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've had the distinct displeasure of having to interact with ScotTrans back when it was the Scottish Transgender Alliance. If Viv is anything like her predecessor James, her day at the tribunal will be interesting. I hope i'm around to follow it that day (anyone know the day?) I hope NC repeatedly uses she/her pronouns.

This sounds about right for management in general from my experience. Literally the only job which you get by being good at something else. The only way to advance is to become management and then you're no longer doing the thing you're good at; nursing, welding, bricklaying, book binding, whatever.

Vic isn't appearing as a witness though. They decided the written statement will suffice, iirc.

@JamesWebbSpaceTelescope @prh47bridge thanks, I hadn't realised he'd already handed over his phone

Is this one of those cases where you can find out stuff on a phone that's been deleted?

And the owner of the phone thinks they're in the clear, but a hacking, forensic sleuth finds out all manner of crap.

This is the real tragedy, that we might well lose her from the profession.

I wonder if he is aware of Cellebrite and that it can retrieve all sorts, including deleted photos/files/texts/emails off mobiles (even from factory reset phones) and as demonstrated in countless cases where phone evidence has come into play .

Hi @KnottyAuty thanks for the response. I did watch back in Feb most of Dr Upton's testimony and also Sandie. At first I had sympathy for them both, but Dr Upton lost his based on his behaviour.

Right now, though I don't agree with him, I don't think he deserves to be in this difficult highly publicised tribunal which must be incredibly stressful. It's largely ended up that way thanks to NHS incompetence.

Another way they haven't handled Dr. Upton appropriately is the extremely long time to process and complete his compliant.

I don't have sufficient evidence from what I've seen and read that complaint was vindictive or made up.

Dear God, how awful. I am so sorry. 💐

That would be awful.

If it's found that Upton fabricated the allegations against her regarding leaving a patient, I think that really warrants an investigation. Are we really losing good nurses from the NHS to protect an ideology that men can be women? That's the priority over retaining good staff? During a nursing shortage?

Ahh, but if Upton did in fact make up the allegations about patient neglect against Sandie Peggie, NHS Fife would be able to argue that they certainly didn't authorise that. Of course, there's been no finding that he did.

DH complains a lot about management in his industry - IT. The type of people that make excellent IT staff tend to make terrible managers so you get the double whammy of losing a good 'foot soldier' and gaining a terrible manager.

@LarkLaneAgain I'm sorry your granddaughter was caught up in that, it was dreadful. It explains why you are extremely sensitive but you didnt explain that before, you simply said you live in Southport.

I’m guessing DrU agreed because he’d deleted anything relevant. The forensics guy may be reporting evidence of deletions/ hampering but no ability to see what they are. We aren’t at this stage, however, aware whether anything has been retrieved from the phone.

Do we know what they're trying to find on his phone?

I am a late comer but have been glued to these threads for the last few days. Grateful if someone could point me to the threads for Dr U's evidence. The "big girl pants" comment reminded me of years ago when I was a transactional lawyer in a City firm. Said firm organised/mandated a presentation by a then as far as I recall prominent transitioned officer in the Forces. The opening comment was along the lines that although slightly overslept the speaker had nonetheless managed to put on matching bra and knickers. I and several other perimenopausal lawyers who had just pulled another all nighter were I recall not impressed. I may in fact have been wearing odd shoes. At least they were both navy blue (i think). A long time ago.

I assume Sandie handed over her phone too, since I recall JR mentioning messages to/from her colleague and mum.

They actually advertise it as a gift to give to a girl friend - so a girl saying she'd stab anyone who was unpleasant to her bestie rather than a man saying he'd stab a bitch... maybe still a bit unfortunate but not the misogynistic take Larklandagain took I think..

When someone has massive 'main character syndrome' and expects everyone to centre them at all times and has no respect for the feelings and thoughts of others I struggle to find sympathy for them when they end up very much centre stage. You can't want everyone's time, energy and focus on you and your wants but then expect to be left out of the drama that unfolds because you weren't capable of taking anybody else's feelings into account.
tldr/ you reap what you sow.

Yes, the way DU referred to "casting aspersions on my people" was curious.

They have the ability to see many deleted files. Not necessarily all, but definitely some. Even from factory reset phones.

I kind of hope so!

Others probably follow the whole “trans/GC” debates much better than I do but, for me, the “chromosomes” arguments tend to run alongside the “are you going to insist on genital inspections” from the TRA’s.

Until the Olympics and DSD’s I don’t really remember chromosomes featuring heavily in GC land? In the context of competitive sport, yes, but not really elsewhere.

Somebody on X had some screenshots suggesting that NHS Fife had 7(!) versions of that press release (the latest one coming out early this morning).

I'd have thought as he willingly handed the device over there's probably nothing to see. Surely he's not arrogant enough to think that just deleting files will hide them?

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005

Look in the section Live Tweet Threads for the following dates:

Thursday, 6 February 2025
a row about disclosure particularly over BMA documents
Sheila Bell (Sandie Peggie's mum)
Beth Upton
Friday, 7 February 2025
very late start, massive row over disclosure, agreed that Beth Upton would start giving evidence on Monday
Monday 10 February 2025
Beth Upton
Tuesday 11 February 2025
Beth Upton
collapse of public access
Wednesday 12 February 2025
Beth Upton