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

The BBC Scotland News at 6pm might be of interest.
If only to see Mr Borthwick and I must say I like the cut of his jib!

Its mostly balanced as it does refer to evidence tampering in a round about way.

Link only works until 7pm on Sat. About 18 mins in.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002g9sk

Biased reporting
Cherry picked facts laid down in a way to not report acurately

Ive made a complaint to the bbc

Hmmm, it's not unusual to describe appearance in a psychiatrist / mental health assessment but one once noted I "wore no make-up". Maybe this was from the same Tiffany 🤷‍♀️

The phone has not been examined, and it won't be examined now. Despite previously agreeing to hand it over for forensic examination, Upton has not done so, and the tribunal isn't going to order him to do so. They can, however, draw negative inferences from Upton's behaviour, although the evidence from the mobile phone forensics expert is already very negative for Upton and Fife. There is no point in taking it further. SP's team already have enough. The evidence today shows that Upton is an unreliable witness.

That's what I thought but I really wasn't sure.

Makes me wonder if Mr Swinney has peeked and realises he needs to get this sorted.

I agree with the main point about him being able to leave and the onus was not on her as I’ve replied before at length. I Just like to point out that SP testified that she spoke calmly and so did DU. I find it hugely problematic that even on here and after all we have discovered about his unreliability everyone takes his word for it. She was not aggressive, heated or intimidating. It’s all lies on his part and the himpathy is doing my head in.

According to Sandy he was undressing and she hoped to engage in a calm discussion to try and explain why that made her feel uncomfortable. Entirely reasonable,. He didn’t stop undressing, he carried on, showed her no sympathy or empathy and left when it suited him to do so.

I believe you are a lawyer? If you don't mind me asking, I've just watched Michael Foran's video about today's proceedings and I was wondering, will there be any kind of consequences for Dr. Upton? It seems pretty certain he deliberately altered evidence to back up his case.

She is a TRA. Her complaint is that the SNP has capitulated on trans rights.

From Twitter/X, a fine football analogy.

"Would it be inappropriate to say “He’s lost the changing room”"

It could result in a larger damages award to SP. In terms of direct punishment for Upton, that is up to the tribunal. People lie in civil cases all the time and mostly all that happens if they are found out is that they lose their case.

Someone on one of the previous threads mentioned Fraser J (as he was) referring two of the witnesses to the police. That wasn't for lying in the Bates vs Post Office trial. That was because he thought they had perjured themselves in criminal cases. There were other witnesses of whom he said he wouldn't believe any of their evidence unless it was supported by contemporaneous documentary evidence. No legal action has been taken against them.

It is possible the GMC might do something. They are supposed to take a dim view of doctors lying on oath.

I can't see the GMC doing anything as Upton is great at crying and saying he's a victim. He'd probably chuck in the term 'mental health' as another shield.
However, I hope Sandie wins substantially more as he's clearly lied to the court in relation to his evidence (as well as who he is).

Just watched this and it’s a much more balanced view. Plus I get to fangirl at JKB

Isn’t she the one who invited Flowjob the drag queen to story time at a nursery school!
She’ll be sadly missed…..not

NHS Fife have been played like a fiddle by him. All those women, following the be kind mantra have fallen for a fanciful sob story that has unraveled over the past week. I hope they feel that pandering to one person’s feelings has been worth losing their reputations for and for becoming the laughing stock of the internet.

He truly deserves some recognition after the BBC article basically slandered him with their disingenuous cherry picking.

I can imagine it's bad for business having your name dragged in mud and made out like he had doctored the images himself in order to frame Upton.

I agree that perhaps there's some claim that his own added statements were not exactly in the most professional manner but it doesn't negate the good and honest work he has done as a forensic specialist.

BBC reporting Scotland at 6.30 have actually been fairly balanced in their reporting each day.
Must have more editorial autonomy but also the Herald and Scotsman, the 2 main newspapers, are reporting live each day so I guess bbc in Scotland can’t really ignore it

That's a good point, and shows the importance of local press, all to often disappearing nowadays.

I understood his only added statements in the report that weren’t explaining the facts were

!!!!

It’s been an eye opener for me how dishonest the bbc has been in its reporting tonight. In thrall to not offending its own activist staff plus having to walk back its stance on GI matters is not inviting I guess.

My mum came blackberry picking with us today. I've talked about my mum in the past, but I don't expect anyone to remember me or what I've said about her.

When it was just her and I she raised me with strong secular and feminist values, and then she had my brother, and my brother matured, and became an emotionally vulnerable adult who happened to get into a relationship with a he/him who regularly swaps to a they/them and back to a she/her faster than you can blink. I think my mum sees my brothers vulnerability and has thus adopted the pseudoscience of gender ideology as fact and her professional position makes her feel like a bit of an authority on the topic too.

In the first part of the tribunal we were at loggerheads, to the point where I would leave if she brought it up.

Today though, out blackberry picking, I brought up the doctored notes and the discrepancy between SPs and DUs statements about the state of undress of DU and my flabbers were ghasted when she stopped me and said "hang on a tick... isn't this meant to be a single sex provision?!"

My mum who for the past 15 years has been a be kind mantra touting trans rights activist might be peaking.

It's early days, I can't know for sure, but I know this case has already peaked her mother, my grandmother, whom I live with.

I dont know, maybe I'm clutching at a slither of hope but it feels like for a long time my mum has seen through the fanciful sob stories and is starting to see the damage. I think she might also be realising that this could have professional ramifications for her and she's extremely work proud.

Anyway, that blackberry crumble we made today was probably the best blackberry crumble we have ever made together for quite a few reasons.

I don’t mean bbc Scotland btw, I haven’t seen their coverage. I mean the main bbc website.

"Re" - what to do about wikipedia - pp somewhere in the mists of the last day or so.

It appears captured, annoying & difficult to make edits stick bcos gate keeping TRA's revert changes.

I suggest useful & important first steps:

Sign up for an account (vital). Gets various useful facilities & your first tentative steps may be encouraged, wikipedia likes to see itself as helpful.

sharpen your claws PRACTICE on non controversial pages rather than wandering into a combat zone

Always give sources for your updates; always tick the 'add to my watch list', so you get notified about the next unread change.

Get an idea of what the combat zones are like by examining the History & Talk pages for high profile pages eg FWS, Kellie J, JKR

People give reasons for their stances, which are often abbreviated to quoting policy name, look at some of them to get an idea of what they are on about eg WP:NPOV, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources, but dont try to read everything, its like trying to follow a noisy thread like this one, but with less recipes & chickens.

The above is a lot, but highly recommended if you want to join the community of editors do battle.

She says she wants to work for The Good Law project.

Really nobody cares she’s not renewed her SNP membership (she stood down from being an MP a while back). She’s trying to drum up ticket sales for her Fringe show in August. One can infer, borrowing all the legalese I’m learning here, that not enough tix have been selling.

Interesting.

Realistically it will be reputationaly damaging that will be the worst consequence for him?

No matter what the outcome, to everyone other than the TRA cabal he will forever be the doctor who doctored evidence. It will follow him like that cloud of dirt followed PigPen in Snoopy. His professional options will be more limited because of that damage and because no one will want to risk having to give evidence at any future ETs he might spark. 😁

Mhairi Black is a TRA who called women voicing concerns over the GRR bill 'Jeremy Hunts'.

This would have included the women unfortunate enough to have her as their elected representative.