NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #38

[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
Thread 37: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378200-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-37

I just as shocked by the lack of concern for a nurse who has spent 30 years working in the same hospital. These days few people work for that long in any organisation.

KS trusts Upton because he is a doctor, but she can only have known him for a few months. On the other hand a nurse's record counts for nothing.

We had a junior doctor resign form our trust last year because she was refused leave FOR HER OWN WEDDING that she requested 6 months before her rotation ( that’s the earliest you can give notice) . Female no special feelz so management did not give a shit.

BBC good food (sorry..) has a good recipe for marrow and ginger jam.
Nhsf couldn't possibly have hoped that releasing an extra 1000 documents all at once would have effectively hidden the smoking gun email, like a needle in a haystack, could they? I've seen it in a film once.

I could be wrong, however on previous performance of this peak performer, she may have imperceptibly narrowed her eyes. Her inner shout of triumph won’t have made itself visible in any way.

Unless she chose in that moment to turn to the judges to make triumphant eye contact. But I doubt it.

Imperceptible eye narrowing at most allied with imperceptible nose flare. By imperceptible, I mean ‘imperceptible unless replayed slowly for micro expressions we’d otherwise miss’!

My take on it is its still missing hence KS comment when NC questioned about the start of the email trail "you couldn't prove it."

I wonder if Fife are prepared to allow IT to throw all of them under the bus.

I agree on this one. I have been making it for years and adore it on toast.

Here to ask people more knowledgeable than me to PLEASE add points to the talk page of this wiki page at least

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Peggie_v_NHS_Fife

In a month or twos time, this will be the TOP google result for people searching

It's really important it accurately reflects what has happened in this case

Right now it is very very biased, please try!

@Totallygripped Junior doctor rotations are normally 3 or 4 months, sometimes 6 months. They can also spend a short time doing tasters of other specialties, although I thought these were a couple of weeks, not Upton's 4 week secondment in anaesthetics. So I'm actually confused about why he was returning to a&e after anaesthetics and not going off elsewhere.

Reading between the lines, I don’t think KS liked SP before the events involving DU.

KS said she worked with SP for a while, like over a decade? So to treat SP this harshly with zero concern or desire to discipline her fairly, just shows she was likely already angling to boot her out.

Somebody else suggested this earlier, but it seems likely to me that KS bore a grudge against SP from before these incidents (perhaps years of SP not Fangirling KS enough or bowing / scraping low enough for the Great Doctor) and then this exploded into rage when DU first mentioned that SP hadn’t “engaged” in the F CR - and even more rage when SP engaged too much or in an unacceptable way.

We regularly go to a cafe that does an amazing olive oil zucchini cake. I don't have a recipe but that's what I'd Google.

Sorry but in the nicest way possible, the status is of this Wikipedia article in-situ is not important in the grand scheme. The tribunal is ongoing. The tribunal decision will ultimately lead to that entire article being rewritten with the conclusion in mind?

So what’s the point of rewriting that article and batting back and forth between whoever else is editing it on Wikipedia now with a biased view? Just seems like a waste of energy.

plus doesn’t it fall into the current events template where you put a disclaimer about fast changing events and inaccuracies? Just do that. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Current_event_templates

It's been said that there's a lot of classism involved. Dr U was a young fragrant upper, and an actual doctor, and Nurse P was a hoidenish lower, an ageing nurse who dared to not know her place.

Aside from all the "stunning and brave" shit, obvs.

I am watching... and I can't help thinking that our JR seems to be doing the most odd things at particularly 'tense' moments (moments that are looking bad for NHS Fife, I mean). She has a good line in waving around her water bottle ,,, and in taking out big white hankies for a nose dab, from a box conspicuously positioned at the front of her desk.
Just me thinking this??

I noticed that yesterday too!

She has a highlighter that she likes to use too, but I never see her tapping away like Naomi does.

Maybe show knows there's naff all to be done about it all

Got tea sorted for tonight!! Quick pasta bake.. any signs of it starting yet?

Morning all, just wanted to thank @nauticant for the new thread, and apologise for my part in feeding the look-at-me. Didn’t see it coming and, as I put my 3y/o back to bed last night for the 1000th time while she shouted “I just want to tell you something” (she didn’t) I was struck by the resemblance.

It’s a really important forum, in the context of employment rights, fairness, mutual respect and all the rest of it, especially when outlets like the BBC seem too scared to report fairly/ transparently. Let’s protect that.

Plus the Fifer gives me life @BezMills . Keep thinking about that awfae laddie in a galaxy far far awa’. 🤣

KS's I'm a doctor and im trustworthy statements remind me of the old POTC quote: you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest, honestly. It's the honest men you've got to watch out for.

The more I think about the missing email the more bemused I am.
I’ve had to supply information for FOIs before, quite simple, FOI person requests info, I supply, she adds that to any other relevant info and sends the whole lot off.

I simply can’t understand why there wouldn’t be someone in higher management, probably legal, who is tasked with managing requests from court and ensuring compliance, who would gather all information requested and send it in.

It seems mad that they would leave this to individuals to send in whatever they had in any old haphazard way. That said it shouldn’t have been difficult for individuals - if I was involved in something like an ongoing disciplinary or whatever I’d have an email folder for it and it would be straightforward to supply everything in that folder without doing a search for anything relevant.

Then there is the issue of the missing email. Can it be that the secret six really communicated and agreed to delete the particular one in the thread? It’s not just the conspiracy aspect but I would guarantee at least one person would get in a muddle and delete the wrong one unless someone was breathing down their neck supervising.

Isn’t it more likely that someone higher up checked over what was being supplied and deleted the relevant email? But then if that happened one would expect the witness in the dock to explain that they supplied all emails to the higher up person and can’t account for what was eventually supplied.
So that would seem to rule out that option.

It also seems bizarre that the court/NC’s team would receive 6 versions of the same email chain supplied by six cc’d individuals rather than just the one from the lead person. They must have tons of identical stuff to wade through.

It’s all bonkers. But perhaps it will become more clear today or when the forensic IT guy gets to say his piece.

Because things being put on the TALK page rather than the article will inform that ongoing rewrite and will inform people who have no opinion on gender a better way of making an informed and unbiased article, thats why

Right now it just quotes Pink News

Adding items onto the talk page so this can be written properly, is really key and people here know it best

Otherwise in 6 months everyone will forget all these details

There is one thing that's been bothering me about all this. At heart, this tribunal is about something very simple: NHS Fife broke the law by allowing a man into the women's changing room. IANAL of course, but in NC"s place I think I'd be inclined to hammer this point over and over again by asking each witness why they broke the law.

All the stuff about Sandie's allegedly racist views, or whether poor Dr Upton was vulnerable, or whether Sandie was a bit mean to him, or whether gender-critical people are bad, bad people is largely beside the point. Ultimately, a bunch of senior people at NHS Fife broke the law and should be held to account for it.

She goes a lovely beetroot colour every now and then too. Might be a menopausal flush, but I think it happens when she swallows a scream.

And is it right that posting a bit of irrelevance among the on-topic material trips up the bots that are trying to scrape the thread?
That's our story, Not, and we're sticking to it😏