NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #44

[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: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: 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: 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
Thread 43: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379979-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-43 25 July 2025 to 26 July 2025

So hopeful for just one on time start.

Hopes dashed.

The last time we had scones at a NT place they were more like rock cakes

"It was surreal when, while giving evidence to the tribunal last week, NHS Fife’s equality officer Isla Bumba said she did not know whether or not she was female. But it was also unsurprising: Bumba is a professional activist and that was textbook."
(from Euan McColm's excellent article https://archive.is/2cjIp#selection-1423.1-1423.247 )

This enrages me. People claiming they don't know their sex - I can only presume that they're implying they might have a DSD, and not know about it. Or is there another explanation (in their minds)?

The co-opting of a medical condition such as DSD is just egregious. And there is no suggestion that Dr Upton has a DSD is there? So what point are these people trying to make?

Euan also highlights this: "Cunningham spoke to a number of witnesses about a man she called Pete. Pete is not an actual human. Rather, he is both theoretical and an effective stupidity detector.
If a woman, Cunningham asked, walked into a female only changing room and found Pete, there, would she have the right to complain.
The general consensus was “yes, of course”.
What then, wondered Cunningham, was the difference between Upton and Pete?"

What is the difference between Upton and Pete?
It's such a good question - has anyone attempted an answer yet?

.

My Google keep recipe board is filling up nicely! 😋

no editing needed 😁

I do as well! Every time he enters the tribunal questioning from NC I imagine us all in the pub greeting Pete like Norm!

I have a couple of gift tokens for 30 days access if you or anyone else would like one. If you DM your email address, I can send it to you. I assume you will have to cancel before the 30 days are up if you don't want a paid subscription.

I am off today, so can keep up with things, but I'm working the rest of the week, so I will be grateful for Michael's analysis. I have loved keeping up with things on here as well, but it has been a distraction when I've been trying to work 😬 However, this feels like such a landmark case, that I don't want to miss it.

Charles Dickens wrote a novel called 'Hard Times'

I think I may have a go at an updated follow-up entitled 'Sad Times'.

I'll let you know how that's going.

What an odd tone to use in text messages. They sound like official communications. Almost like she expected to be quoted publicly.

Absolutely wild that supporting a gay child = mum having to get undressed and deal with periods in front of men. How the hell has this become a lauded position?

And this is a witness called by the Fife/upton side?

Also Tale of two cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

The saddest times, sadder than sad, sad, very very sad.

It's all part of the Top Ally script. I bet she felt entirely morally superior when she was typing that tripe.

I will go but only if provided with a selection of scones & jam afterwards.

To go back to Upton's likely referral to the GMC

Treating women - the most problematic but one would need to complain, until then it's hypothetical.

Making up allegations - need to see what the tribunal says and whether they believe him. He can claim he didnt realise the instances were so serious until his supervisor said they were. He will reflect and be quicker of the mark in future. He actually said something to that effect on the stand. If the tribunal explicitly say they dont believe him then more serious. I dont think they would strike him off for that, though as patients were not at risk - suspension and supervised practise maybe.

FlirtsWithRhinos, I just wanted to agree with your post from yesterday on the last thread:
"I'm sure he does believe he's a woman. He believes there's newer betterer understanding of what a woman is that's far more significant and meaningful than boring old body sex and that since people with boring old body sex are far too boring and dull to understand it they just need to get with the program, take it on trust and do as they are told.
He thinks if he can trap women who object by changing meanings of words and pretending not to know what the old meaning were anymore so that anything they say gets twisted, that somehow means the actual reality about which they were talking about is no longer real.
It convinces people, for a while, because most people start by assuming good intent. But the longer it goes on the stronger the back-of-mind feeling that this isn't right gets. Eventually everyone peaks.
All anyone needs to remember is that is even if the word "woman" really isn't specifically female, plenty of people still are, so even if TW are ultimately successful in distorting the meaning of the word Woman to include their non-female selves they still aren't creating a justification to treat them as female, they are just creating a vancy in language and culture for new words and new rights and new protections for the people who are."

He just thinks he's a better type of woman than us boring conventional women - I was going to say 'us female women', but of course he's biologically female too, isn't he?

And it has reminded me of how very patronising and supercilious he was on the stand in February. I'd forgotten how much he wasted time and dragged out the process by questioning everything that Naomi Cunningham asked, and how sneering he was.

But I've remembered now and I'm angry all over again!

And it showed how revealing public access to the process could be.

Well that should be interesting.

Ohhhh! Seriously biting my tongue here!!!

Sandies team has put forward 2 new witness, JR objecting

3000 (?) new submissions to the bundle

and I think FWS have sent an intervention

It's going to be extended again. Part three

JR whinging about lateness of new info from claimant is a bit rich!

I've got into the habit of cutting and pasting bits from TT that I think are significant. Completely subjective, but may be useful for anybody not able to follow TT 100%.

I often cross unintentionally post with Bez - soz, Bez - but mine are devoid of Bez's brill Fifism😄

I could try and do a commentary as Ross O'Carroll-Kelly* but that would be, loike, totally wasted on you English dudes. I mean dudesses. Jeez, you literally can't say anything these days without being accused of being an actual misogynist - if that's even a word😉

*fictional but terribly real middle class rugby type who like totally speaks push South County Dublin dialect

Exactly. The fact they hid info caused part 2 in the first place!

<Falls in a swoon>

NC arguing in favour of further witnesses, thats what JR said about LN, FW today when added at late date. Tribunal has been reluctant to curtail Rs activity to defend action. Rs have been shambolic in how they conducted, the need for FW, LN should have been easy for Rs to anticipate, it should not have been

It should not have been diff for them to expect her to dispute. It can some as no surprise that SP denies she is racist. If Rs had proceeded, they would have i/w FW in relation to Xmas eve incident. They could have i/w her in that i/x. That should have lead them to LN, and we would have been in a very