NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #39

[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: 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
Thread 38: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378463-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-38

Yes. Any assertion such as this must be provable by evidence supplied in the bundle(s).

JR - additional docs bundle 1703 - won't have seen, this is outcome of conduct hearing. Says whilst i find o conclusive evidence, satisfied caused distress, as a RN would expect for you to deescalate and suggest training which should be submitted to RNC for revalidation
JR - more thoughts?
KS - reflects what I said about taking through proper channels
J - we're done

Boswell has a good observation. “Whatever [the tribunal’s] final ruling, today’s testimony revealed this much: the facts didn’t support the punishment the story did.”

I had the impression earlier that witnesses got to see the bundle in advance - is that not so? I suppose there is an awful lot of it, so even if they do, KS might easily have missed Rhianna's statement.

It was interesting that JR didn't seem to know there was a transcript of the February part of the hearing, too. I wonder if not mentioning that (even though transcription had clearly been discussed in arranging that the stenographers would be in place this time) was tactical, or just accidental?

Yes. And was raised with DU in his questioning I believe.

It was astonishing as the tears came out of nowhere. It wasn't that she was being harassed by NC's cross-examination she just burst into tears & was led out of the room by Lady Russell holding hands. I still don't understand if she was truly triggered into floods of tears by the name of an HCA.
KS claimed not to remember when she had the alleged conversation where the HCA said she didn't want to get involved because she was mixed race. If the conversation took place it was grossly inappropriate & could be seen as an attempt to interfere with a witness. It wasn't clear why the HCA being mixed race meat she didn't want to get involved in the case. She was involved in the case as she gave a witness statement to AG. One interpretation is that she was frightened to contradict Dr Upton as she was lowly mixed race HCA & she could see how the whole department was fawning over Upton & persecutig Sandie Peggie.

Maybe I'm more like SP but I'm not a sobber at all and think the last time I cried was probably about five years ago. It doesn't mean I don't get deeply upset, just that the tears don't come. If I was up in court I'd likely come across as cold and hard but hopefully being in court won't be part of my future.

Apologies if already asked and answered many times but I gathered from posts re sending cards that SP has returned to work; same department. Backbone of steel. And don't know if she is taking time off at the mo but hopefully not sitting through this garbage in the day and then going in to do her 12 hour night shift. Also wondering just HOW Darlington Rose has completely passed me by. I read broadsheets of different perspectives, glance at red top sites...Just how??

NHS Fife senior team haven’t a clue what’s going on

NC team have paid for the transcriptions. JR believes she has a right to them if used in questioning. For the sake of time J agrees she does do they break to provide her with the relevant section.

I'm wondering if tomorrow's HR person will be this one - source Daily Record.

"The tribunal also heard an HR worker described the fact Ms Peggie was spending shifts at home while on suspension as “ludicrous”.
An email from another HR worker, responding to Ms Jorgensen, said: “I reiterated that we have no evidence that she left the patient, that would only be her perception Dr Upton]. The nurse hasn’t even been asked about it yet. In all the years in A&E the nurse has never had any concerns.
“It was ludicrous to have a nurse at home two night shifts a week.”"

That was interesting. I assume that NC got permission to have the recording of the hearing automatically transcribed when they got permission to have the stenographers, so there would be a copy of the whole thing.

Also interesting that SP's team paid for this and so aren't obliged to share it with anyone - although agreed to do so presumably to avoid claims of foul play

In the fictionalised version of this tribunal, sexed-up to ensure viewing figures, surely the fictionalised KS figure will turn out to have been having an affair with thefictionalised BU figure. Trouble is, making that plausible on screen will require really careful casting of the BU figure, and some considerable departure from real life. Any ideas?

"it is clear that KS had sought out Rhianna without knowing she had given a statement that will be in the bundle, told her SP is racist and stirred up coals that were not there previously."

This is almost correct but from my recollection:

In the story KS told today she said that in relation to Sandie refusing to speak to DU in the A&E, an unnamed care worker had witnessed thiis but had told KS that she didn't want to be involved in the investigation, and that the reason for this was that she, the care worker is mixed race, and that she was afraid of the implications because she knows Sandie is racist.

We have no evidence that the events happened (this is the first time the court has heard this story and KS can't remember when it happened) and no suggestion that Kate told Rhianna that SP is racist.

But what we followers of TT already knew was that the careworker was Rhianna because Rhianna has given a witness statement to Angela Glancy that supported Sandie's version of events.

This was the only story that Upton told that has a witness. How on earth did Jane Russell not notice this before encouraging Kate Searle to bring this story to the tribunal?

It seems like gross incompetence on JR's part - though how would I know, IANAL just someone who reread Tribunal Tweets before joining as an observer of Part 2.

I've done a day in coroner's court being criticised and it was obvious that crying would have been a waste of my time.

A portal into another universe is what I really needed.

This is very worrying!!

I think that NC is showing respect to the panel’s ability to infer and fill those gaps themselves if they feel the need.

I had wondered that - but the "I don't want to get involved" could also be that she thought KS was a shit-stirrer and wanted to keep out of her way? There are loads of reasons why anyone would want to avoid being involved in a tribunal

I thought NHS Fife would be a hard core crew. Instead they have doctors who cry at the slightest thing and who need to be walked to their car. Hope someone walked KS to her car given that’s their modus operandi.

Thank god the nurses are more hard core.

I thought the subject of Upton being referred to as a man was clarified and OK’d in the February sessions?

I'm curious, for those watching, has anything made you now see Upton as a woman or made you think Sandie was wrong to feel intimated by him?
I'm not seeing it in real time so wondered if I'm missing some revelations from the evidence?

You are as long as it is not a substantive reporting of the evidence as TT and Herald are doing — you need permission to do that.

This is what peaked me back in Part 1 of this hearing.
Feeling so cheated by the press coverage - that the left-leaning media have colluded to keep the truth from everyone. Until you are aware of the double meanings, you have no idea. Once you know, you can't unsee it

That was me. I've worked with many of these types of senior people, they throw their weight around like bulls in a china shop and many of the people around them say nothing to them as they don't want to get trampled by the bull.

They think this means everyone agrees with them but everyone quite openly hates them and will very happy to see them pulled down. It's very hard to do this though and that can be extremely damaging to organisations to let these bullies dominate the culture. They sit in place for years with the dysfunction around them causing failure, turnover and poor performance.

I'm retiring shortly after 30 plus years in HR and I'm going to start writing publicly about this as it's not really dealt with in any useful way that I've seen.

I doubt many at Fife will have any genuine sympathy.

KS is setting her credibility, and possibly her career, on fire for this mediocre man, and it is absolutely unbelievable. Maybe it’s a form of Stockholm syndrome?