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

I don’t think there will be an appeal because it would need NHS Fife to agree and I doubt very much they would.

Rather, I think she is cooking up DUs own ET against NHS Fife.

I think she is getting it in the neck from DU that she is letting the misgendering go and I would imagine some of the other witnesses have complained to her about it.

I think she is trying to set a precedent whereby when it comes to DUs very own ET where he can play C rather than R (ie victim) the J allocated to that case won’t allow opposing counsel to ‘misgender’.

She will use the argument sge is building here — clear evidence that it confused witnesses, although clearly it is her interventions that are causing confusion.

You can imagine DU in noises off — yes I would love to bring my own ET but I would need a barrister who wouldn’t allow misgendering.’

"JR - I notice the witness is getting confused with pronouns [reads from bar standards benchbook] says u should use pronouns that are preferred. I say NC constant misgendering is creating a hostile environment and witnesses not used to hearing DU"

Interesting, I can't find "pronouns" or "preferred" anywhere in the 180 page handbook.

https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/static/de77ead9-9400-4c9d-bef91353ca9e5345/8b0c7d6b-749b-4252-b8809bf9dd94206c/BSB-Handbook-Version-48.pdf

I’m sorry for her because of what in my opinion is her extreme emotional involvement. MN likes to call it “limerence”, though I think I prefer “infatuation”.

It has paralysed her professionalism and common sense.

They need to be re-named "trans-aggressions", using the new 5 letter word for "not-at-all".

I was wondering.

This is MF's witness statement to the tribunal:
https://sex-matters.org/posts/other-resources/witness-statement-of-maya-forstater-in-sandie-peggie-v-nhs-fife-and-dr-elizabeth-upton/

It has the most comprehensive statement of truth I've ever seen, on the last page. It might be worth checking on TT if she was asked to affirm its contents or not.

My thoughts from this morning:

Firstly, it's amazing how quickly the witnesses demeanour changes once NC starts challenging them. When JR Was taking AG through her evidence. I initially thought she was coming off fairly well but NC is very quickly pulling out all the issues.

There are a couple of things where it definitely seems that evidence hasn't been provided. For example, on the letter that Sandie says she never received, AG said that she would have received an email from her admin team confirming it had been sent out. So where is that email?

Additionally, NC picked very well at where AG initially said she had used a teams message to contact someone and then rapidly corrected herself to a teams call. And see looking to ask the trust for evidence that this call took place and AG rapidly became more confused about when it could have happened.

Finally, JR and the judge were right to pull NC up at the end there. Just like JR. NC is skirting the lines to push the best case possible for her client. It wasn't appropriate to refer to JR as Being exercised about her heresy but I did like the dig!

You can't at this stage. Permission had to be requested by July 9th at the latest.

there was a comment yesterday about KS being in love with DU and I didn’t really buy into it at that point but now tbh I really see where it came from. Cos it’s highly unusual

I don’t think there will be an appeal because it would need NHS Fife to agree and I doubt very much they would.

I don't think there will be one either; but she's paving the way for the possibility. It will be her client's decision (if they lose) and not hers so she's keeping the door open for them.

My recollection is the benchbook was changed some time ago to say that there are circs where using the pronouns referring to biological sex is appropriate in court.
Maybe JR's copy is out of date?

It’s ‘McCloud ‘
https://nhsbsa.nhs.uk/public-service-pensions-remedy-mccloud/making-your-decision-about-your-nhs-pension-benefits/nhs-pensions-mccloud-remedy-benefits-illustrator#:~:text=If%20you're%20a%20member,the%20Cost%20Claim%20Back%20Scheme.

All these letters to SP should've been sent recorded delivery. I hope they weren't chucking them in the 2nd class post like they do with patient letters!

To me the most remarkable part of that mess was that AG was happily giving her testimony, sometimes obeying the law of preferred pronouns and sometimes speaking more naturally, as the words came to her, and JR intervened and gave the message to AG that the proper way for a witness to give testimony was to obey the law of preferred pronouns, and after that AG seemed to noticeably be more hesitant as she was self-consciously self-policing.

This is absolutely mind-bending. Alongside all the other mind-bending things, something had to break the camels back.

Who knew that this would be the thing that broke my camel.

Well but it is obiter in regards to changing rooms and single sex spaces, isn’t it, as it wasn’t an issue in that case. So JR is going to argue (correctly) that it is not binding authority on the point, and the ET is going to say (also correctly) well perhaps not but it is pretty bloody persuasive isn’t it, seeing as it is the Supreme Court, and we are persuaded and applying their obiter guidance.

And then when Fife lose, as they will, one of their grounds of appeal will be that the ET wrongly took fWS as authority and the CA will refuse permission on that ground.

It is all very predictable. But you can’t blame JR for running it as it is really all she’s got.

The poor camels have been carting cabers about, to be fair. Lots of them, poor beasts.

I see your point but don’t quite agree. I don’t think she thinks there is any likelihood of continuing representation of NHS Fife or the possibility of appeal but she will take it as a win if she can prevent ‘misgendering’ being allowed. Now and more importantly for her in future

It's already been said above that the witness statements in Scotland's ET are taken only from expert witnesses, of which MF was one. At the beginning of witness testimony I recall hearing. as an observer, the J explain that the witness had no need to repeat what they said in their statement as everyone had read and accepted it as if it had been read out just prior to the examination that was about to begin.

Yes, the point is that a lawyer working for a client will want to say "but potentially it isn't all over because I've managed to open the door to this" when handing over news of a defeat.

Perhaps TT didn't transcribe that bit. JR refers to the Bench Book giving an exception in the case of eg assault, but JR then says that of course DU is not accused of assault. So JR says that 'correct' preferred references should be used in this case

'Cllr D Graham, Non-Executive Director, noted that whist elected local councillors are able to email the Board’s generic email account for queries, responses can take a considerable period of time and can result in multiple councillors chasing the same issue. It was noted that timely response and turnaround of such communication would help manage the issue. Cllr Graham also offered his support, as the Council’s spokesperson for Health & Social Care, in assisting with ongoing communication to his Council colleagues, which was welcomed by the Board.'

Graham was also spokesperson for Health and Social Care. These are from NHS Fife's board minutes in July 2023.

https://www.nhsfife.org/about-us/nhs-fife-board/

(Graham convicted today of paedophilia)

I know I'm 2hrs behind but WTAF!
I couldn't just scroll on by

Friends in high places right enough

Equal Treatment Bench Book was changed to stop using preferred pronouns in sex crime cases.

Archived Telegraph article here.

archive.is/aIAkU

Someone possibly already elaborated - in the last thread @BugsyMaroon had a post about it. I think probably page 39 towards the bottom from memory. It's got the photo montage of Sandie - 5 photos from the last week.

It's all on p194/5

"Witnesses should never be compelled to use the trans person’s preferred pronouns."

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ETBB-July-2024-May-2025-update.pdf