NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #43

[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 had been intended to be 28 July with 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing was to have ended on 30 July. However, it became apparent as the hearing progressed that this schedule wouldn't be followed.

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 #40 can be found in this thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379334-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-41 24 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 42: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379820-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-42 25 July 2025 to 25 July 2025

Witnesses in the hearing so far with skeleton chronology:

Monday, 3 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Wedneday, 5 February 2025
Sandie Peggie
Maya Forstater
Darren Peggie (Sandie Peggie's husband)
Nicole Peggie (Sandie Peggie's daughter)

Thursday, 6 February 2025
a row about disclosure particularly over BMA documents
Sheila Bell (Sandie Peggie's mum)
Beth Upton

Friday, 7 February 2025
very late start, massive row over disclosure, agreed that Beth Upton would start giving evidence on Monday

Monday 10 February 2025
Beth Upton

Tuesday 11 February 2025
Beth Upton
collapse of public access

Wednesday 12 February 2025
Beth Upton

Thursday 13 February 2025
Esther Davidson

Friday 14 February 2025
Esther Davidson

a break of many months

Wednesday 16 July 2025
Isla Bumba

Thursday 17 July 2025
Gillian Malone

Friday 18 July 2025
Elspeth Pitt
Louise Curran
the omnishambles ending provided by the statement from NHS Fife

Monday 21 July 2025
a late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Lottie Myles

Tuesday 22 July 2025
another late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Kate Searle

Wednesday 23 July 2025
another late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Lauren Harris
Kate Searle

Thursday 24 July 2025
Angela Glancy
during AG's testimony there was a row over NC's entitlement to use correct-sex pronouns
Ann Hamilton (scheduled but might change)

Friday 25 July 2025
Peter Donaldson
Jim Borwick
Maggie Currer

This is a list of Abbreviations used by Tribunal Tweets and has been taken from their substack

Claimant, respondents, counsel, members of the court

C/SP - Claimant, Sandy Peggie
NC - Naomi Cunningham, C’s barrister
MG - Margaret Gribbons, C’s solicitor
R/Board - first respondent, Fife Health Board
R2/DU - second respondent, Dr B Upton
Rs – first and second respondents
JR - Jane Russell, KC, barrister for respondents
AW - Adam Watson, solicitor for respondents
J - Employment Judge Alexander Kemp
ET - Employment Tribunal
P1, P2 - additional panel members; CM Russell, L Brown

Witnesses/Frequently Referenced Personnel of NHS Fife

MF - Maya Forstater, CEO of Sex Matters
DP - Darren Peggie, Claimant's husband
NP - Nicole Peggie, Claimant's daughter
SB - Sheila Bell, Claimant's mother
ED - Esther Davidson, SP’s line manager
IB – Isla Bumba, NHS Fife Equality and Diversity Lead Officer
KS - Kate Searle, A&E consultant
SF - Stuart Fraser, SP’s RCN Rep
AG - Angela Glancy, headed up in SP investigation
VV – Vic Valentine, Equality Network

Abbreviations for frequently used terms (not exhaustive)

AE - Accident & emergency department
B&H - bullying and harassment
CR - changing room
CX – complaint
DX - disciplinary procedure or process
FtP - fitness to practice
GC /SR: gender critical or sex realists. Belief that biological sex is important, immutable and different from gender identity
GI – Gender identity is a person's internal sense of their own gender, which may or may not align with their birth sex.
HI - hate incident
HR - Human Rights
IX - investigation
PCP - provision, criteria or practice is a rule, policy, or practice that can put people at a disadvantage based on certain characteristics. The term is used in employment law to assess whether an employer's actions create different outcomes for employees based on their characteristics.
SocMed - social media
SM - Sex Matters
TM – transman (person born female who claims a male gender identity)
TMAM - transmen are men
TW – Transwoman (person born male who claims a female gender identity)
TWAW - transwomen are women
OfS - Once for Scotland
EA - Equality Act 2010
PC - protected characteristic; 9 under EA
RA - risk assessment

Because it was an organisational decision that he could use the changing room, and that wasn’t going to be resolved at midnight so getting into a discussion with him wasn’t going to change him being there and just prolonged her standing there dripping with blood.

So what was she supposed to do? Get changed in front of him? Leave the room? How are either of these options acceptable?

Thankyou for the new thread @nauticant. Catching up .... Now I'm confused. Does this mean MC wont be cross-examined? Or did I miss it?

Because it was an organisational decision that he could use the changing room,

Which no one had bothered to communicate to the nurses using the room.

Tuesday. NC will get her go.

If you aren't supposed to challenge a rule/law break at the time it's happening and directly impacting upon you, when are you supposed to do it?

I’m assuming she did indeed wait until he left.

While it’s a complete nonsense he was there at all, their joint employer said he could change there, so taking it up with him was never going to work.

Its the same as any accommodation made for an employee, I may deeply disagree with it but my conflict is with my employer, not the person availing themselves of that accommodation.

Anyone who has been following this will be aware of the incredible work Tribunal Tweets have been doing, especially after livestreaming was ended for most of the observers. Added to this, it seems they've managed the fight the corner for continuing public access very effectively.

For anyone looking to provide financial assistance to a group involved in this clash between women's rights and gender ideology, Tribunal Tweets would be a good cause. As far as I know the way to do that is to subscribe to their Substack, I don't think that one-off donations can be made. If I'm wrong on that, please correct me.

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/

I will have to review SP evidence but in DU notes he also states that SP told him she has issues with men due to bad experiences.
in the #bekind world shouldn’t he have withdrawn from the CR at that point?

I missed the very end, are they resuming Monday or Tuesday?

Thank you Nauti.

It was an organisational decision that the hurty feelz of one man mattered more than the dignity of 200 women.

Just that alone is indefensible. Never mind all the other stuff that's indefensible.

So MC has a whole weekend to stew over what NC might ask.
No wonder JR wanted to get it rushed through this afternoon, especially when the judge had already said that he wanted to finish early.

But she had already taken it up with her employer and hadn’t yet addressed it with DU.
As per the NHS Fife policy to resolve with colleagues in first instance. I understand your POV but don’t agree with it that it becomes harassment

Its the same as any accommodation made for an employee, I may deeply disagree with it but my conflict is with my employer, not the person availing themselves of that accommodation.

But she had already tried her manager and got nowhere, so what was she supposed to do?
Cross post, sorry

Well if she'd wanted that she shouldn't have filibustered. It's on JR.

The argument that she was wrong to raise an issue with DU directly in the CR is largely and further undercut by NHSFife's own guidelines for staff on dealing with bullying and harassment which says the very first thing a staff member should do is raise the issue directly with the harasser.

NHS Harassment Policy states if being harassed

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

That's what Sandie did. Also there was no actual policy r.e. trans and changing rooms.

Also, the organisation cannot make a decision which goes against the Workplace Regulations 1992 Act. That's not new legislation. They would have been aware of it, no matter how much they choose to claim they didn't. They had no right to claim that that was an organisational decision.

Whether they told him he could be there or not - he knows he's a man. He knew that he shouldn't have been there, even if a craven organisation had rolled out the red carpet.

Probably been covered, I’m a bit behind, but did SP know on Xmas Eve that DU had their employers permission?

no one told the nurses and SPs line manager hadn’t got back to her.

I also don't agree that it having a one to one discussion would never work. I'm sure Sandie has dealt with issues before.

Sandie seems to have reasonably thought that her colleague would understand her discomfort, especially mentioning her past trauma, would not want to cause this and that they could come to an arrangement that suited both of them.

Remember that Dr. Upton at no point could be said to "pass" as a woman at this early point in transition.

That's partly what is so sad about the case, that Sandie clearly had enough respect to Dr. Upton to speak directly and honestly and it massively blew back. She's someone I would want to work with.

Note I'm not saying everything Sandie may have said was absolutely perfect. That's too high a bar to expect, but repeating a statement isn't harassment it's just being assertive.

I’m assuming she did indeed wait until he left.

So your suggestion is that she either waits in the changing room or in the corridor, dripping blood. Presumably while Dr Upton takes notes?

Can you not see that she tried to avoid conflict and took steps to avoid Dr Upton in the changing room, until the point when she was stuck?

And having done that, and been told he didn’t want to discuss it, and to raise it with their employer she kept going. We don’t always deal with things well under stress, and in this case I don’t think she deal with it well in the moment, which is understandable given the circumstances.

In most places I’ve worked it would have resulted in a “not your finest moment” chat - certainly not the shit show that followed, which is wholly about how ridiculous the trans discourse has become in Scotland.

Some of the posts re harassment seem to be a gnat's chuff away from calling her a nag, shrill, and other misogynistic terms. Implying she should be the nice little woman and put up with it and not stand her ground.