NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #34

[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-sil
ence-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
Thread 33: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376608-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-33

Re Lottie Myles' age, LinkedIn shows her undergraduate dates as 2006 to 2010.

Assuming she went to university straight from school, that makes her around 37ish.

Twitter opinion seems to be that she is presenting as somewhat saner than her colleagues.

I suppose she had the weekend to think.

She looks and sounds younger. But I can only see the back of her head and I'm rubbish at guessing people's ages anyway.

Hi all Just caught up on this morning tweets. Initial response was finally a competent manager. But actually some serious concerns here, even if better than the rest.

Firstly this

CM: The incident was about DU, and ED highlighted that SP had transphobic views due to an incident in a CR. I didn't have any other documentation. I went in blind.

That's not a good look for a risk assessment for a nurse coming back to the workplace. Something genuinely dangerous may have been missed. You need an actual statement in writing / briefing.

Also secondly, yes again CM better than others in ignoring or trying to ignore the what a bigot" hearsay but makes no effort / suggestion / reminder that nurses who hear racist comments from a nurse are obliged to report it by the NMC.

I'm also struggling to see how the doctors rotas were so complicated it was impossible to move Dr. Upton off shifts with Sandie, especially as this is what he had requested.

Interesting to see from Lottie Myles' LinkedIn that she plays rugby. She does also have pronouns on her LinkedIn page, so probably not full-on gc, but the rugby seems likely to have given her some (further) exposure to what's at stake.

But she's not supposed to have been following any news or know how her colleagues have presented

Is that because the female and male doctors changing rooms are mixed and female doctors don’t want to share with male doctors? Or because they heard that there was a trans identifying doctor on the loose and were preempting having to share a female doctors only space with a male bodied doctor.

But am I right in thinking that she won't have been reading about the examination of other witnesses? She's supposed to come in without knowing what else has occurred so far, right?

What about The Statement and fall out from that, is she supposed to have avoided all material related to the case?

Because it's Sandie's case.

The SC judgement supports her. It doesn't undo any detriment she suffered from her employer's and colleagues' harassment and victimisation. It doesn't restore her lost salary, her reputation, or her faith in her colleagues.

You'd need to be mad in her position NOT to.

Goodness me, that’s a lot of views isn’t it !

I don't think you'd have to be mad to follow the tribunal rules! But this weekend it will have been very hard to avoid knowing anything at all about it.

We are now on a break. Please could people refrain from asking people to refrain from posting recipes. It gets in the way of the recipes.

But isn't that contempt of court? I'm not saying it doesn't happen but isn't it the case that it seriously shouldn't happen?

Well know one would ever know if she had... I probably would (yes contempt of court I know but..it's unlikely I'll ever be in that situation)

No, not A&E - fair point. Paediatric HDU.

NHS Fife could accept liability, just as Cambridgeshire County Council did in Lizzie Potts’ case. Or they could decide not to call more witnesses and have judgment asap.

Given the atmosphere that CM was working in, and the people she was working with, I suspect that there is a lot of post rationalising and arse clearing going on here.

And I suspect that NC will tease that out.

I suspect this is well rehearsed and self protective ...in the light of what became of the other witnesses.

Now there's a break I have taken a look at the Herald live feed (I paid £1 to join for the next few months, money well spent imo).

11:25am
The reason that today's session started so late was because of a private hearing this morning.
Not being told what was discussed, but Sandie Peggie's legal team has confirmed that "they have asked Fife Health Board to confirm the names of those individuals who signed off the statement they issued on Friday and still await a reply."

Don't think this has been mentioned yet, TT may not be aware.
I look forward to full disclosure of who signed off the statement on Friday.😂

Correct. Witnesses aren't allowed to follow proceedings or any news. But how can you realistically avoid it unless you don't switch on the TV or computer for months. Or leave your house, see newspaper front pages in the shops, hear random conversations while out shopping etc..

The case has to continue unless Fife manage to agree a settlement with SP. And it seems, from comments JR has made, they intend to argue that the SC judgement doesn't mean they have to exclude trans identifying men from the female changing room.

Do you think it's for the legals? Need to know who you're accusing of defamation?

Yes, but unless they catch her out, where's the proof? And unless they've kept her under lock and key in a hotel room for the last week, there's simply no way to ensure she hasn't read the coverage over the weekend I would.

I do a bit of work in the criminal justice system (not a lawyer) and witnesses plainly lie and collude all the time. I've yet to see anyone charge with perjury or contempt, although I know it does happen.

My worry would be that I'd say something in my testimony which would give the game away that I had, in fact, spent the last 48 hours reading wall-to-wall coverage.

But there's that pesky 'joint defence' matter again.