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'm thinking of poor Nauticant, who's probably sitting at her breakfast table, eating her weetabix disconsolently, thinking 'I thought I'd get the weekend off but those fuckers are still going'.

Sorry Nauticant!

I woke up at 3am and felt compelled to read some of this thread (actually, the last few pages of the previous one) in a doomed bid to keep on top of it.

I love what I learn in the course of reading these threads. This also leads me to preference falsification, which I'm sure has been discussed before and must surely also be going on in this case.

The stress and incredulity of reading these threads also nearly led me to some retail therapy in the shape of buying a tent from one of the ads. I do not need yet another tent.

She was back at work for a spell in 2024 before going off with stress during the trial.

I just hope she gets some decent compensation out of this

Presumably the ads are showing you tents because you've already bought a tent. I never understand that logic!

So it looks as if Kate Searle and Jim Borwick are going to be quizzed on Tuesday.

" Ms Peggie's legal team sought an order for Dr Upton's phone to be inspected by forensic expert Jim Borwick. However, this was rejected by the tribunal.
They wanted to discover the date and time the notes were created and when they were edited."

So I suppose NC will ask him about what an examination of a mobile phone might show, with comments "well, we'll never know because we weren't allowed to look".

That new bundle must be quite the read (If I were a journo I think I know what I'd be doing on Monday morning).

Is NC allowed to re-examine Upton.

This is interesting, from that piece:

Ms Peggie's legal team sought an order for Dr Upton's phone to be inspected by forensic expert Jim Borwick. However, this was rejected by the tribunal.
They wanted to discover the date and time the notes were created and when they were edited.
Mr Borwick is due to give evidence on Tuesday.

As I suspected, they're going to be looking at the metadata in Upton's phone, to see when the notes were actually made. Not when he says he made them.

They have his phone.

It is straight out of a Thick of It episode.

For those who have missed this part - FOIs were submitted to NHSF asking how much the legal costs had amounted to, so far. NHSF didn’t provide the info, stating they didn’t have it. Objections to this response were raised with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who, on 28 May, told NHSF they needed to look harder and find the info. They produced the costs on the 9th July.

On 4th July an internal memo was produced about the ICO decision to force them to published information about costs in which the IC was described as ‘whinging’, ‘emotional’, and ‘unprofessional’. Sometime between the memo being written and the 10th July, it accidentally got included in a new/different FOI response. When NHSF became aware of this error, they had to report it to the IC🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Fast forward (only a matter of days) and they again called the IC ‘emotional’ in response to his statement about NHSF’s press release on Friday.

Yes in some ways thats been a blessing. But go Sandie get a claim into them too.

This isnt going to stop at just Fife. Surely we need a public enquiry into how Men have been allowed free access into Sss all over the country.

Hello. Long time lurker here from north of the border. Ex nurse and DH is a nurse so we have been following the Fife case closely. DH is so appalled by the RCN's behaviour/inaction that he is resigning his membership. Am in such awe of Sandie Peggie. Just wanted to say thank you to all the amazing informed posters. Very much enjoyed the Fife commentary too! Very pleased to have some AL this coming week!😀

Ooh I’m completely free on Tuesday so can follow “contemporaneously” as it were, via these threads and Twitter.

John Russell was indeed Prime Minister 1846-1852, as the Irish starved during 'The Famine' due to laissez faire economics. The poor could only afford potatoes, which failed, while Ireland was a net exporter of other foodstuffs.

Someone (?nauticant) commented a very long way back that everyone knows a nurse. Then there is the small women v the large man, older working class v new employee and very privileged individual and a monolithic machine. Despite the claims to be the "most marginalised" it's pretty clear who is the less privileged and its a national characteristic to love the underdog. Add in the level of incompetence and it's interesting to a lot of people. Scottish press did a good job early on and the national press realised the level of interest.

I read somewhere that the request to compel wasn’t upheld but DU chose to hand it over anyway?

I hope he's telling them why!

Can't wait for the RCN legal fun...

It's a feature, not a bug. How are you a woman, if others aren't validating you as one? They have to use women's spaces (and the women in them) , like changing rooms or rape crisis services, to prove they are women and to force others to agree that they are women.

You see it sometimes in the discussion around toilets, we see it as a safety, privacy and dignity aspect, and they don't at all, they see denying transwomen access as women being mean, exclusionary, phobic. Because we don't use the single sex spaces for the same reasons. You can see it in Upton's evidence , he saw SP being in the changing room as her deliberately seeking him out in a woman space for a confrontation. It had not occurred to him that she might need to be there or why - because she needed to change her sanitary protection - because he sees the women's space as an opportunity for validation, not as something needed for practical reasons.

That might explain why management appear to be shit scared of him.

Organisations have tiptoed around trans people, afraid of being labelled transphobic and having discrimination claims against them.
I really hope this case makes these organisations equally as afraid of women! The publicity this is getting should make them very afraid the might discriminate against us and they WILL end up in court with all the negative publicity NHS Fife is currently getting!

I’m sure Jupiter is a very nice horse but his appearance is somewhat unimpressive. And JR’s boots could do with a good polish.
She should have borrowed a cavalry charger for the job. Or a nice dressage stallion.

Would Sandie be in a Final Salary pension scheme? Reduced hours etc. would surely affect her pension when she retires?
Edited to add. I see it was referred to upthread, so it would. You are all too fast for me!

@Brainworm

Where's Malcolm Tucker when you need him? He'd have these halfwits sorted out by lunchtime!

I really hope that one of the RNs newly appeared on the witness list is someone else Upton made notes on, either in this rotation or a previous one, and that their addition is because of what was found on his phone.

So - that piece says that DU made certain specific allegations about SP's conduct with regards to patient safety and then apparently backtracked and said they were 'potential' issues that may arise? In other words he just flat out lied? Is that what I am reading? Or have I misunderstood? (Not unlikely).

Yes, Charabanc he very much did!