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

I won't have time to keep up today, let alone post anything but I want to add my thanks to @nauticant and all the other posters who've made these threads so compelling and informative. I'm sure there are a lot of other posters like me who aren't saying much but who are totally gripped.

Having a senior moment. What is Charlotte Myles job title

Ads will be personalised based on your search history. I clear my search history often so more random. Today I have one for solicitors 😁

Todays witness is Service Manager.

Apparently it's Lottie Myles, Clinical Services Manager at NHS Fife.

An important witness if scheduled for all day. I see that in February her name cropped regarding Upton's allegations about patient safety and exactly who was told what and when. So this could be very interesting.

What makes me so sad about all this is that women are having to fight so hard to retain the hard-won rights which we risk having stripped away from us. When we consider that sss were originally fought for at the beginning of the feminist movement in the C19th, it is as though we are back at square one and having to fight all over again.

Instead of being able to focus on the many injustices against women, we are being forced to give all our attention to this insidious threat against our boundaries and our very identities as women. I feel very bitter about it all.

Payroll, leave a lasting legacy, path to success and MN.

I had to look because my adblocker is my brain. I simply don’t see them. Also as a fast reader many don’t get time to load before I scroll by.

And Shemed and two train tourist ones- Eurostar and another company.

🤣
The policies at NHS Fife will be better understood by more random peeps on the internet than actual staff at this rate.

In part 1 I downloaded the disciplinary policy and listening only to DU & ED evidence it became very clear the policy had not been followed one jot! IMO proving a good number of Sandie’s claims.

So the only reason for needing Part 2 was for JR to convince everyone that SP was an awful bigot - and then the SC judgement happened…

Im keep wondering why NHSF and JR are on this “last Japanese soldier” mission?

SP generally seems to be able to keep her emotions from showing, so I doubt she was tearful. Stressed? Almost certainly. I do not excuse DU's behaviour; as has been said, he appears to have been on the lookout for a confrontation and an opportunity to take offence, and a decent person in a normal frame of mind would accept a request for a few minutes privacy, without needing to know the reason.

Likewise no decent man would try to position a comment about a male rapist being placed in a women's prison over that of a lived experience of sexual assault.

I think it wasnt so clear cut. SP didn’t specifically ask him to leave - more said “you shouldn’t be in here”. No request made. DU used that to justify his thinking that it was an “attack” on him and that SP was wrong to do this because she should have used “proper procedures” - which of course she had…

The worse bit is other women being so happy to throw other women's rights away.

I'd bet none of these bosses who were happy to bully Sandie would have willing stripped of in front of him.
Any more that Nicola Sturgeon would happily have shared a prison cell with Isla Bryson.

I'll wouldn't want to see anyone be actually harmed but id like women to actually put themselves in other women's shoes for a minute. Actually feel the discomfort that other women are being made to feel.

Rapists weren’t mentioned during the CR incident.
Noone knew about SP’s dodgy GP until the Tribunal.
SP didnt specifically ask for privacy.

Its not as clear cut as some people here are suggesting - other than if GC it’s ridiculous to have to justify why SP wasnt happy but isn’t a bigot!?

I wonder what would have happened if SP had displayed the kind of testerical response of Dr U and went hairing around the department covered in blood looking for a shoulder to cry on?

The contrast between their responses in the aftermath is quite tellung

Makes me mad that we are having to fight so hard for these things all over again and it makes me think how i took everything we have for granted and a lot more thankful to the brave women who fought for our rights the first time around and i often wonder what they would make of all this.. would they stand up for SP or would they be one of these feminists who say a woman is anyone who feels like a woman? This is all so insane i cant believe we are here..

Yes - the experience of realisation and then a sharp intake of breath/holding your breath - the fear response I suppose.

I’m really sad that some women seem to want to empathise more with males than females. It’s weird - maybe because of upbringing? Sure my dad was the head of our household but he wasn’t kingpin and served… it was all very heteronormative but gender non-conforming at the same time. Are the BeKind women from households with male as top-dog do you think? Or some other reason?

Morning, should be an interesting one in the courtroom.
I've stocked up on snacks and made a big jug of lemon ice tea. It's absolutely pishing rain here on the west coast of Ireland so the dogs are in no humour of a walk.

Thanks v much. I like the fact there are ads for payroll services. Perhaps if NHS Fife are following the threads they might be able to follow up on ads for firms that help you to manage your employer responsibilities.

Theres a better story from Scotland here, do read the last few paragraphs - how things should be done and why it matters.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377133-heres-an-inspirational-woman?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Fife Leader stannin by!

Any Fifers ben the lobby will mind o the Fife Leader. The free sheet delivered by generations o high school bairns who got a penny a paper.

Morning all 👋

are we starting at 10 this morning?

When I was going through perimenopause I had frequent period disasters, to be blunt some of them would rival The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but (fortunately) none of them visible to anyone else.
I used to purposely wear almost exclusively black or very dark clothing on my bottom half but still lived with the fear of being caught out and I learned not to sit down for too long because the point where I then stood up, and the effects of gravity…quite unpleasant.

I would not expect Dr Upton to understand or empathise with what it’s like having to work a stressful job where it’s not always possible to get to a loo in time, and trying to cope with the very real physical and mental symptoms of perimenopause, how could he?
He could however have shown some basic respect to a fellow colleague.

Thats because men do not think like women and therefore he couldn’t understand her need for privacy proving once again that thinking like a woman isnt possible and it is all a fantasy in a mans head!

I would be that the vast majority, if not all, women on this thread have had an occasion where their period has started suddenly or come on more heavily and they have had to dash to the loo to sort themselves out. Men just do not understand.

Not disagreeing with anything said here. But why should we have to explain that we may have experienced sexual violence, or have bad period events, or that we are GC to prove sexual harassment, males in female spaces, is in of itself sexual harassment.