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

I viewed JR’s questioning of MC as really odd. I assumed she was trying to filibuster as pps suggested but without thinking through the dangers of getting chromosomes chat laid down as evidence in the Tribunal… which gives NC the opportunity to work this into the case and submissions…. Therefore mention in the judgement? Oh dear. Oh dear.

WTF is JR doing?

Is she secretly GC and trying to tank the entire GI case along with Fife’s? Or is she so fed up losing that she’s decided to get the entire kitchen sink of GI ideas covered and finally laid to rest in this one hearing so she can get back to more mundane cases free of safety concerns?

Unbelievable

We’ll probably find the marvellous Charlotte Elves is an expert!

I'm gutted I'll miss Tuesday morning! Of all the days to have a work meeting. I'll have to spend my Tuesday evening trying to catch up.

@myplace As a Warhammerer I am often on the look out for good scarabs... If they have a store feel free to let me know the details and I can have a look?

Surely that's unprofessional of her to effectively throw the case?

But the bottom line is nobody wants Pete watching them get changed. And the dress doesn't make Beth any different to Pete.

Bit late to the Bee party but wanted to mention Beevive - they make the cutest little 'bee rescue kits' in the form of a neat keyring. You carry it with you always and if you come across 'a sleepy bee' you give it a drop of 'bee revive' liquid and hey presto! the sad, tired bee is restored and flies away. Apparently it's not just sugar-water but something with nutrients. I bought two of these for animal-lovers in my life and they were very pleased. (I have nothing to do with Beevive whatsoever but just thought these made a good-value stocking filler.)

While we're in a lull, I want to thank everyone for the past week's posts and chat. Been glued to my laptop madly refreshing. Especial thanks to Naut, TT, Justabaker, and everyone else involved. ESPECIALLY @BezMills who's been making me laugh out loud at times with the Fifer. Not just funny but sometimes explained nuance and context to me when I would have missed it. PS Bez nice to see a fellow Lego addict, my daughter is one, I currently have the Titanic on my dining room table - unfortunately in two pieces, massive heavy bugger that it is, as it (appropriately) broke in half when I lifted it out of the boot.... I think it must have retained some 'quantum memory' of the actual Titanic.

PD was NHSF’s security person.

JB was SP’s independent forensic IT consultant.

out of curiosity, you trusty vipers, which news sources do you consider as still impartial. Not just on GI issues but in other matters that I know less about. I don’t trust the BBC, Mail, Guardian, or independent to provide fair reporting. I am very conscious of what we discussed previously on the thread about understanding that reporting could be equally skewed on matters I know nothing about. So if I cannot trust the reporting on one area, I shouldn’t trust anything.

I can accept a slant in a political direction, but not outright misrepresentation.

Good question, cat. Once I'd have said the BBC.
Now I just read all the sources. If something pops up, say, in the guardian I have a look at the telegraph to get its take.
Most often, I come to Mumsnet to see if anyone has started a thread on it, because that's where the people who actually know seem to be. I'd love to know who some of the vipers are, who know all the stuff. (Don't tell me!)

Maybe JR intended this would be some sort of ‘but it’s complicated’ nonsense to try to defuse the ‘ooh we cant tell Upton is a man’ idiocy from earlier witlesses without properly considering that NC would be likely to be well informed. And definitely not anticipating the part about bone marrow which obviously isn’t part of the usual transactivists script and which NC may now question. It seems to be evidence of the neutral fact that people can’t change sex. A GC person will believe this but this witness surely knows* it.

(* irresistible, sorry)
…mn markup has trashed the bolding in this

Great poem! I made it into a little song 😂IS

https://www.udio.com/songs/9ZnYmMeADJ7JCcLfwN7KTJ

Does anyone know why NC doesn’t refer to the fact the health board have cleared Sandie of the allegations she was suspended over, during her cross examination of the consultants and nurse managers?
Is it because the tribunal is assessing Sandie’s treatment by her employer and DU and whether their actions were fair and lawful at the time rather than the end result?

Haha you honour me.

Reminds me of my pal from uni who would beat a guy at pool, arm wrestling and pint downing as an ice breaker. She basically declared herself more of a man than any of us, and on these criteria I guess she was.

Bet ye I could have beat her at Warhammer tho, hah!

DH reads everything now he’s retired, he generally finds the Times the least unbalanced.
Obviously it’s a good idea to read a variety of sources and try to remember to apply some judgment - perhaps some of the same criteria which I believe are used for assessing historical sources. E.g. is this first hand, contemporaneous reporting? Is it very much ‘well they would say that wouldn’t they’, or not? If you see a source which is usually biased one way writing something that’s at odds with their usual narrative then it’s generally more likely to be true, I think.

Good point, handing back my "lassie badge" with greatest of respect!

Yes I think he has thought long and hard about this, because he's on the horns of a dilemma.

He doesn't want to give the impression that he's standing there gawping at the women, but neither does he want to give the impression that he thinks he shouldn't be in there.

He can't really have it both ways, though. So he said he turned his back. Why? Why would a 'woman' turn her back for the sake of everybody else. He's admitting that he knew it would make the women less uncomfortable if he turned his back on them.

But, who knows if he did, of course.

Sad times indeed.

I have 2 horsefly bites that have swollen up and so itchy they’ve been driving me crackers despite max dose anti histamines, steroid cream etc. I have found sticking a bag of frozen peas on them helped (other fruit and veg are available).

Hope you’re feeling better.

I’m not sure everyone agrees with the notion of an ‘honorary woman’ but you’re an excellent Staunch Ally.

Oh I love a peaking story. I'm holding out hope for you @Jimmyneutronsforehead that your mum is starting to get at least SOME of the issues that this whole movement causes. I started off slow but now I reckon I'm pretty much hardened to any appeasement to the movement.

I'm going to a wedding this weekend and many of the people there are TRAs but more towards the "be kind" side of things rather than aggressive campaigners. Edinburgh uni lecturers, artists etc. Rockers and Goths. Basically a similar mindset to my team at work. Happily wearing the progress lanyards without deeply thinking about it.

Maybe Kate Searles started off like that then became more militant when meeting DrU. Or was always militant. I'm hoping it doesn't come up at this wedding but if it does I'm definitely going to state my case. I attended a wedding last year with a female they/them at our table with her husband. Clearly and obviously female. The only difference was she was wearing a suit and had short hair. Looked fab, a bit like Kirsten Stewart or Diane Keaton. Like my mum actually who hated dresses and always wore trousers suits to weddings (including ours!) and always had short hair.

The whole premise that somehow not being a feminine fashion type means you aren't your sex is ludicrous. It was her husband I felt sorry for; he actively strained not to once say she or that she was his wife or a mother (they had a baby together so naturally all of us being mothers round the table the chat got on to our wee ones). It was painful to watch him doing tiny pauses and saying "my birthing partner", "their birth was hard". I didn't pander and simply said oh yes it is so hard being a mother these days. He looked terrified but fuck it the whole thing was performative nonsense.

Just got off a stretch of long days after missing both KS Day and JB Day - sad times

I think I’ve caught up

The gist seems to be

KS is very kind
BU is also very kind
KS is a doctor, and therefore trustworthy
By extension - BU is also a doctor and therefore also trustworthy
Pretty sure the implication is nurses are not trustworthy
PD can’t find an explanation for the screenshot inconsistency but is sure BU wouldn’t lead anyone up the garden path
JB uses explanation marks - so his evidence can get in the bin

Nothing to see here!!!

I have never used this and so I don't know how good it is and from first glance seems to skew American, but you could have a look at this site: https://ground.news/

It doesn't bypass the multiple paywalls, but you might be able to find some broader information and biases of sources to find some options worth exploring, including international outlets.

If anyone has used this before and can comment I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

A shame the BBC website continues to be so biased though!

I tend to read about the same event/issue from several sources and the truth will be somewhere in the middle.

@RavenPie
In a nutshell! 😂

What a lovely photo of SP with her daughters and mum 🥰

How pro trans rights do the SNP have to be for her? Most of the senior players have made their support pretty well known. They tried to push gender self ID and were only thwarted by Westminster. Maybe she would be happier in the Greens.