NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #33

[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 and tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6. 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
Thread 32: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376072-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-32

There isn’t one.

At present you would need to go to the sub stack of Tribunal tweets. Navigate to the coverage of Sandy Peggy versus Fife. Select the press coverage resources and look at the Courier story for the 20th of July.
NB, the link there will take you to a Google Drive where you can see the entire item. You may not wish to follow a Google Drive link.
I don’t know another method at the moment.

Gillian would be good for Jane Russell

Nope, can't see them. If there are no more emergencies, maybe you could click on the actual tweet & link to that?

New - just in - Fife asked me to update their risk assessment for them.

If the statement was approved by legal representatives, surely they don't mean the first draft?
Also, if they made amendments after discussions with the claimant's legal team, does that mean Naomi, Maya and co are saying 'that's alright then'?
I'm confused

If people are after archive links @Justabaker posted a whole page of them less than two hours ago

Ah good lord I blinked and now we are on thread 33! I've still not caught up with 32 yet.

I don't know if there have been any weekend updates, will settle down with a wee wine and start now.

Thanks again to @nauticant for this mammoth maintenance task of the thread updates x

Thank you!

And thank you @Justabaker!

This is a direct link to the press coverage resource:

tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/press-coverage-s-peggie-v-fife-health?

The one to the Courier story is a Google Drive link, not an archive. afaict, at this time, nobody has been able to complete an archive at the usual sites.

It's £1 for access for 3 months. Just bite the bullet and put a note in your diary to cancel at that point!

Is it an issue with the GMC that NHS Fife’s investigation have found insufficient evidence to confirm Dr U’s allegations against SP? Does that imply Dr U’s allegations were malicious on the balance of probabilities? Or is it irrelevant?

Summary of today’s Courier article is that senior staff have spoken to the newspaper on condition of anonymity to say that staff confidence in the CEO has been severely dented by 1) the evidence given at the tribunal last week and 2) the heavily-criticised press release. The evidence of the EDI officer was described as shocking. Managers are scared that they are vulnerable to further Tribunal cases. The senior staff who spoke to the newspaper believe the CEO should resign.

My impression of Esther Davidson's demeanor was "blancmange" or "limp lettuce". It is of no importance - we want someone who is good at their job. And in that regard NHS Fife seems to be falling short in many cases

Yes, that's absolutely fair. Not everyone can take on the battles which Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock or Sandie Peggie have faced. It demands exceptional courage and a strong support network, likely over a period of years. But as each new judgment drops into the law books, it gets easier for those who follow.

I don't judge anyone who doesn't feel safe to challenge their employer yet, I just hope that this progress continues. EHRC guidance will be another big step, and the new chair seems determined not to flinch from protecting women's rights.

@Justabaker shared one earlier - it’s the second one in today’s list here https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/press-coverage-s-peggie-v-fife-health?r=1gxdhb

Was it him who pissed on the statue?

Wow. At work (FE) we are well-served with toilets. We have sss (including cr for vocations), unisex disabled toilets, and unisex single toilets.

I have only used the unisex ones (and disabled), and see many staff/students doing the same - as well as students using the sss. Most of my colleagues have told me they prefer not to use the sss, so as to be separate from students (plus I am told students often leave the toilets 'untidy' (kinder than the phrase they used)).

In our setting, not using the unisex loo would probably be more unusual, not less.

It's clearly institution-wide rot and Bumba didn't just waltz in and corrupt the place; they created that ridiculous post and hired that ridiculous person for it because the rot already existed. Still, I don't see how Bumba's position is tenable either. Her role needs to be made redundant. Why on earth can't HR deal with fairness and equality in the workplace?

I went to subscribe and was put off by the fact that it was a subscription to piano.io (no idea what that is) and then the PayPal set up was different from usual and I seemed to be subscribing to a service of some sort...so I backed away

Trying to subscribe from Ireland. Irish postcodes unacceptable, apparently. 🤔

The Courier are absolutely on it with this case, from which the fallout is going to be immense and wide ranging over the next 3 month. Their articles are going to help blow the whole thing apart. I'll have instant access and be supporting them to do that. I can't think of a single better way of spending a £1.

Fife has changed its 18th July statement again. As far as I can see, they removed the asterixed line at the end about Sex Matters, but left in the awkward sentence in para 4. Havent done a full comparison but archived the latest version for the record, since the one from 5 hours ago was already out of date.

What is wrong with them?

Absolutely right.

However if JR thinks it is at all reasonably to drag up a load of heresay about the claimant in an ET in a blatant attempt to smear them, then I don't think it is unreasonable to have a look at who she is to be slinging the mud.

The best bit about the smear attempt of getting LC to say Sandie was a bigot was that JR's dirty trick failed because LC ended up stating that the "strong views" held by Sandie were that she objected to a male in the female CR. Which is an absolute golden nugget for NC - and a massive own goal for JR. So I think that is her just desserts.

What is wrong with them?

How long have you got?