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

It bugs me that NC didn't point out that SP was objecting to a man in the CR, not a transwoman

TT's 2nd part of the afternoon tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1947291617804648914.html

I wonder if we'll ever get to DU's allegations being completely unproven.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-14702287/Female-rugby-player-left-sickening-injury-horror-tackle-transgender-opponent-asks-allowed-happen.html

Probably left in lifelong pain.

From a quick search contact rugby banned transwomen in 2022, so it could have been before that or it could have been a woman identifying as a man. Rugby not being the most gender conforming of women's shorts.

Which would have actually undermined her claims because shows perfectly possible for trans to play/change with opposite "gender".

Couldn't find Charlotte Myers listed in any nearby teams so I don't know their policy and if they are ignoring it - would be extremely risky liability.

This is what I thought too.

JR: And homophobic comments?
CM: Just told she disapproved of ppl being gay - was told unhappy bcs her daughter gay - but I don't know at all.

Pure gossip. I'm sure Sandie and her daughter will be very unhappy about this

On the rugby issue from the previous thread, no team, amateur or professional, is allowed to include transwomen in a women's team for contact rugby. It may be that CM has only shared a dressing room with transmen, but it may be that she plays one of the non-contact forms of the sport (possibly as well as the contact form) and shares the dressing room with transwomen when doing that.

Someone on the last thread suggested that CM's club may not follow the rules. If they don't, they risk being thrown out of all competitions and also held liable for any injuries caused to opponents.

I’m going to need a spreadsheet to keep track on who has thrown who under the omnibus. It’s going to need to be a big one, like one of those bendy airport double busses.

Nauticant’s thread management remains sublime.

I came back towards the end of this afternoon's evidence, there was reference to the "p-word" being used as well as revisiting the allegations of homophobia wrt comments made about SP's daughter. Why did these come up? What evidence was presented for them?

Sorry the last thread closed before I could post my comment. From the rugby team anecdote, it appears that CM is making the classic mistake of thinking that SP objects to sharing a changing room with DrU because DrU is trans. Whereas SP objects to sharing a room with DrU because DrU is a biological male. DrU’s gender identity (and those of CM’s right teammates) are irrelevant.

Spiteful and nasty from JR. Says more about the weakness of their defense than it does about Sandie.

Especially as, in such a small place where people knew each other well, its likely some staff knew her daughter is a lesbian.

From herald
3:38pm
The evidence from Ms Myles has now concluded. We're having a five minute break.
Lauren Harris, a senior charge nurse, is unable to give evidence today so that brings a close to today's session.
Tomorrow, we have Dr Kate Searle giving evidence. She is Dr Upton's line manager and has been named throughout this tribunal.
She is likely to be quizzed on why she emailed the details of Dr Upton's incident to around 20 consultants.
The Herald will be in the room as she gives evidence and will be live blogging.

NONE

@needspaceforlego

My question (previous thread) was about the Workplace Regulations 1992. FWS concerned the Equality Act 2010. I don't think the WR are mentioned at all in the judgement.

Happy to hear the Workplace Regulations apply across the UK, though.

SP has been made a scapegoat........everyone seems to feel they can pile up the accusations of every sort of wrong doing and wrong think they can imagine, because they instinctively know that suspending a female nurse for complaining about having to change with a man is plain wrong.

It's like the village stocks........and everyone is just glad it is her and not them as they throw their rotten veg.

Good grief, they can't go around chucking such serious racist allegations around like that! The BBC and TRAs are going to have a field day with that. Appalling.

Mentioning the alleged use of a nasty racist slur - which was never logged, and the dr. against whom it was allegedly used has no recollection of it - is really low.
I know it's JR's job to make the other look bad but surely there are limits, when the allegation has zero proof.
And that SP is homophobic despite having a lesbian daughter, because somebody said she wasn't happy that her daughter is a lesbian - really scraping the barrel of tittle-tattle.

JR is not doing herself any favours raising unsubstantiated made up allegations.

I'll be surprised if Kate Searle is done in a day.

No. I mean pure gossip about Sandie being unhappy her daughter is gay. And bringing those unproven homophobic and racist allegations in the tribunal is disgusting. It's all hearsay. How can it be allowed when the people.who allegedly said this aren't there to be questioned

slowly.

JR now really slow and clearly enunciated. Don't thing Lottie has any awareness that she is probably in the zone of being (informally at least) considered a semi-hostile witness. Lottie still brisk. I imagine she is someone who is always forthright. Because she has shared personal opinions that will upset both sides, at various times, but is not changing her tone or pace. It's all quite confident, whether we may agree with her or not.

Haha she is so straightforward that when the judge told her she was free to leave or stay, it looked for a moment as though she was going to tell him which she chose. 😂

@snickersbarchild re 'true believer'. I think actually this is the kind of forthright expression that would probably be quite common if people were 'allowed' to express their views in everyday life, without being called bigoted. For years, everyone has had to pick a side, it has seemed, so I found it quite refreshing that, although there were things I bristled at, it felt almost admirable that someone was speaking relatively freely about personal opinions.

I remember hearing a legal person somewhere (probably Rumpole) saying "don't ask a question in examination if you don't know the answer already" !!
This probably applies here. Don't dig if you don't know what you may unearth...

I don't understand the point of those questions what are they supposed to achieve. JR asked about them as if they were fact rather than gossip. I'm surprised NC didn't object.

They are not mentioned in the SC judgement, which is why some TRAs appear to think that they can persuade the courts that the SC judgement does not affect these regulations.