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

Is it bad that I'm quite relieved to see you say this? If a proper grown up like Datun is struggling I don't feel so guilty!

Wow, I know I'm about 2 threads behind (had a mega stressful day at work yesterday), but the NHS Fife statement is quite the mess, isn't it!

A couple of other thoughts:

EP's comment "I'm a clinician" about not responding to an email thread stood out to me: that is generally how clinicians I know work - if they are in a fast-paced environment, they are not going to spend 20 minutes writing an email and then waiting hours for a reply; they will go and find/call the person they need to speak to and have a conversation. If it's an important thing regarding a patient it will go in their notes somewhere and will go into the next few shift handover meetings.

I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a certain amount of tactical not getting involved regarding email threads - either in anticipation of the inevitable shit:fan contact or just in an attempt to avoid the drama.

I agree that Fife is lovely. My late sister lived in Charlestown, then Burntisland, for a number of years. My nephew, her second son, lives in Dunfermline. It's just a very long way from where we live.

I would guess that a lot of them were routinely too busy and harassed to respond to anything that didn't look as if it needed a reply from them personally.

Did all of those 20 consultants she copied in actually have dealings with SP and DU, I wonder? Or was it just a pre-existing internal group email list of the "consultants@..." variety, rather than a group of people individually chosen for being relevant?

If it was just a standard list, including staff who were absolutely nothing to do with the matter in hand, it would make the offence worse, if anything.

Proper grown-up.

That's my next T-shirt
😁

It was to the full list of around 20 consultants in the department. Apparently there were no replies from 29th Dec to 12 Jan? It seems unlikely that noone offered sympathy or a reality check or some sort of response.

I think it was a list (ed-consultants, or similar), because at one point NC was asking one of the witnesses, I forget which one, about how many people were on that list. If the addresses had been listed individually, she wouldn't have needed to.

This is copied from TT, Upton being examined by Jane Russell on Day 4. I’ve
emboldened the important bits re prisons

DU - I apologised I explained I'm a woman and allowed to use the CR, there are channels she can use and this isn't an appropriate time or place to do it.
JR - the end?
DU - no it continued.
JR - who spoke
DU - she did
DU - she repeated it, that she understood I was undergoing some kind of process....
J - hang on (making notes)
DU - process but as a man I can't be in the CR. I said I'm not a man, this isn't appropriate and she should speak to someone more senior.
J - asks for pause.
DU - she said it wasn't safe for me to be there, asked what my chromosomes were, said it was analagous to the recent case, I assumed Isla Bryson...
JR - hang on please explain exactly the prisons comment
DU - she said it's like the situation in the prisons.
JR -what did you think
DU - I assumed she meant Isla Bryson, that she was comparing me to a sexual predator, there was an argument over men and women's estates
JR - she said you were a man, asked about chromosomes and prisons, how did you feel?
DU - awful, really really upset. I've never been spoken
DU - to like that. It was awful to be compared to someone like that. Someone casting aspersions on my people. I was upset and afraid actually I didn't know what it would mean going forward, would have to raise it but just wanted to extricate myself.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to catch up with all the threads but when will we hear from Kate Searle? I couldn't see her on the list screenshotted above. Is that because she's a respondent rather than a witness?

I've only just caught up with last thread so haven't even started on this one but is anyone else reminded of the hot dog scene from Highlander? But with the detectives replaced by NHS Fife.

"What does 'I-n-c-o-m-p-e-t-e-n-t' mean"?

I think it's quite likely no-one replied. I can imagine reading it, raising an eyebrow, and having no desire to get involved, especially when there's plenty else to be getting on with. They probably didn't feel it concerned them directly, which it doesn't.

I think Sandy should be nominated for a Scotswoman of the Year award. Google tells me that both the Glasgow Times and The Saltire Society run some form of the award.

Will investigate how to nominate.

If they have a policy of making men eligible for it I'm going to scream.

She's not a respondent - the application to add her was unsuccessful. She's not on the screenshot list because the Courier has referred to her separately in the paragraph above along with Borwick the phone forensics guy. We don't know when she'll be called.

I was simply wondering if she knew what sex her horse was, and what method she would use to tell.

I agree it's unlikely that nobody responded at all, and that there might be a reply or two that should be in the tribunal bundle and aren't. Just suspecting, since so many people were copied in, that a lot of the people who got it may have skimmed through it, decided it wasn't likely to affect anything they were involved in, and deleted it.

I guessed that IB must have family in high position in the trust and i guessed right! I based on my experiences in nhs. Lots of nepotism.

Thanks @CriticalCondition I didn't realise they weren't successful in adding her as a respondent

I'd add that there was one point where NC ( I think it was ger, and not CE) led a witness through an exchange which went:

Are there any more relevant docs prior to your discussion re SP
No.
That discussion re SP would have required a risk assessment to be done, correct?
Yes.
Risk assessments are always written down, correct?
Yes.

But NC and the judge both alluded to the lack of that risk assessment in the disclosed docs.
Siz I can't be more precise.

Is KS going to be called at all? She's not a respondent, she's unlikely to be a witness for SP, and NHS Fife may not want her as a defence witness either!

I used to work for one of those papers so I appreciate the subscription! Still friends with a lot of old colleagues who are still there so it helps their jobs too. Thank you!!! I also subscribe (to both actually) as I feel it helps the local press better than to do the bigger ones. I unsubscribed from the guardian because of how awful it is in this matter.

I agree. I can imagine a lot of eye-rolling and "oh for goodness sakes", along with a fair bit of "damn glad it wasn't me that got caught in this."

If she were a respondent she would I think have more wiggle-room in not telling the truth when giving evidence. As merely a witness she has no personal axe to grind in the case. Perhaps it's better this way.

You’ve forgotten Vic Valentine, Manager of charity Scottish Trans. In 2020 Vic identified as a gender queer trans person, their pronouns are they/them. After looking them up, I’ll just leave it there.

Thank you for this.

It explains quite a lot, on a number of levels, shall we say.