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

There are witness statements. Maya Forstater published hers on the Sex Matters website.

She's probably worried about getting reported to the Society/ police by DU after all this for knowingly allowing a non-criminal incident hate crime or something 🙄

from herald
1:06pm
There is now another row between Jane Russell KC and Naomi Cunningham.
Naomi Cunningham had suggested that Sandie Peggie was 'guilty of heresy' that Dr Upton was "a man".
Ms Russell interjected. She said it was "offensive" of Ms Cunningham to call Dr Upton a man repeatedly.
Ms Russell said she was "concerned to the latitude given to Ms Cunningham to be so offensive in court".
The judge asks what is meant by heresy. He said it is not mentioned in the Equality Act 2010.
He instructs Ms Cunningham to think about it over lunch.
We're now breaking for lunch. Back at 2pm.

Re JR's argument that the SC judgement doesn't apply to changing rooms, the judgement says in the summary of their reasoning:

There are other provisions whose proper functioning requires a biological interpretation of “sex”. These include separate spaces and single-sex services (including changing rooms, hostels and medical services), communal accommodation and others

This is set out in greater detail in paragraphs 210-228 of the judgement. I struggle to see how JR can argue that these paragraphs don't mean what they clearly say.

Finally caught up enough to placemark. Thank you so much to all of you for your hard work - a long time lurker since the beginning.

I can provide no further detail on what case may or may not have been, against an employer I could say nothing either positive or negative about, and who would have nothing positive or negative to say about me.

What I would say to a younger version of myself is that I am glad you, brilliant person, made strong friendships with coworkers whom you corresponded with on a chat service on a personal phone, providing confirmed dates and times for what was said by whom and when, on a system that was not owned by and could not be meddled with by my employer.

Yes, there’s a class spectrum isn’t there? Doctors are seen as above nurses in any case as the professions aren’t both seen as on the same level. Elitism certainly plays into it.

Observing (but while doing other things so not 100% focused on screen. I haven't seen anything much remarkable. Her tone and volume hasn't varied as much as others. My impression is that she has tried to present herself as being self-contained and having worked independently (she said "to the best of my ability"). When she says "I dont agree" to NC her voice is firm but not the clipped hostile tone we heard from KS.

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The hypothesis from JR is that NC's use of pronouns is causing the witnesses to be confused.

If that is the case, then none of the Respondent Witnesses would have he-himmed Dr Upton in their primary evidence with JR.

Unfortunately... it's my recollection that more than one did so. Since they haven't been watching the other witnesses or the news, the only reason someone would he-him Dr Upton under primary examination would be, well something that isn't NC's language.

@MyAmpleSheep but not necessarily for all witnesses.

Joanna Cherry commented on this a while back, saying she found it interesting that NHS Fife had chosen an English barrister to represent them, who clearly hadn’t either read, or properly understood, the SC ruling. Or both I suppose.

Scotland does not generally do witness statements. In English tribunals we hear witnesses being asked routinely whether the signature on the statement is theirs and whether there's anything they need to correct, just after being sworn in. Nothing like that here.

Could the McLoude (lets just assume SIC) have rolled her back to all in the 1995 scheme?

Thank you for the expanded version of what I read on TT which is a bit skeletal.

'The Heresy that so exercised Miss Russell' seems completely acceptable to me - it is obvious that JR is advocating for the side that believes that DrU is a man, and she got 'exercised' and interrupted when NC refused to go along with that belief. or 'creed'.

I really can't see what other interpretation JR or the judge could reasonably have of such an un-offensive statement.

I can understand JR twisting it, but it would be disappointing if the judge did likewise.

Compared to the nasty smears and slanders against SP carried out by JR,
'The Heresy that so exercised Miss Russell' is hardly a blip on the scale of unacceptability.

edited to add that the Herald also see the heresy comment as being about SP/NHSF, not JR
1:06pm
There is now another row between Jane Russell KC and Naomi Cunningham.
Naomi Cunningham had suggested that Sandie Peggie was 'guilty of heresy' that Dr Upton was "a man"

JR has also misgendered her client at times, is she going to say NC confused her?

True. I would be interested to hear more about when witness statements are included. It would be a very strange procedure if the other side had no idea in advance what a witness was going to say in their evidence in chief.

Maybe she has received complaints?

She doesn't need to read it to know it's bigoted

For the first time in my life there are topics that I am nervous about discussing in public - to the extent that I look around to see who is within earshot. One is gender politics (while I think it is a complex issue and people get genuinely upset, I am pretty terf-y) and the other is Israel/Palestine.

Both topics engender (sorry) emotional responses from people on both sides, to the extent that they are unwilling (or even unable) to listen to the other side of the argument, or discuss the situation rationally.

as AG did the internal investigation she would have her own bundle of evidence - perhaps she is referring to that when she says 'bundle'?

I would think so, yes.

How does that work then? She can form an opinion on something without reading it?

I know outsourcing one's thinking to Reddit is popular in some parts, but generally barristers are expected to read the case law.

i don’t think that’s quite true. I think those of us who are a bit teeny are more than happy to discuss the other side, it’s just that the other side has no argument except to call us evil bigots so…

The SC clarifies what the law has always been. But Upton didn’t have a GCR and Lady Dorian’s ruling in the InnerHouse Court of Session was prior to these events (and Corbett vCorbett dates back to the 1970s) so it was clear at the time that he should not be in the F CR.