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

Sort of. Searle said she didn’t know what sex DU was assigned at birth - which isn’t quite the same thing. Her entire evidence came off as evasive and not answering the question with lots of “I don’t recall”. It wasn’t a good look and made her look partisan/compromised.

But like DU - NC asked directly if the notes were taken at the time and DU said something like “I know the meaning of contemporaneous” or similar. Which in light of these problems with the IT looks really really evasive.

It seems that way but then where was the "created date" that was after this date picked up/found? It also seemed that Dr. Upton was aware of the discrepancy?

They probably think that if they don't write about it, it isn't really happening.

Same here. It's so unfair to expect a student to be an emotional crutch for a doctor. The thought of an elderly patient repeatedly calling him "son", despite him wearing his best woman costume, made me laugh heartily though! Great sitcom fodder.

And a chorus please!

From Dr Upton's "Sad Times" phone notes"

"In just my socks take refuge in the plaster room. I'm sure she noticed, but I'm not giving her the chance to try anything."

Was he actually in just his socks, or was he trying to portray the horror of having to walk a few steps without shoes on?

Just thinking about his
I" leave. I am distraught. I immediately go to find Elspeth. I explained through tears what's happened in the background."

(as an aside, I LOVE the melodramatic "I Leave. I Am Distraught". It reminds me of Adrian Mole)

But my actual point (and I do have one :)😆) was that I did have a time recently at work when I was in tears after a horrible meeting with a manager. I had to tell some people about the conversation afterwards - I didn't tell them I'd been crying FFS! Most of us actual women are keen NOT to show ourselves as particularly emotional because we know how it can be held against us.

I wonder if Upton saw it as a way of emphasising his womanly feels. Nasty Sandie making the poor vulnerable wee girl cry.

As with many issues, it seems to me that men like this act the way that they THINK woman act (or the way women act in men's fantasies), rather than the way that women act and feel in real life.

The evidence was a series of screenshots (not entirely sure what they looked like) pasted into a document. All I think “he/she/they” did was to paste a very thin slither from another document of metadata on top of the first screenshot (a bit like popping a sticky printed label onto a piece of paper). It is simplicity itself to do this sort of thing in Powerpoint, and perhaps it is easy enough to “group” the combined image in Word.

A busy IT guy probably just too a quick glance and put it all into a PDF. That would be the doc that the claimant would see (you wouldn’t let them see your edits or risk somebody tampering with it on its way to the bundle.

That might explain why it was a slightly different colour.

Choice of pronouns as some have speculated that a spouse who works in IT might be proficient at doing this sort of thing.

An attitude shared with NHS Fife, it seems.

I prefer freezer jam for anything based on soft fruit like berries.
But there are emphatically fruits that need to be cooked. Including carrots or capsicum peppers. (I like these as jam/jelly in the same way I like cranberry jelly or pickles. )
I envy your access to a skilled jam maker. Have you noted all his tips?

Surely it would've been better from the start have said that he wrote the notes retrospectively, but tried to record events as accurately as possible. But he made great play of them being contemporaneous, presumably as this made them seem more credible.

If I understood correctly DU discussed this anomaly of the dates on the call with Fife’s IT guy. Hence why the shopping list was produced to show how lots of unrelated notes had this error… 🤨🤔

I would love to be able to talk about this in RL but I would just be called a right wing fascist bitch like before. That was because I didn’t think male boxers should be boxing against females in the olympics. Imane Kheilif is ironically probably more transphobic than any of us. Interestingly when they introduced mandatory dna testing recently for female boxing and he immediately pulled out of his next fight I didn’t get any apologies!!

I would have been terrified to submit that to a tribunal, or anyone who had any chance of clocking it. I'm not massively techie but I know people who are and from their perspective, that's pig in a wig level stuff. Being submitted as a screenshot rather than just the original file is dodgy in itself.

I think that often the media don't send their own journalists to cover cases like this. Instead the Press Association covers it and the other media use their report as the basis for their articles.

This is why sometimes they all run with the same basic story.

The Scottish papers have been there in person of course.

I know, I keep thinking this. I suspect he's a habitual liar. I say this because I dated one, and he lied about everything. It was really weird. He lied about all sorts of things where he could've just told the truth. I didn't understand what the purpose of the lying was, but I think it started in childhood and he never grew out if it.

@BeLemonNow I've been making jam for years - I'd recommend River Cottage's preserves book, or Pam the Jam's Book of Preserves as a good place to start but - just as importantly - talk through the theory/process of jam-making in a way that's easy to understand.

Essentially you need the right amount of pectin but also acid (usually lemon juice) unless the fruit is naturally acidic - the books have details for all the different types of fruit. That's what makes the 'gel' that is a set jam. Start with a high pectin fruit as it's easier (NEVER start with strawberry, it's an absolute fucker to get it to set) and you need almost equal amounts of sugar plus lemon juice (always freshly squeezed, not the bottled stuff).

If you need extra pectin, you can buy jam sugar with additional pectin in it. Or you can buy powder (dissolve in a bit of water first, otherwise it just sets into a lump in your jam - learn from my mistake!) or liquid versions. I prefer the jam sugar.

The best way to test for a set is by putting a plate in the freezer so it's cold, then when you think the jam is at setting point, spoon a bit onto the plate, leave it for a minute, then push it with your finger. If it wrinkles, it's set. If not, cook your jam for a bit longer, and repeat. It will almost ALWAYS take longer than the recipe says!

Home made jam tastes waaaay better than shop bought stuff so it's worth persevering :)

They need to stop trying to shut people up by mindlessly calling them far right fascists for no good reason. It may scare people into silence but voting booths are secret. And if they keep telling us that it's far right and fascist to believe that men aren't women and that women have a right to changing rooms, sports, lesbian spaces and rape crisis services without men in them, then people are going to wonder what's so terrible about far right fascism.

By refusing access to his phone BU prevented anyone from seeing the metadata that reveals when notes were made, emails sent etc etc.
Back in February, during the first part of the tribunal, Mumsnetters were already commenting on the significance of metadata, for example
@WellIwasaGiraffeonce
15/02/2025 18:51
“I posted elsewhere, the metadata will prove or disprove how contemporaneous his notes were”

and
@CriticalCondition · 12/02/2025 09:00
“This is getting very interesting as we move onto who knew what and when.
The significance of metadata attached to digitally created documents will not be lost on his father. Managing archives of data for research purposes is literally his day job”.

No doubt BU thought he was being very clever by refusing access to the metadata. What he appears to have done (allegedly) as unearthed by the independent IT consultant was not clever at all. And appears to demonstrate quite a lot of arrogance.

I hope the judge is suitably unimpressed by the lack of disclosure.

Maybe a woman doing the chorus?

Pete the Plummer
He's a manly Maaaaaaan

Could the poets on here please compose something? I am useless at poetry.
TIA

Pratchett, who's he? Never heard of him!

Yes the Scotsman, the Herald and BBC Reporting Scotland have got prominent journalists covering this

My mum was bemoaning the Courier’s coverage this morning. She was surprised to discover that the Scottish coverage has been complimented here on mumsnet?! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Thats absolutely how a normal person should feel. But from the start DU’s actions are not those of a normal person. At every turn the behaviour and attitudes have been controlling and a bit contemptuous. The intimidation tactics and schooling from the stand were an eye opener

Doing the Lambeth Walk:

Any time he's down Fife way,
Any evening, any day,
You'll find us all,
Doing that manly walk!

Dr Upton's on his way,
Clothes and hat he thinks will slay,
Stands six feet tall,
Doing that manly walk!

Everything free and easy,
Get to the gents', stop being sleazy,
Why don't you make your way there?
Go on, stay there,
Just leave the ladies', get away,
Every evening, every day,
Hulking, six feet tall,
Doing that manly walk!

@Boiledbeetle Witches Abroad is my favourite!