NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #37

[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
Thread 36 mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378031-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-36

I really wonder how much of it is malice and how much incompetence, when it comes to the failures in disclosure. I'm expecting Big Sond and The Paunel to get into the weeds here. I am quite sure they take a very dim view of people mugging them off. Unfortunately for those that do, they have ample tools to make their displeasure felt, aka the FAFO stick.

Vietnamese and Japanese chicken sexers can determine the sex of a hatchling by gently squeezing it.

There are NHS consultants who could do with a training session with them to rediscover what they once knew about sex as a binary.

Nonetheless, I am confident that the regulators are so captured that there will be no detriments to Pitt or Searle or any of the senior nurses for all the self praise about their integrity and trustworthiness.

It is extremely serious. It is up to the tribunal, but it could lead to a requirement for additional searches, or they could decide to draw adverse inferences from the non-disclosure. It could even lead to Fife's defence being struck out.

Non-disclosure can be considered contempt of court, but that would have to be referred to another court to determine any penalties.

And to be fair, there has been a lot of rather persistent unintentional ridiculousness today. It may be a blessing that I haven't had the opportunity to use 😂 like a great big meanie. 😞

I’ve been thinking about this.

“Engagement” in a changing room is very different for men. Male pattern behaviour in rugby and football changing rooms (I’m told - husband and son, male friends) and probably hockey changing rooms is lots of naked men, banter, walking around with your bits on show and sharing showers, chatting about the game whilst soaping your ball sack. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to embrace cubicles, privacy and showing as little flesh as possible. dignity and privacy is a whole different ball (no pun intended) game.

Women just don’t engage in changing rooms other than perhaps when you’re clean and dressed and drying your hair.

What do you mean by their defence being struck out? The tribunal would collapse and would have to start all over again?

It has changed

But didn't it already happen once? NC discovered the smoking gun email earlier this year, which is why there was a hiatus in the tribunal?

Thanks for all these threads, I can’t keep up with them but I’ve been dipping in as much as possible. Two things have come to mind.

Firstly, the media coverage is bad for my blood pressure. The BBC is hopelessly captured and will never report on this in a way that might risk putting SP in a favourable light. They don’t want the whole house of cards to come tumbling down. They worship at the altar of gender.

Secondly, why are NHS Fife trying so hard to smear SP’s character? I don’t get it. Do we only allow women the single-sex spaces they’re legally entitled to if they are lovely delicate flowers who wouldn’t say boo to a goose? And tell the women we suspect of being racist or homophobic or just generally unpleasant (based on unfounded rumours and spiteful tittle-tattle), that they cannot enjoy these privileges?

Either all women, good and bad, are entitled to change their period blood-soaked scrubs in peace away from males, for the sake of their dignity and privacy, or no women are. Trashing Sandie’s character looks pretty desperate and underhand to me.

She is a warrior. ❤️

And yes, as NC said to KS, the honesty of a doctor would be a matter of interest to her regulatory body the GMC.

Ah -- so you think part of DrU's problem is that he expected women to act more like that, and less like women?

"Why can't a woman
Be more like a man?"
and all that?

I agree with your assessment. From the questions the judge has asked, I think he sees what went down.

I hope that, at this point, he is making a list, like the one in the Edi Rape Crisis Centre case did.

Recommendations for making sure every bloody DEI lead and personnel.manager in the NHS go on a re-education programme to remind them ofbthe law regarding women's rights.

And I don't know if it is within his power, but recommendations that certain individuals be investigated by the relevant regulatory bodies for their collusion in a stitch-up of an innocent health-care professional.

It's the trans smear package isn't it?

GCs are racist homophobic right wing bigots.

It's all got to be adhered to slavishly.

If the defence is struck out, the case is over. Fife lose. But we don't really want them to lose this way. We want SP to get a proper judgement in her favour, not win because Fife failed to disclose stuff which would allow TRAs to argue that she would have lost if only Fife had disclosed properly.

Regarding the Re: email and non-disclosure, does anyone know whether the issue is just that all 6 individuals on the thread failed to disclose the initial email for the first tribunal? Or is the implication that there is yet another undisclosed email?

No more like the idea of women in his head, pillow fights and tampon swapping and makeup tips.

Surely some of the behaviour (KS?) is bordering on the criminal?

Obviously. It'll happen again. How many versions have they had now of Friday's magnum opus?

'Bams Were At It' would be a marvellous headline.

Sorry for the double quote but i'm confused.

If it is clear that there was an email exchange that wasn't produced in discovery (although am still a little unclear if that email exchange has now been shared and what it atually says)why have the R's called the IT guy as witness. Does proving the email chain wasn't severed help the fact that 6 poeple didn't proffer up in discovery - not really I think. Or are the R's calling him so they can get a narrative in ahead of NC? Or do the R's think they've discovered a SP smoking gun, or could it be something else entirely..

KS's belief she can outmanoeuvre NC reminds me of one of the academics in Peoneix v OU, who was under the impression he was in his own lecture theatre rather than a courtroom and was there to educate the judge.

That went similarly well.

Does a chicken have a gender identity?

Yes, it did. The judge won't be happy about Fife's continued failure to comply with their disclosure obligations.

The Information Commissioner is on their case anyway so he's not going to let it lie.

Do you think Fife is playing some crazy long game and trying to make this happen? So that the proper judgement doesn't happen and they and TRAs can claim they lost only because of that?