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

@Keeptoiletssafe I don't know.
But something brought you to mind a couple of days ago, a report of a man who was found dead in the toilets of Edinburgh City Chambers building after 6 days. Just shocking esp has he'd been on the phone to his wife, said he wasn't feeling well and was going to the toilet. Then he never came home.

4 different ones I think, and the last two were more minor changes. Well, obvs they were prompted by something, but they haven't fixed any grammar or rowed back on anything major today.

There are more versions archived but that is just something you can do x number of hours apart, depending on the archive site settings.

I imagine it's because the Trust is no further forward in how it deals with the rights of trans employees whilst maintaining single sex spaces. The NHS overall is in such a mess and appears to be very slowly reviewing its policies following the SC Ruling and guidance from EHRC. In the meantime the same shitshow continues. Further ETs are bound to follow. Government intervention of some sort could help. At the moment staff must be floundering as they only have outdated policy if any at all as in Fife's case.

I am popping out to local Sainsbury’s for milk, bread & almond croissants. Need to be ready for tomorrow. I truly hope NC fights for us all to still have access.

I can't see how this could be changed to a private hearing. There's too much interest in the case in the UK and abroad.

The purpose of the tribunal is to determine whether or not Nurse Peggie has a claim on the grounds she is stating. That has become something of significant public interest - and I don't mean the purely prurient sort either. If the proceedings were no longer public the outcry would be heard in outer space.

NHSF may have been hoping that after the shitshow of last week from the witnesses supposedly supporting their case they could avoid the testimony from Kate Searle being made public. She must surely have one one of NC's largest targets on her back, particularly now that her emails have come to public knowledge. Hopefully the judge will not be swayed by that.

If there have been threats of violence they are a matter for the police, if NC et al want to pursue any claim for defamation there are proper avenues to do so. I hope the tribunal keep a clear focus on the purpose of the hearings without distraction.

Wow. Just managed to catch up from Friday’s utter shitshow. It’s absolutely farcical from Fife.

Hoping the tribunal can carry on this week, because I just can’t wait to see the wonderful NC demolish KS for those appalling emails. But mainly I want Sandie to be able to see this through to the end and show in full how badly she’s been treated.

Shes so brave and determined and I hope she knows there’s a whole army of women standing behind her.

I think someone picked up on the pedestrian crossing because there has been a lot of discussion about painting crossings in rainbow or trans-flag colours!

Things got much better for lesbian and gay people, who were only looking for equality, an absence of discrimination and therefore no more 'offending public decency' charges.

There were always some people who cross-dressed, the difference now is that there is a very loud, very influential although very small movement of people who claim 'TWAW', trans women are 100% women, and have managed to get the laws, education, the media, medicine, even the English language changed so that 'woman' now means 'women and some men'... until the UK Supreme Court got involved earlier this year

In other words, appropriating the word, and the identity, and the social group 'woman'. That's what has changed from the occasional cross-dresser or transvestite you might have seen in the supermarket back then.

This has had negative consequences for the first group you mention: lesbian and gay people, who recently find ourselves lumped in with transgender people we don't really have very much in common with, but the 'T' has taken over 'LGBT'.

Have we moved on? Yes, but it's a bit 'one step forward two steps back' in some ways😐

I read that part of the article to mean that managers are terrified because they cannot rely on the people they need to be able to rely on for advice on equality matters. Not that they have necessarily fallen short of requirements already, but this has brought home to them that IF they need advice, they could get duff advice and how would they even know?

I'd move to Scotland just for this. I'm forever asking my husband which shops are open when on a Sunday.

Thank you to all for your insights and information. Whilst I haven't been confident enough to speak out in the past, now is the time.

My DD16 have been chatting about this a little. Conversation yesterday brought this home to me with a huge smack in the head. I said to her, 'how would you feel if a boy at your school decided one day to change in yours, the girls' changing room?' Her response was interesting and perhaps not what I expected. She said to me, 'if I didn't know or want the boy there then, then not fine'.

But the nuance is here - my daughter wanted choice. She didn't say an absolute no, but it wasn't an absolute yes.

The choice to decide. Sandie didn't have the choice. She didn't get a say. I'm sorry if I'm late to the party on this, but just needed to say it out loud.

Thank you to all those brave women battling for choice. You are amazing.

No alcohol is sold after 10pm, so lots of shops close then.
I also know someone to tried to buy a bottle for a gift enroute to work and got told not before 10am.

Jeez, I just read the news item on that. How useless are Police Scotland?

I think your daughter's point gets to the heart of it @Sameagainagain567

A lot of the women who say they are fine with getting changed in front of men, are assuming they have the selection of the men.

Not that you have now let in all men, including the gross or dangerous ones.

The DEI leads answer to the question “did she know what sex she was” was a complete gift horse to the press.
The headline wrote itself!
I wonder what the gift headline to the journalist will be this week?

We also can’t buy booze before 10 am and can’t get the buy 6 bottles for a discount as we in Scotland can’t be trusted for the multi buy.

some people in Fife health board may find this very detrimental

Sorry I should have said I'm in Scotland 😉

It used to be (until about 2012 I think) that you couldn't buy buy alcohol before 12.30pm in shops or offies on Sundays in Scotland.

I remember having an English visitor who was absolutely gobsmacked about it!

It's all us up and down the country furiously trying to archive it at the same time 😂 The important bit to me is that TT have a publicly accessible record of it for posterity, we'll probably get an archive version at some point too

This is the bit I can't understand.... (well one of many really).

How on earth can a male doctor be deemed fit to practice when they can say they are "biologically a woman" . It is just ridiculous.

I guess my role is redundant now that Sandie has been cleared of endangering patient safety.

Calendar cleared for tomorrow.

I saw an article in one of the Scottish newspapers yesterday. An inquest I think. A relatively young man rang his wife/partner to say he wasn't feeling well. He went to the toilet in the local civic centre, possibly library or town hall. His body was found six days later because of the odour. It's grim.

That poor man. His family.

I don't know if you're already aware of this. I don't know that the toilets were floor to ceiling but I can't imagine he'd have been there so long otherwise.

This is one link to an article

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/five-unanswered-questions-after-man-35564545?int_source=nba

The questions they're asking, not about the inherent danger of the cubicle design.

Sorry for the derail but I wanted to make sure you knew about it.

Hey, I remember you, but then you disappeared.

@anyolddinosaur erm. Elspeth Pitt is older than Kate Searle and has been a consultant for longer but started her career in a different hospital so is relatively new to Fife.

Generally the consultants share out on calls especially for "special" events fairly equally (my dept has a 10 year rolling rota, so i can tell you I'm working Christmas in 2026 and NY in 2030). If I'm finally deemed too geriatric to do on call, my rota replacement will inherit my slot on the Christmas rota.

We also don't get any training in HR type stuff, even if we pick up those responsibilities so I can kind of see why the email got sent in the heat of the moment.

interested please expand…

I can't bring myself to start a continuation thread when we're only on page 32.

So, can I trust you lot not to add a couple of hundred pages to this thread overnight?

I would go ahead and create it then go get some sleep if I was you 😂