats, not explicitly stated as death threats. To it seems both sides. Fife mentioned in their statement and then SP's side said in tribunal they had also had them but didn't raise them in the tribunal.

(I think)

It’s very unfortunate that proceedings bring to mind Monty Python 😂

Is there a list of what witnesses are coming up?

I am cancelling my bbc license. I am totally disgusted by them and their coverage/non coverage of this. They are a disgrace.

Will the Fife Board instigate a facilitated reflective practice discussion re press release? Or...
Will they continue to attempt to instigate the terror upon anyone who gives them a funny look?
<Eastenders drumroll>

They don’t care. Our government support them all the way with their TWAW.

our government will have to be dragged screaming and crying to admit that women have rights

and not just the special women

it starts right at top here in Scotland.

It’ll be no hardship anyway as they are rubbish.

I don’t think they can end the Tribunal early.

They could choose not to produce any more testimony/ evidence, I think but I’ve no idea how that would work in practice and wouldn’t be in their interests no matter the shit show.

I suspect they might try and delay it again by exploring the idea that there is now a conflict of interest in JR representing both respondents. It will be tricky for her though as the case she has built so far entirely depends on the idea that there was patient safety concerns. The disciplinary hearing at NHS Fife found there was not enough evidence but thia, in my view, doesn’t wholly undermine her position as she could reasonably argue that they thought there was legitimate concern. This would be a defence albeit not a very strong one but all she needs is a line of defence.

If she can’t represent both and DU has to get his own Barrister the she could build to claim he has exaggerated the claims and mislead senior staff which would be a better defence, in my view, for NHS Fife although very difficult to do in the time available.

Also, DU probably can’t afford the cost of a barrister of his own at this point. I’m sure if forced to take that route family funds would be available as no time to crowd fund.

But, in my view, the main reason for going down that line would be to ask for a continuance to sort that out in theory but which would, more importantly, provide time to regroup after the disastrous last few days.