NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #35

[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
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
Thread 34: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377387-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-34

Found it!
I knew there had been an expert opinion on JR's use of hearsay allegations against SP, and indeed here it is.
Thank you prh47bridge, it's good to know that our collective gut feeling that it was unacceptable is more than just a feeling.

Isn't that thesis basically a 'how I had a horrible time at work and the impact it had on me' self absorption fest? Any other case studies? Any actual qualititative analysis? It sounds more like it belongs in the misery lit section of a bookshop.

I think most surnames are unisex; it's kind of the point, isn't it?!

Final (weak) idea: does your surname end in -man?

The entire hospital knew every single detail already anyway.

Heeeeyyyyy doesn't everybody's, man? [couldn't find a cloud of aromatic smoke emoji😄]

When your close relative (husband) sits in the House of Lords by inheritance, and publically protests the very issue this tribunal is about, they are fair game for investigation and criticism.

For a thesis to be embargoed there has to be a belief that releasing it will cause some harm or damage. Sometimes that is because the thesis has commercial information in it; sometimes it is because individuals could be harmed.

I assume this thesis has quite personal information in it and it probably was getting attention due to the tribunal.

I also assume that Dr Upton Snr's position in the library at Edinburgh may have helped get it embargoed

You mean the husband is fair game for his actions? fair enough.
But JR is not her husband's keeper.

I think most surnames are unisex

In English yes, but is this the same in other languages/cultures?

We've already ruled out the Nordics. We're trying to solve a mystery here.

It does seem odd that JR is repeatedly introducing these allegations but no witness can attribute them to an actual source.

I guess that the intention is to give them more weight because they come from more than one person but the lack of attribution means that multiple witnesses could be reporting information from a single disgruntled person.

So even if hearsay is admissible what weight is the judge supposed to give it?

But she (and her family) may influence his votes in the House of Lords.

After having listened to the last few days, it seems clear that there was no evidence of Sandie being bigotted and that this was "tittle tattle", but it was being passed around amongst staff as though it were gospel. And NC seems to have enough evidence to show that it was her "strong views" that got SP suspended rather than any actual misconduct (as evidenced by NHS Fife clearing her of that outside the hearing). Yet again, one of Fife's own witnesses support SP's version of events?!

So although we have heard about the lack of evidence for these rumours, JR drags up all of the rumour and allegations.

From a defense point of view, why does JR think it is a good idea to run with all the false rumours of bigotry, when the evidence that these same false rumours were what got Sandie illegally suspended? Isn't this an own goal? It looks terrible and in poor taste, when she is accusing SP of making hateful remarks JR is looking dangerously close to doing the exact same thing?

Can someone please explain why JR thinks this is a good strategy? Or is she simply clutching at straws and getting desperate?
And also what other arguments she seems to be running?

Russian is the one I'm aware of, I knew a Russian woman whose surname ended-ova but I think her father and brother just ended -ov.

Nope!! Maybe the patient had met someone male with my name previously. There is another Dr locally who shares my surname and is (thankfully!!!!) no relation but maybe he linked up in his mind. That is the only thing I could think of. I should have asked!

I think you’re giving the people involved too much credit. I doubt either of them are special or even care that much about each other…

Remember that in context, the entire world was embracing trans rights. It was visibly seen as a good thing to ally yourself against people being horrible to any trans person. There was a corporate buzz even within the NHS in Fife.

For KS, her actions were likely triggered from a mixture of her being incensed from seeing Upton upset, but also her wanting to make an example of SP by campaigning for trans rights in her team. Because from a personal career perspective, she likely looked “good” to her management team for taking the approach that she did as trans allyship was trendy… she was likely given kudos internally here.

Allegations of racism or homophobia don’t have as much of a buzz associated with them, hence why KS didn’t act on those concerns with the same enthusiasm.

I'm quite confident the Judge will give them no weight whatsoever, since not a single witness under oath testified that SP said anything racist or homophobic in front of them.

In fact the only sworn evidence is that people were gossiping about SP behind her back, which is most likely to be held against the respondents.

Or patient safety?!

He was bullshiting to cover up the fact that the title Dr sounds like a man's title to him.

I consider myself a reasonably well read and educated woman of a certain age. And I had to Google most of the words in the title....

She's the participant.

Slander is the spoken word, so i think you mean libel, the written word.

“I said it seems to me” which means i was expressing an opinion not claiming something as a fact, which is not libellous at all just an opinion.

Get an understanding of the basics of law before you start lecturing others on erm, the basics of law.

So CM is only approx 24 years old???
That's very young to be clinical services manager. I can't remember how long she's been at Fife but she said prior to this she'd been general manager at another hospital.
At 24 she can only have left university about 4 years ago at most !

I said she sounded (and looked) very young but 24?? What band is she at? An 8 I would guess?

Edit: Wings of Scotland have clarified 35

Here you go.

I sometimes think the .gifs get forgotten.

Ah Wings of Scotland have clarified approx 35.