NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #36

[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
Thread 35: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377598-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-35

I typed out a response to your question here but the thread was already full:

Out of interest what do you perceive to be the difference between being GC and being transphobic? How can I voice my sex realist beliefs without tipping over into transphobia? If I want to challenge a man/TW using the female changing room at work, how can I do this without being accused of transphobia? NC asked this Q several times and has never managed to get an answer.

Happy to discuss if still of interest or leave if the discussion has moved on.

Hello, officer? I'd like to report that a woman doesn't want me to sexually harass her.

To be fair, Scotland has always had a separate legal system from England and Wales.

I'm doing chess, I know how to play but am hopeless at it.

I presume KS wouldn't be happy with Dr U in the consultants's CR as Dr U wasn't a consultant.

But what if Dr U had identified as a consultant? (Or is that absolutely not allowed????)

Fifer : regairdless ae the richts n wrangs, Dr Searle's stood richt up fur her neebor Dr Upton. If it seems a bit Drs vs Nurses, it's probably because it is a bit li' 'at ken.

The first rule ae Neebor Club : Ye deh leave yer neebor wi thir erse hingin oot in the wind.

Why should we feel for Dr Upton being a spoilt brat compared with Sandie Peggie who has had to deal with tough situations all her life?

Like seriously.

He's going to need to know how to deal with any member of the public, genuinely being aggressive rather than an experience nurse just saying 'no'.

Didn't you see Bez's description of NC: sphinx-like.

Panoptic. Omniscient. Focused. Relentless. Illimitable.
Descended from the Celtic warrior named Cuinneagáin Do-corraitheach - Cunningham Who Will Not Be Stirred to Anger.

😆

In my experience Datix actually take bloody ages to fill in. It's a major disincentive to reporting incidents.

Indeed (ex Scottish lawyer here) but England and Wales is not the UK. The poster understood the comment.

She claimed to have consulted EHRC guidance. Post-Haldane, EHRC made submissions to Parliament and the SC that the GRA should be disapplied to EA 2010 because a two-tier GRC system was unworkable. But the previous guidance was still in place - wording exemplified below:

• There are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can prevent, limit or modify trans people’s access to the service. This is allowed under the Act. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate or not.
• When considering how your service is provided to trans people, you must balance the impact on all service users ....

(Obviously this is for service providers, so only relevant by analogy.)

This doesn't let them off the hook, because of their many failures when handling the complaint against SP.

But I hope the ET can also consider:

Did they balance the impact on other users?

Did they hold a consultation/do an impact assessment/seek legal advice re sex-discrimination?

When someone complained, was it really appropriate to respond with a highly public witch-hunt pour encourager les autres?

It occured to me that the implied racism comment by KS was not so much a slur against SP, but as much a comment on those she imagines that support her. You know, the old chestnut that if you are a 'hateful transphobe' then you must also be a racist and fascist too.

This is certainly of interest to me, though I feel it deserves its own thread.

Yes, interesting and worth its own thread.

May I ask, whenever JR mentions SP supposedly bringing up Isla Bryson, why does NC not interject to remind the tribunal that she never did & that DU himself admitted IB was never actually named?

Agree.

@NannyMcSpareMe I agree, its always that way that; disciplinaries are pre-decided behind doors by colleagues, everyone discusses it, if it nursevsDr nurses are thrown under the bus, and if you don’t have even a union rep to back you, you are looking for a new job. It’s fascinating to see the rock lifted and all the worms underneath.

Will it affect the Tribunal if it was only SD complaining and not the 199 other women? Cos i keep reading they offered SP another place to get changed but not Dr U and it baffles me that they would not say to him we have 200 female staff that have to change here so we need to find you somewhere separate but safe..

Yeah but then she heard Sting was in the middle of a tantric session so it would take them too long to come.

[Sorry, I really tried to leave that alone but I just couldn't]

He definitely needs to build up resilience as he if he is going to cry each time someone says ‘my son’, he or whatever, he will be walked to his car every shift. A&E late at night with a few drunks is not always the most PC of places.

What happens when patients complain about him? Is he going to say that they are transphobic so they have complained or will he say sorry that was the wrong treatment I handed out?

I imagine she will bring that up in her closing submissions. She may think that interrupting every time would annoy the judge

Very much this. It uses the same logic as the Omnicause. I've never heard a TRA say "You know, I disagree with JKR/Maya/Helen Joyce/Allison Bailey on trans, but they're actually pretty good on other issues." No, you deviate from the party line and you must be all the istaphobes, and if there's no evidence they'll invent some.

Oh i didn’t mean I feel for him at all! Sorry my post was probably unclear. I just wanted to say an and e nurses can be quite the shock to privileged entitled brats used to fawning. Particularly female ones like my tiny ones as it’s so unexpected that they behave in ways these entitled brats really don’t expect from women especially. No deferring and automatic compliance.