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

Not sure it's diversionary, I wonder if JR is going for the Grand Slam TRA win here. It's extremely unlikely to succeed, but she doesn't have any better options...

1 - By MC's testimony, biological sex is incredibly complicated with many variations. It is literally impossible for anyone to reliably identify a man or women by their outward appearance. A highly qualified doctor cannot do this, so a mere nurse certainly cannot.

2 - SP's opinion that DU was a man and shouldn't be in women's CR therefore wasn't rational or reasonable. However, because of the Forstater EAT SP is unfortunately allowed to hold these primitive, obviously false beliefs, and to express them in a respectful & appropriate manner.

3 - The incident in the women's CR was not respectful or appropriate. It was a wild, bigoted attack, by an ignorant fanatic who imagines she knows better than all the scientists & doctors. SP cannot be permitted to confront random women and demand that they prove compliance to her absurd & irrational concept of human biology.

I think it's extremely unlikely that the ET panel will buy this logic, and absolutely certain that it would be overturned on appeal if they did. But in the short-term It would be a famous & celebrated victory in TRAworld, because it would entirely neuter the SC judgment.

My guess is that JR has nothing left except this Death-or-Glory play. The whole defence case should be understood as a collateral attack on the FWS ruling.

If the staff at NHS Fife really can't tell the difference between men and women, that means they should scrap single-sex changing rooms, altogether, right? Is that what they'll say next week? I'm thinking not.

Haha! Yeah, I think the Lassie Badge was more of an honourific than an administrative thing!

I've been bitten by ladybirds, but don't really remember the sensation. My mum has been bitten by a ground beetle and said it was quite sore.

It had scant coverage. There are contemporaneous threads 😀 on FWR.

Rachel Meade is yet another example of the high cost of winning. I don’t even recall if SWE carried out the recommended training.

My husband got bitten by an assassin beetle (Australia) on the testicles. One of those situations where you feel immense sympathy in between laughing hysterically.

Bit of a sidetrack but the mention of BMA here got me wondering - has the question yet been answered, of when DU first contacted the BMA and what advice he was given?

Hopefully Big Sond and the two panel members will remember that they are human beings who have spent their whole lives correctly sexing other human beings.

Hope your noo referring to my spelling
Every post should come with a disclaimer!

Interesting thread on X. The IT forensics witness was cut short re DU shopping list. It mentions aluminium mesh. X is alluding to a connection with cannabis use? The IT guy allegedly commented on DUs interesting hobby. I think he used the shopping list as a reference re the odd date problems seen in the notes app, to check that the “glitch” wasn’t restricted to his incidents notes. NC cut him short apparently but maybe it was a planned move to introduce drug use by the back door.

Help - does anyone have the post with the names of the remaining witnesses? I want to check spelling and job titles.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5291991/nhs-fife-tribunal-witness-list/

Still to go are the 2 ENPs and more MC, I think. Can't remember if there's anyone else!

I too got this on a discount - but accidentally by subscribing while on holiday in Germany. So maybe have a look at offers if you're going abroad in the summer?

If they have any sense, they'll fold before they get anywhere near a courtroom and pay her off. I think MG has already written to them, so they might be in negotiations already.

I suspect like this tribunal Sandie and her backers will not be interested in any settlement but instead want a strategic win.

Why would he have a shopping list when he didn't have access to dr Upton's phone?. I'm confused.

That is where I am, and why we gave up our BBC licence about five years ago, maybe a bit more.

Things I knew were not true because I watched the event they reported on, reported as true or misrepresented enough to allow the reader to draw the wrong conclusion in all innocence. If they do this on one topic it is not a stretch to assume they must also do it for other topics. If I am reading their site to get clarity on topics where I am less informed then I'm just fucked, sadly.

Can't trust them, so we walked away.

One thing that has struck me today was the numbers now. BBC and Guardian reporting lies or not reporting on them at all, when almost no-one watched the tribunals was one thing. They could pretty well get away with it. The few people who had signed up to watch were screaming into the void, nobody believed them. Thought they were loons, even.

But this case-- how many people are watching the tribunal, how many journalists, podcasters, lawyers, HR people? The tribunal limited viewers to 300 but I was on Michael Foran's live talk last night along with 400 others. Those viewers are going to be telling their friends, family, maybe co-workers what really went on in the trial. And Foran is not the only one spreading the truth.

I know the BBC is lying to pander to gender ideology and pretty soon many many more people will know that.

I think Sandie and her backer may well want to take it to court, to set the example to other unions.
The backer esp isn't just doing this for Sandie they are doing it for every woman in the UK

That’s why I characterised it as diversionary. It has no bearing on the fact that DU is a man and SP correctly perceived him as a man.

However, as it has been brought up in evidence it can be referenced in the judgement and I wouldn’t be surprised if was characterised as being irrelevant.

100%

Being clever with one thing so she didn't spot the dangers she introduced. NC was already able to provide medical terminology that Dr Currar didn't have to hand. Imagine what she can do with 3 days to prep?

Major error by JR imo

This!
Im drafting another complaint to the BBC and Guardian and OFCOM. They are gatekeeping and misrepresenting. Now more of us know the truth about the Tribunal. The Truth as got out …

Cross examination can cover anything relevant, regardless of whether it has been mentioned in direct examination. NC is not limited to asking about subjects covered by JR.

I wonder if there is going to be any introspection (self reflective practice) at NHS Fife about what biases led them to believe Upton instantly and unfailingly, even before hearing Sandies side? Was it because upton is a doctor, or his social privilege, because he his male, or because of the trans identity? Or all of the above.

Because without that they are doomed to repeat the same behaviour over and over again.

Really interesting thank you for both posting this.

I had a bit of bother at work in a similar vein and after it settled down did some training. The course was run by a chap who was a comedian and he talked about confident voice/body language/strong handshake etc. It was all good advice but I asked him (to one side) about the problem that if I used these techniques I'd get loads of complaints. In fact that I had been doing these things and was considered scary. He waffled on a bit but clearly had no idea what I was talking about.

And also tried out different things at work. I found I had to put monumental amounts of effort into "pandering" to staff and their feelings. To a degree that tracking their feelings about the work and responding to or pre-empting those, made it difficult to get any actual work done. On the plus side I got great ratings from staff but usually the ones who weren't helping productivity or profit so I got it in the neck for my commercial figures instead. Arguably a worse hit to my professional standing.

The only people I could find talking about this were people in business schools. The LSE had a talk on The Double Bind - Women are often seen as likable or competent, but rarely both.

That is why it is fascinating to see men identifying as women in the workplace and then getting a boost from that - when actual women don't experience similar

@BezMills is a man? 🤯 I thought they were a NacMacFeegle!

I doubt it, they will probably think of DU as a bug rather than a feature.