NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #40

[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
Thread 39: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5378747-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-39

That Alex Massie article now has more than 400 comments, that is a lot for a comment in the Scotland section.

NC questions about AG not passing enquiry on to someone else, given that she knew she'd be on hols for a long time.
Lack of urgency.

If this is true, I'm reminded of a colleague who decided to start transition while working on an elderly dementia ward. He made a big fuss and complained about patients misgendering him. They already knew him as male and they had dementia! Thankfully he eventually fucked off somewhere else.

This witness is a millimetre away from ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t she?

from herald
11:36am
Ms Glancey is asked whether there was no urgency until the employment tribunal had been floated.
She said she can "assure" everyone that her priority was to investigate the matter as quickly as possible.
11:34am
Dr Upton told Ms Glancey they had no previous incidents in the workplace but Ms Cunningham said these allegations from Ms Peggie "flatly contradicts" that statement - wouldn't it have been appropriate to investigate this?
Ms Glancey reaffirms that she believed she was only there to investigate the incidents from Christmas eve.
11:33am
Allegations about Dr Upton's previous conduct were not raised with the doctor by investigators.
Ms Peggie put "evidence that Dr Upton was a known troublemaker and bully" - why didn't you investigate this, Ms Cunningham asks.
Ms Russell interjects. She says this is not a true portrayal.
Having seen these allegations in the context of possibly "career ending allegations against Sandie Peggie" wouldn't it have been fair to look into these concerns about Dr Upton?
Ms Glancey said: "I think I was fair to Ms Peggie".
She says she was asked to determine the incidents of Christmas eve. She was not there to investigate previous incidents.
11:29am
Ms Cunningham suggests that Ms Glancey did not ask to see the phone notes because she was worried and anxious to challenge Dr Upton.
She said no.
Did Ms Glancey feel that Dr Upton was a "very important person who had to be appeased" and therefore felt she had to take Dr Upton's word?
I don't agree with that, Ms Glancey said.
11:27am
Ms Cunningham said is it not the case that the best evidence you could get from Dr Upton is what they had logged on their phone immediately after the incident.
Ms Glancey said that on reflection in "may have helped" but she said that it was a personal phone and she did not think it was relevant.
11:25am
Employment Judge Sandy Kemp is back in the room and Naomi Cunningham is beginning her cross examination of Angela Glancey.
Dr Upton told Ms Glancey during interview she had logged notes of the incidents in her phone.
Ms Glancey said she had to be able to see them.
Mentions of the phone notes were not logged. Ms Glancey said this was an "oversight".
Ms Cunningham asks why not given these potentially "contemporaneous" notes were quite important.
Ms Glancey said se thought what was important is what had actually happened during the incidents.

Fife Harassment Policy, I believe.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead That's designed to intimidate you, telling you to know your place and not try to take it further. Fortunately JRs fund would now be available to help you. I'm so sorry, mumsnet neds a care emoticon.

Misgendering

TT 1125
AG - Then told me about instances from notes
NC - So that mention of those notes didn't make into notes. U made no record in the interview?
AG - No
NC - why? Important detail? He had notes on phone SP had behaved badly to him
AG - what he told me was info I took

The thing is, employers by law don’t have to carry out every possible reasonable step. So in your head you might be tallying up all this unfair treatment as a strong case, whereas the tribunal just needs to be satisfied that the employer did the bare minimum to reject it. Therefore I wouldn’t confidently say any ongoing employment tribunal is open and shut. Just because an employer can do something, doesn’t mean they have to.

😱 how much worse can it get?

Appalonia could she apply for the JKR suing fund? That is dreadful!

Yes. That too!

Peggie cannot ultimately lose this, no chance. If anything an insane lower Tribunal decision would just mean more sunlight and precedents at appeal.

Bloody hell!

Anyone have a rough idea yet of when a judgement might be expected?

Remind me, was it AG who received the statement from the secret-witness-who-was-afraid-of-SP that KS was so keen to talk about?

Get your prounons right! Bigot!

NC - Truth is the Board was determined to punish DP for saying no to DU?
AG - no NC - Reason for delay was u couldn't decide which charges to lay against SP, due to poor evidence?
AG - no

This movement constantly, constantly show exacty who they are.

When even the captured legal system starts believing them, how long will it take for the penny to drop?

If NC allowed me to make a long statement in my own defence and then paused for a while during cross-exam, I would die of nervous strain there and then at the thought of what might be coming my way

Agreed. SP had asked her managers on different occasions from August 2023. When she got nowhere she said to ED that she’d “say something herself”. ED said in evidence that she didn’t comment on that statement- really she was obliged at that point to tell SP how to make a formal complaint but didn’t. So just like KS gave tacit approval to use the CR, ED did the same with SP - imo

Role at Fife NHS shown here: www.fife.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/323327/Cllr-D-Graham-Register-of-Interests.pdf

NC - Move on to the patient care allegations. These were discussed by HR on 3rd Jan. Known about by board. Page 32

Thank you. I bought a card yesterday for SP, but I've not written in it yet. I don't want to burden her with the details but I do want to think of a message that let's her know many of us have skin in this game and she is extremely brave and represents so many people. There must be so many people saying to her "oh but it never happens", but it does happen, it's happened to her, it's happened to me, it's happened to so many people on these threads. She's doing what I couldn't do, and I'm extremely grateful to her.

I usually hedge my bets on these Tribunals. In this case, if there are multiverses and this played out in every one of them, Sandie would win in every one.

I really cannot see how she couldn't.