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

Iphone has an inbuilt screen reader - I turned it on by accident and it drove me mad as it reads everything (including everything I was doing to try to turn it off) but maybe there's some way to calm it down a bit...

support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph96b214f0/ios

Are they not entitled to it under special measures anyway.
she’s going to try every trick in the book not to allow them in

Well JR you are the one who wasted time on Friday afternoon with that line of questioning bollocks. Too late to cry now. Sad times

Well JR you are the one who wasted time on Friday afternoon with that line of questioning bollocks. Too late to cry now. Sad times

Oh I think an extension is a good strategy. I want the judgment to be fresh in people's minds when they go to the polls for the Scottish election in May next year. 😀

I think it’s that Upton went to management first. If only Pete had done the same, he’d be in. If the class discrimination thing is as real as we suspect, he might have to identity out of being a mere tradesman too - Pete the Project Manager perhaps?

Cloud Video Platform

CVP stands for Cloud Video Platform. It is the Employment Tribunal’s system for holding hearings remotely. It works very much like Zoom or Teams. The system was being developed by the tribunal when the pandemic hit.

This witness may have very legitimate reasons for not being able to get to Dundee and appear in person.

Yeah but it keeps SP on tenterhooks for more and more months... though presumably she thinks it's worth it if she gets a chance to counter the racism/homophobia slurs JP has been throwing around.

The tribunal door swings open and shut, as a familiar figure wearing a tool belt enters.
All attendees, video link watchers, TT and Herald readers, as well as the Mumsnet Vipers:

"Pete!"

That is gold. Which is it 3000 or 24!

my thought was also that NC is thinking about the upcoming election and this outcome being fresh in everyone's minds.
rubs hands in anticipation

"self-instigated rake-face intersection"

<Chef's kiss> @BezMills

So JR cannot count as well as not tell the difference between men and women?

One more for Pratchett fans:

https://markreads.net/reviews/tag/the-color-of-magic/page/2/

Mark O Shiro, a US LGBT YA author reads through and commenting on the entire Discworld, accompanied by a whole chorus of fans reading him reading it, encouraging, discussing and commenting.

Mark is clearly going to be on the opposite side of GC women on some things but still, I find Mark a humane and open reader and his (actually they now, but pretty sure Mark was a he when I read his commentary) enjoyment in discovering Discworld and their different perspective on familiar characters is a joy. I think of Practchett's humour as so rooted in Britain and British culture in the vein of 1066 and all that (Morris dancing! Medieval university traditions! Puddings with suggestive names!) so it's both hilarious and humbling to see how it connects to someone with very different reference points.

One disclaimer: I read this way back, pre 2020. I'm sure the Discworld stuff will still be as it was when it was written then but I have no idea what type of content Mark writes now. Given the political conformity around LGBT identities in the US especially I've no doubt Mark will be signed up to the bundle of ideas that confuse LGB tolerance with gender stereotypes and transing confusing kids and developed the usual prejuduces and blind spots, but I hope Mark remains open to at least thinking about other perspectives.

I hope she isn't! I hope and expect she is only thinking about the interests of her client.

Ooh, the plot thickens....

If NC can rid ScotGov of the gender zealots, I want to make her a national hero. The fact that she's English will piss them off even more!

Wouldn’t it be funny if one of the witnesses NC called was called Pete?!

NC - I'm afraid there has been a change in my x plan, given that MC say that bio sex is not binary and very complicated, it's time consuming to unpick something like that

Please, please, please let the witness she wants to call be Prof Winston, or Dawkins, or Emma Hilton. Could NC do this?

I'm confused. If it isn't 3000 pages then where did that number come from?

Out of Jane Russell’s arse.

3000 pages would be around the size of 3 Bibles.

Well we know JR is prone to hyperbole....

Sir Pterry's daughter (who is a fully fledged handmaiden going by her social media) has been insistent for years that her dad would have been a fully paid-up Be Kind-er and to Read The Books.

She knew him, I didn't, of course. But I did Read The Books, all of them, and a certain amount of gritty 'be who you really feel you are by all means but also reality is real' was what I took from them.

NHSF have already cast aspersions on NC's neutrality by bringing up her connections to Sex Matters, and had to withdraw it.

She has no role in ridding ScotGov of anything, she's a barrister defending her client.