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

Upton wouldn’t have liked her waiting outside either though, would he?

I would have thought any half decent person faced with someone in the throes of a menstrual flood would have left as soon as they could if asked, even if they had a perfect right to be there. Why did he prolong it?

I believe there is some internal policy that says if you are having a problem with a colleague then the first port of call is to talk to them.

She had also raised it with her LM twice, been given the bum’s rush and tested the idea of the fact that she might have to raise it with him directly if nothing further from managers. She was not told not to do this.

200 women using that space were not informed or consulted. No research has been done about anything. No RA. training and activism had set up a chilling environment where very few were willing to say anything.

She was left on her own. his suggestion to take it further was disingenuous — both knew if she did she would get in trouble. We know now that he would have made sure of it.

She wasn’t doing anything other than trying to have an honest conversation with him about her discomfort in the hope he might have some sympathy for her. He had none. She couldn’t have known that in advance.

He could have left at anytime but chose to stay.

There is a thing called Himpathy which we are all conditioned to adopt and which is masked by this paradigm of ‘professionalism’.

All evidence and your point of view
stems from the conditioning to be himpathetic.

She has a right to change in a single sex space. She is allowed to try and discuss her discomfort with the colleague.

He could have left at anytime time. He has recorded precious occurrences where her behaviour made him wonder what was going on — he could have offered to have a chat with her before the Xmas encounter rather than just noting down her behaviour.

But your himpathy only comes up with one course of action that you feel is her responsibility to have taken.

But Dr. Upton was still in there! Sandie thought he was starting to get undressed. She had to keep going until he left.

Like previous post I agree Sandie wasn't perfect, but it's too high a bar to expect someone to be perfect. She was calm and polite.

I also don't agree with repeating yourself to be harassment as it's a standard assertiveness technique not harassment.

Incidentally I don't trust Dr. Upton's account to be accurate as shown today he has lied / exaggerated elsewhere.

And having done that, and been told he didn’t want to discuss it, and to raise it with their employer she kept going.

And he could have quite simply left the changing room at that point, but oh no it is all down to the woman, as ever, to do the hard graft, always the woman who should have said something different, used a different tone, behaved differently.

Just stop with the sexist, misogynistic double standards.

I'll be interested to hear Michael Foran's take on this later.

I thought the suggestion of professional misconduct from JR was really appalling.

I think she didn't tell him about the menstrual flooding, but did tell him about a previous experience of sexual assault.

I don't think there is anything that she could have said that wouldn't have offended him, because it all centred on her refusal to agree that he is a woman.

As you point out, if even leaving the room is offensive, what do you say?

Yes and she didn’t want NC and CE time to arm their guns! [sic]

so just cos he said he didn’t want to discuss it, she should have made herself uncomfortable and been off the busy ward for longer. Of course he didn’t want to discuss it. She was calling him out on his bad behaviour. He is a nasty bully.

I think he said he’s not doing one tonight. He does deserve a break, sadly.

CE was great again today. When NC takes a well earned holiday, she's good cover.

Didn’t DU say there was no way Sandie could have expressed her discomfort that would have been ok? He was upset when she walked out, he was upset when she confronted him. He wanted nothing less than fawning capitulation.

I've just had a notification that he is live. I will catch up when I go for a walk later. I had really better do some work 😬

JR’s scrutiny of JB has influenced my username. I review for a number of bodies. But interrogating my use of interrobangs or shorthand of ! As I go through something wouldn’t land well with me. I’ll often do it as a note to check up on a timeline or the appropriateness of a citation.

And her style reminded me of the Interrupton (?) image that Boiled (?) did.

It’s not about misogyny or double standards, two people can get it wrong in the same situation. He absolutely should have left - shouldn’t have been there in the first place. On a purely pragmatic level he wasn’t going to leave and she couldn’t force him, so continuing to try and have a conversation that he was clear he wasn’t going to engage in just prolonged his presence there.

If she'd mentioned menstruation that probably would have triggered him as something he could never experience thus undermining his womanhood. She was on a hiding to nothing.

Yes, I hope the earlier finish gives him more time to do a livestream!

So what the fuck should she have done? Do you really think he’d have got out of there any quicker if she’d done anything else?

Ooh thanks!

Just stop with the sexist, misogynistic double standards.

Agreed this happened to me once when I was assertive and someone (not there) blamed me from "going about it wrong".

Thankfully I had a (male) senior manager who backed me saying, no if you are assertive sometimes people will flip.

Again Sandie's long history and experience counts for nothing. She must have pretty good interpersonal skills working as an A&E nurse.

She was also prepared to say at her hearing, I can't find the quote but basically she wasn't perfect but she was calm and polite, didn't mention rapist etc and so she wasn't harassing Dr. Upton she was doing her best in difficult circumstances.

Again someone I would want to work with as ages clearly got a decent self awareness too.

I don’t understand the comment saying Sandie in the cr was not her finest moment. I kind of think it like she had unwelcome witness in the changing room and compare it to the situation of if someone were to enter the cr on FaceTime. The way I would have handled that probably would have been the same as SP, in fact I might have pointed out the other persons selfishness.

It’s the fact that a trans person is involved that makes everyone immediately go into ‘oh no have to be permissive & polite’ mode. You can be assertive at work without it being harassment or bullying.

@Jellycatspyjamas It was not a massively extended conversation since Upton was able to run all around the department (while no-one noted any distress) then find a consultant about to leave to go on call that he could cry on. He was between Sandie and the door so he could leave, more difficult for her to do so. If he felt it was not the time or place or he had to do was stand up and leave.

initially it seems he was changing while Sandy had her back to him. He chose to stay and talk to her.

I wonder if part of the long private session the other day was taken up with argument over NC bringing in JB's evidence.

And JR fought that really hard. Because it shows more than her client 'just' embellishing/revising/making up 'contemporaneous' notes in the course of an internal disciplinary investigation.

JB's evidence is that DU may have gone further than that and doctored screenshots submitted to PD in May part way through a live court case.

Tampering with evidence in those circumstances is a whole new shitshow.

Having read every thread, TT and article posted here and elswhere since this Tribunal started, I can't point to anything JR has done which I would say was good, skilled, legal argument.
Her behaviour today, suggesting that Sandie Peggie's legal team paid an IT expert to cobble up false evidence for a bung, was quite appalling.

Does anyone know who the witnesses are to be on Monday? And which side called them?

It’s possible to support SP and her action - she’s been treated appallingly - while also recognising that her approach to him wasn’t great.

None of us actually know precisely what or how SP confronted BU ie his contemporaneous 😉 notes imply he repeatedly told her to leave it, but it may have easily been that she said so just once or twice. My DC used to claim that I was yelling at them if I raised my voice slightly because that made for a better story. I wouldn’t be surprised if BU exaggerated SPs comments. We do know that he admitted SP never actually named Isla Bryson so clearly a degree of interpretation is going on.