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

Where and when? Was this something that went unrecorded by Tribunal Tweets? Or is this the hotel discount thing?

I hope the first question is “ So Dr Searle can you explain why you didn’t release the email that 1.4 m people on twitter have now seen?”

Funnily enough, the law protects bigots and zealots alike. We don’t reserve justice for people we agree with on all counts, or deny it from those we disagree with on all counts.
Slinging those you disagree with to the wolves is not an enlightened approach.

😂

I don't think they have brought them up - time yet - the focus this week has been on the bullying and the discreditation of Sandie.

Which is almost beyond belief. And so many managers who seem to think 1 man has more rights than 200 women.

It’s in tribunal tweets- that’s where I read it. It was way back in Feb.

Did she agree that women need single sex spaces really though? I think her testimony was that DU was a woman so no problem.

She was also of the mindset that it’s ok because no one else complained.

Both just as bad positions to take as all the others. She might have expressed the view that others have a right to their opinions but none of her actions support that other than she doesn’t seemed to have fully signed up to the witch hunt.

But that only appears to be the case based on how she is describing trying to conclude the suspension. I don’t think she cared about the witch hunt or she would have done something more after KS couldn’t stand up the accusations of racism. When KS said nothing in reply to being told she might be culpable for not reporting it at the time what did LM do? Nothing. She still used the accusations to bolster the need for supervision for SP’s return to work and supervision was discretionary not standard practice.

The idea that this would somehow protect SP from further bogus accusations is hokum. Supervision is for a relatively short period of time and would do nothing to prevent such as, and this is the kicker, they were made up not actual.

LM ended the suspension because she knew that. She knew therefore that they did not have a legal leg to stand on and was trying to play both sides — placate SP whilst using the suspension supervision to mollify DU.

It’s definitely a reasonable strategy but does not demonstrate any interest in resolving the core issue SP has brought to their attention.

LM could have said, for example, this won’t go away until we as a management team really face the issue of the impact of self id on single sex spaces and how they impact women.

Totally agree!

When one of our resident TRAs joins a thread like this, it's an obvious attention grab and attempt to derail.

Mind you since they have nothing really to say other than "big mean Sandie", they'll soon get left behind in the conversation, especially since it moves so fast when we're discussing what's been reported from the tribunal anyway

Morning

Has it ever been confirmed that NHS Fife have assumed liability for all compensation awarded should Sandie win even if the tribunal attributes a separate amount to Upton as a respondent or could Upton be personally liable?

A derail? lol. Because you were all discussing how her attitudes were irrelevant and there’s no evidence to support them? And I came on to simply explain the reason they are very obviously relevant and evidence to support them? 🤔 And because I don’t agree with you I must be on this thread “for attention”?

Also no “TRA” here. Just a feminist who doesn’t support bigotry.

By happy coincidence I have today off work!

I really struggle to see how Peggie could return to work at this hospital, the behaviour of some of her colleagues has been dreadful.

Good morning.

I need to get through my to-do list in the next two hours, don't I?

So do good pure women deserve single sex spaces? Obviously bigots don't but if you are a nice, kind lady who happens to not want to see a strangers cock should you get privacy and dignity or can you only be nice enough if you are happy to get your tits out for the lads?

I think there is, or rather was, a way out for DrU. DrU could claim he followed policy as he understood it and as supported by his manager’s.

He acted as though he believed he was permitted in the changing room.

What undermined him is the professional misconduct allegations.

I have to agree with this. I back SP's position to the hilt but the witnesses are real people, under massive amounts of stress, who presumably were doing what they thought was the right thing at the time. It's not a TV drama and these are not Bad People who are there to be ripped to shreds. It's an employment tribunal and should be treated as the legal process it is.

I don’t think they are so much going rogue as making things up as they go along, in the absence of any guidance (despite paying people to provide guidance).

They all defer to Isla Bumba, but she just copies and pastes other people’s policies, and doesn’t have a correct understanding of which legislation is relevant. She seems to give advice in an ad hoc way. They conclude that Dr Upton has a right to use the women’s changing room, but they don’t seem to formally communicate this to other CR users, and don’t consider whether this has any impact on them.

All despite this being a political issue that has been rumbling in the back ground throughout 2023 and contributed to the resignation of the first minister.

JR is apparently going to argue that sex has a different meaning in H&S legislation, but from evidence so far, NHS Fife was blissfully unaware of H&S legislation in 23/24.

Its odd that, from CM’s evidence, KS wasn’t even aware that she and Dr Upton had a duty to report safety concerns as soon as she became aware of them.

I would have thought that skills required in medicine translate to skills that enable critical thinking in other areas - but maybe brains just run out of thinking capacity? (I’m aware that some might think this analysis is overly sympathetic).

Even if that is true, it tells us nothing about her views on gender issues. She may not have thought about the subject, or it may be that other areas of policy are more important to her than gender issues. I have known candidates for all parties who disagreed strongly with some of their party's policies.

Also he didn’t check policy before he started using the changing rooms iirc - he just started using them and informed someone (KS?) once he’d been doing it a while I think.

the reason her attitudes were raised is to show the fact that she wasn’t really intimidated- this isn’t about “privacy” at all. She bullied DU over a period of time. That particular evening she took an opportunity when they were alone in the changer to confront and harass her. Because she’s a bigot who doesn’t like trans people.

oooohhhh! Let the political tribalist narrow-minded bs begin. Trump drinks water.

Do you drink water, Tandora?

If Trump is against animal cruelty, will you automatically be in favour of it, out of spite?

She bullied DU over a period of time.

Did she? There would need to be evidence of that. And there hasn't been any so far

I would profoundly disagree with her support for Trump while agreeing with everything she is known to have said about Dr Upton. Dr Upton is male. Nobody's politics are relevant to that. How could they be?

Let's not get derailed here.

Males are "different" to females. That's why we have female only spaces. The "difference" is that women are vulnerable.

The fact that she waited respectfully for him to get dressed and then she'd enter later shows there was zero harassment on her side. The harassment was all on his side, DEMANDING a women covered in menstrual blood, get naked in front of him, and reported her for waiting respectfully outside the room. He is a bigot, a bully, and a predator who harassed a very vulnerable female.

I see the ploppers are plopping early today 🙄