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 suspect you're right.

Sandie must not settle. We need this all exposed, we need the ruling, we need the comments with the ruling.

Well, this has been quite something. Wtf are Fife thinking? I even feel a little sorry for JR.

If you want a bastardised Latin logo...

Timor ex filum non capit sursum

@ParmaVioletTea
Where's the laughing reaction when you need it?!

Speaking for all of us. The humour and wit on here has been laugh-out-loud glorious.

I still can’t get over (any of the iterations of) the NHS Fife press statement. Complete dumpster fire. Who on earth approved that?!

This is a £ multi-million budget public sector organisation which also has legal duties towards all employees.

Why on earth is it putting out organisational press notices on issues currently before a tribunal? I find that pretty astounding, to be honest.

Is this even allowed for a major public sector employer? I am trying to imagine my own organisation in a similar bind. There would be a rightly asinine statement saying something like “we cannot comment further whilst the case is ongoing, we have a duty and responsibility to assure the wellbeing of both our patients and our employees, and it’s important that due process is followed and the tribunal makes its ruling without interference”.

There is just no way that sort of diatribe full of insinuations and random irrelevances, sparked by tribunal proceedings, would EVER be signed off at my place.

Perhaps nobody else will employ him now. I guess maybe Fife has to keep him on to prove how much faith they've got in him to justify his preferential treatment and everything they did to Sandie.

I would definitely not want to receive care from him.

So the Times has well and truly nailed them on changing the statement. Good to see!

https://www.acas.org.uk/suspension-during-an-investigation

'Suspension will only be appropriate in some situations. An employer should consider each situation carefully before deciding whether to suspend someone.
Suspension does not mean an employee has done anything wrong, and should not be used to discipline someone.
Being suspended can be stressful for an employee, so it's important that employers:

• consider the wellbeing and mental health of anyone they're thinking of suspending
• only suspend someone if there's no other option
• plan what support they'll provide to anyone they suspend'

The lack of care for Sandie's well being has been horrific through all of this.

It's quite impressive just how spectacularly bad this whole shit show is. You have to work damn hard to be this incompetent.

Amazing user name! 👏

That was archived at 14.31 if I read correctly. What time did they become aware in court?

Blimey, what a day.

I have subscribed to both Sex Matters and TT today - long overdue but after today’s events I couldn’t procrastinate any more. So many determined women doing their bit on behalf of the rest of us, thank you.

Just to surface it again - don't forget with the headlines about Fife's statement(s) JR today introduced 'evidence' of SP's racism by giving credence to second, third or fourth hand hearsay.

A new low

What is the time zone being used for the timestamp?

That is 14.31 UTC, so 15.31 BST. SP's team were aware of it before 16:00. I don't know whether they found out so quickly by luck, or because they were monitoring Fife's website, or because someone tipped them off.

We did a 'synchronised donation en masse' to SM as a gesture of appreciation to NC and her team during Phase 1 of the Tribunal.
As a lot of us would want to keep our donation anonymous, I contacted
SM to let them know that if they got a sudden uptick in donations - that was us!
Happy to do the same again if you like, not just because I'm a wonderful, helpful person, but because the last time I got lovely thank-you emails from both
✨Maya and Naomi✨
which I generously shared by posting them on here😁
So - another round of donations to Sex Matters [if you can afford to, but everybody's gratitude and admiration will be passed on regardless] -
yes?

I've also made a small donation. I'll see if I can raid a piggy bank and give TT a helping hand too.

Like so many, I've been following these threads all day, and I'd like to add my thanks to @nauticant and the many other thread regulars who have informed and entertained so wonderfully. This is MN at it's best; a force for good in the world.

I don't think the TT tweets (understandably as they are not a complete transcript) quite caught the manner in which JR drew the comments out of Louise Curran. My impression was that LC herself stressed that it was only hearsay; JR prompted again; and only then LC reported the hearsay.

Sandie has rightly spoken to the press to defend herself against LC, but it seemed that JR was driving that in a bid to get hearsay in the news to smear Sandie.

I half think that for that behaviour, JR deserves to end up having to defend Upton, while someone else comes in to help Fife face the music alone as R1.

i was going to donate to sex matters but . I am a bit wary of putting my name and email address and address on any website. If they are hacked. I am being ridiculous i know. I think i probably have more problems than trans rights activists on my doorstep but I live alone with a wee innocent cat. Stopping my bbc license fee makes me feel good. I have been enlightened on the bbc bias. As well as the absolute horrendousness that surrounds us with this nonsense

When discussing the press release clusterfuck at the end of Friday’s hearing, Fife’s KC made a reference to a “citizen’s arrest”. Anyone know what that’s all about?

I read, here or on X, that some TRA was threatening to storm the courtroom and make a citizens arrest if DU got misgendered once more.

Well they'd have a lot of people to arrest, including his barrister and several witnesses from his side.

It was mentioned in this Times article

www.thetimes.com/article/6e3612d0-bab1-46b7-b3ac-c3cd7920c9a7?shareToken=3598f7582d9625517fb5f43801afe109