NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #45

[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. (Considerable understatement.)

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 27 July 2025
Thread 44: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5380196-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-44 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025

Love it

At least a couple of other staff members have now been implicated in racist/phobic speech.......if this is really what the case is about.

It seems to me that JR is pushing for the defense to be along the lines of 'Sandie was racist, and homophobic and transphobic, she was such an awful person filled with hate that she set out on purpose to provoke the conflict with Dr Upton. Because she's so hateful. Did we mention hateful?' I also got the impression JR is implying that SP came up with the menstrual flooding as a way to further provoke the situation, or to make her own standing better in the scenario, ie that SP wasn't actually flooding, she was looking for ways to make the conflict with DR U go more her way.

It's worth noting that this is JR's job, to muddy the waters, make the whole thing less clear cut, to use all available info to give her clients the best defense, and if she had this info and didn't use it, then she wouldn't be doing her job well.

I strongly suspect though that if you go back through those messages on that chat, SP will not have been the only one sharing messages of that tone. I totally oppose racism, and I don't like at all that those messages have been sent by SP, but I do believe she will likely have been sending them in the context of what she believed was a welcoming audience. No one randomly appears spouting racist nonsense on a group chat if they're not sure of their audience. And if they did, and it wasn't welcomed, most normal people would say something, or block, or boot them from the chat, not carry on engaging with them and going on bloody holiday with them.

I'm very interested to see what NC makes of this witness.

It’s a good job that the TRA’s don’t get to decide the outcome of this case then isn’t it? We’re all fallible, we are none of us perfect, it is perfectly possible to support someone like SP, who we feel has been treated unjustly when her legal right to SSS has been denied to her, and not want to be her friend if we knew her in real life. It’s about truth and fairness, not personality.

Yes, a relative of mine too (construction site). During COVID, were some very strange conspiracy theories about the vaccines, including that it was being spread by the new 5g towers.

Sectarianism is, believe me, no joke.

You can always find some member of a community who says 'I'm XYZ and I thought that joke about killing XYZs was hilarious and I wasn't offended at all'.
But that XYZ person is just one person, and can't consent for all the group.
That's a point we often make as women, when it's pointed out that 'some women don't want single sex spaces', we say that individuals opinions don't represent an entire group.

Your son’s colleagues are regulated health professionals, so it doesn’t matter what they’ve said.

Frankly this makes everyone look bad (except possibly DU who’s done a bang up job of doing that for himself):

SP (obviously)
Everyone else on the chat (for not taking appropriate action)
NHSFife for having an enquiry into entirely the wrong kind of potential misconduct and botching that, as we’ve seen

the board of NHSF is going down big time…

I think everything is still to play for.

Firstly they need to rebut this evidence today, stops the press from turning against SP. If NC does a good job at cross examining these witnesses and then at questioning SP a second time (is that today?) then they will be able to control the damage.

Beyond that, if the new SP witnesses are admitted and give strong evidence, it might be like today never happened in terms of negative impact to SP.

Ultimately the evidence today isn’t relevant so I would challenge the witnesses credibility, and their motivations, and the relevance.

What I'm getting from this is that NHSF seem to look the other way from a seemingly long existing culture of staff exchanging racist comments. Dressed up as " banter" no doubt.
It's neither reported by staff nor investigated by management over many years. No attempt to address it, despite there being written policies.

But when posh white man Dr. U turns up with his golden ticket, connections in high places, and well thumbed notebook, it's suddenly a rush to show who is top ally and pander to him.

Best to turn on Sandie, before he turns on me.

I think we can all conclude that NHS Fife is a horrible place to work.

Exactly. Jokes like that don't come outside a cultural bubble.

In that cultural bubble there will be a number of people with similar world views and it will have felt acceptable in that bubble to say things like that. That likely to indicate that multiple people were participating. Certainly it sounds like no one objected after the first joke - which again suggests they were ok with it or two weak to challenge it.

That doesn't mean that SP isnt a racist. It's more that these individuals are not the patron saints they are now trying to suggest they are.

Say it forget it, write it regret it.

Even if SP did everything you have stated, the fact is that Upton was allowed and encouraged to use the female changing room, which denied SP her legal right to SSS. The tribunal have to follow the law, they don’t have to like or approve of the claimant.

As for the rest of them, why would you go on holiday with someone who you felt held horrific views like that? I know I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t socialise with them at all. Something smells off.

My $0.02 on toxic workplaces.

Many years ago, a colleague, let's call him Dan, was accused of sexual harassment. In principle I'm in favour of a strong line against sexual harassment, and was then, because I'd seen far too many dodgy things being tolerated.

BUT

In this case I had reasonable doubt. It wasn't impossible that Dan was guilty but it would have been very out of character for him. And the manager involved was a vicious bully who to my certain knowledge had tolerated dodgy behaviour from people who were part of the clique.

The manager's idea of correct procedure was to announce "I've suspended Dan for sexual harassment, I will investigate, if any of you see him don't speak to him, and I will now proceed to talk to any women he's interacted with to see if he's ever made them uncomfortable."

Procedurally this was outrageous and an open invitation to anyone who wanted to exaggerate or invent some gossip evidence against the accused.

It never came to a constructive dismissal claim - Dan was ill at the time, and decided to just cut his losses and walk away. But I sometimes wonder what a tribunal would have made of it. Nobody would have come out of it smelling good, that's for sure.

It's very regional throughout the UK. I grew up in working-class Lancashire where girls wore knickers. I didn't hear the words pants or panties used routinely until I went away south for university in the mid-60s.

Modest? Shy? A man parading round in a bra in a single sex female CR is neither of those things😡

And we are back in the room

Is anyone else feeling a bit sick now?

It just sounds like such a toxic place to work.

And yes, my working class father has been known to use language about corner shops that is unacceptable now, but were normal when he was young (60s)

I wonder whether LN regularly works with Dr Searle?

It seems odd to come forward at the 11th hour and NOT for the internal investigation that finished a couple of weeks ago.

Can’t stand ‘panties’. Urrgh

I know sectarianism is no joke, I spent most of my life living in Glasgow, in an area where we were regularly treated to the bloody marches.

But the Trainspotting was still a funny scene. And the main thrust of my post was not that it couldn't possibly be offensive to ANY Catholics (because I don't know that), but more that it was widely perceived as taking the piss out of the Orange Lodge.

It’s as simple as she saw the praise SP was getting in the press and the potential compensation headed her way, and LN wanted to stop that. Money makes people super jealous.

Is NC still out of the room?

NC back in room

NC starting her questions