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

'I don't want to get involved' can mean many things though.

KS has taken it to mean the speaker is scared of a racist (despite acknowledging she barely knew who Sandie was)

Another interpretation is 'please keep me out of your madness'

Well well well - Katie Katie Katie.

I only read here intermittently- but I’d say Kate really cooked the goose today.

1. She embellished the datix - lied 🤥
2. She said she didn’t speak to Lottie - one of those classic she lied or she lied situations
3. Said again on record she didn’t give permission to Upton hang about with his pants in the laydees…. - so again he said/ she said on that. What I think JR did in clearing that up at the end with KS was to say Fife didn’t give permission to use changing room and that Dr Upton did it of his own accord? Either way more unreliable testimony.
4. The HCA used as a prop for Searle’s I’m kind to the poor ‘mixed’ people and Sandy is scary to them set piece. This was horrific because Searle didn’t give a rats toe about that individual. Searle came across as someone using that individual’s race as a way to persecute Sandie for crimes against a man. She didn’t care if the woman had been racially abused. She chased her and pressured her to back Upton. The HCA gave clear evidence to an investigation, and Fife and Uptons lawyers decided not to call her - guess why…. her evidence was never going to back up the false narrative Upton has been making up.

There is more - but Kate has told more lies than anyone - the Datix embellishment was damning in my opinion. If you can’t be trusted to tell the truth on the hospital incident reporting system- then how can you be trusted at all?

Or please don’t ask me to lie for you and DU, because I won’t do it.

Sorry if you've seen me mention it before, but NHS Scotland Bullying and Harassment Policy says

"Speak to the person to inform them that their behaviour is unacceptable"

Sandy was following the fucking policy, even if she hasn't read it.

As well as it being a rather urgent situation she found herself in "oh no I'm bleeding I need privacy, I'll write to the Board 🙄"

Utter bollocks again from NHS Fife.

workforce.nhs.scot/supporting-documents/guide/bullying-and-harassment-policy-guide-for-employee-complainants/

She also said that because she isn't a geneticist all that XX YY mullarkey was above her paygrade as a mere ED consultant[I'm paraphrasing wildly].
That was pretty damaging too!

I've given evidence to an NMC disciplinary hearing (not mine!) and was basically accused by the RCN representative of lying and embellishing (I wasn't). Can't say bursting into tears would have helped, but I didn't really consider it.

Bez, thanks for your Fife commentary today. As a Fifer in exile, I found it hilarious.

Sharing one of my favourite, quixotic attempts to shape a different understanding of Stockholm Syndrome

What is Stockholm Syndrome? The bizarre story behind a problematic diagnosis | The Independent

"Few realize that ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is a term that was foisted on a woman by a male psychiatrist who had never met her after a Swedish bank heist worthy of a movie. Fifty years after the hostage situation that gave the syndrome its name, Sheila Flynn reports on how minds have changed — and how police may have avoided criticism by pathologizing a victim"

Mr Wade believes that Stockholm Syndrome is rooted in institutionalized attitudes and inequalities that have persisted for centuries.
“These practices of implanting pathologies in the minds, brains and bodies of oppressed people, they’re inherent to what we might call colonialism, patriatchy, different forms of racism, different forms of violence and oppression,” he says. “So this is not sort of an accidental or uncommon problematic way of thinking; rather, it is endemic.”
And he adds, concerningly, that he believes “it’s larger-scale now than it ever has been.”

Archive version: https://archive.is/lon1B

Yes indeed. I was not convinced that LM was telling the truth. I think she knew the email from KS was out and KS was burnt and so she used her as a vehicle to lever herself into a better position.

I didn’t believe that having just told a senior consultant they would be culpable if such serious patient care issues hadn’t been reported and that the senior consultant didn’t say anything in response. Nor did LM follow up or take notes. Not really plausible.

KS seems to think LM irrelevant to her engagement, like a lower caste individual invisible to her.

She would have bloody remembered such a person questioning her and would have come with better prepared lies than ‘I don’t recall’.

KS tears bcos she has several difficulties to negociate:
failure of disclosure; collusion; she spoke with witness Rihanna about the case & may be under pressure from the rest of the secret seven to add the racism hearsay.

Ah but she is a doctor.

Just to clarify - 'LM' is CM - Charlotte.
'LM' is also used for 'line manager'

The tears came when she realised that her statement that the witness was not going to get involved could actually be checked. It was also clearly false as the witness had made a statement and it didnt support Upton. So she was exposed as a liar who was trying to nobble a witness. I doubt she realised quite how serious that was. Perverting the course of justice is actually a criminal offence and I wonder if anyone will now be asking the Scottish Police to investigate.

JR is not supposed to coach the witnesses.
She is allowed to lead the witness through different questions to guide their answers.
If they go rogue and give answers which don't favour her client NHSF - like quite a few witnesses have done already - then she resorts to gathering hearsay and tittle tattle. Because she doesn't seem to have anything else to justify this blatant witch hunt and abandoning of due process.

Very good points.

Why would they talk to SP? There’s no virtue signalling to be had there, the only way they can burnish their handmaiden credentials is by worshipping the man pretending to be a woman.

That sounds like a nightmare!

Crumbs. It sounds like some surrealist invention from a Jorge L Borges short story.

I wouldn't make a judgement about what any other woman should find intimidating or not. So Sandie doesn't come into it for me, other than knowing she had every right to complain.

However, seeing Upton in court did not make me think for a second that he passes as a woman.

Seeing how Kate (most of all) and several other witnesses (to a lesser degree) both fawned over him and recited TWAW as if they were making a pledge - that was scary and brings home how widespread and dangerous the situation is.

Also, HEARING everyone misgender him at some point, and in particular hearing Kate Searle misgender him in very short order after she realised one of his lies (he said she instructed him to use F CR, which she disputes) - that brought home to me that the widespread fawning is due to #BeKind I think, and not due to really considering him a woman in the way he describes. And if he stops deserving kindness, well, he loses a bit of his token womaninity!

My bet would be that Kate Searle is reeling right now, and will be a mixture of furious and confused and feeling extremely foolish for a long time. I doubt she really does still have faith in DU but she has come so far down the line, she has to keep that part of her story straight to try to retain at least some credibility, I think.

Just wondering how much Sandie has been condemned for her calm (professional) demeanour (and perhaps her reputation as a tough cookie) vs Dr Upton's tears and apparent vulnerability.

If she'd been sobbing and wailing to Lauren or Esther or whoever about there being a man in the changing room and it was so upsetting and triggering, etc etc, would there have been a different outcome? Or would she still have been considered guilty of a transphobic hate crime?

One general point that strikes me is that NHSF have been continually criticised for not having a policy on this, or a procedure for that... But I would have thought that most of these policies (on trans staff, and much else) could/should be issued nationally by the NHS. Does each Health Trust really have responsibility for sorting its own policies and procedures? Does the NHS need to be a bit more Stalinist and centralised?

From Twitter / x

‘I honestly think that Dr Searle is unfit for practice. I would not trust her to be able to treat any vulnerable individual. She is both incompetent in her administration from evidence but also sinister in her deeply malicious & malevolent nature. She cannot be trusted.’

@NoBinturongsHereMate wouldn't it be exciting to have a steno machine with piano notes attached, maybe played in court every time they note JR's interruptions to tell us more of Sandie's character failings?

Love this, and loving all your contributions Bez, they’ve been a welcome laugh out loud, and a distraction from my constant ‘wtaf did KS just say?’ moments!

I found this great tweet by someone I follow on X which really sums up the situation:

"How did our society get so fucked up that a woman is sexually harassed at work by a colleague & not only do they not punish him, they punish her, tell him he can continue to sexually harass other women & to make sure none of them complain they make things up to make an example of her & encourage him to report her to police for not welcoming his sexual harassment."