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

This is what I don't understand. They were friends who holidayed together so when did that change? It feels like something else happened.

Rereading these i've changed by mind. The first is a pun. The rest are awful.

i hate the framing of them saying they are ‘comments’ they are not they are jokes! They are in poor taste and there was only one submitted as actual evidence i think the witness said there were 4 tho. you can argue they are offensive you can argue they are evidence she is racist but they werent her comments they were jokes.

That’s not my point though. At the onset of the issues, DU presented more risk of being a credible tribunal threat so they placated him. They never took SP seriously from the start. She didn’t seem like a credible tribunal threat.

Five of them are puns.

The third could arguably be commentary on the shittiness of the BNP, but the rest are grim as they get.

Does being a racist and/or sharing racist jokes mean you must be forced to undress in front of men?

Fair. I should have said funny pun.

Nope. Not changed my mind on that.

Yeah i didnt expect them to be like that, i cant believe she shared these even if i heard them and found them funny i would never repeat them cos i would be worried for people thinking i was racist its such an odd thing she felt she could say that many it still makes me think these people were ok with it cos that is a lot!!

They are undoubtedly racist and coined by a racist. Anyone sharing them for shits and giggles would very much have racist tendencies except for this: this is the only occasion she has shared such in 7 years. Someone inclined to racism in a relaxed group would be doing it much more often.

She has a right to defend herself and I think we are hearing from her again on Wednesday.

Christ. All of that is disgusting. Only a racist would find any of that acceptable. It also begs the question why did any of the rest of the group continue to be friends with her?

I agree with all your points, I said earlier that when I reread i saw how bad they are.

Oooof. That was a hard read today. I think tomorrow will also not be easy. At least we can now see the point of the foreshadowing by JR on Sandie's character. I think Sandie will have a rough go of it from JR. Even if it's not pertinent to her right to legal protections.

I am not sure whether I should say this because I don't condone racism, but here goes...by far the MOST shocking things about those jokes is that somebody was making jokes at all in the context of a flood that had killed thousands, right? If some of the same joke-mechanisms (Mustafa for must have a, for example) had been used in the context of, I don't know, a big successful sporting event, they'd still be racist but much less shocking - more puerile (sic).

But...these people are A&E nurses. They see death, including quite horrible death, all the time. We heard about "dark humour" from people who deal closely with death, but we don't usually see it quoted. I wonder whether we ought to be trying to subtract out the shockingness of joking in the context of death; and if we did, I wonder if we'd be left with more offensiveness than could have been found on the BBC not so very long ago.

I dont think sharing them is necessarily racist its the volume of them that makes me think yeah i would find this dodgy as hell!!

At the start of questioning LN, Jane Russell read these out and the witness was saying it’s racist etc. So I think all of these comments are in evidence in the tribunal:

https://x.com/tribunaltweets/status/1949818252294545577?s=46

Nope. It's been said repeatedly.

Because she was in like-minded company and knew it was a safe space for her little 'jokes'?

And she wasn't bloody wrong, as Lindsey proved today.

Todays evidence reminds me of a video I saw about 6 months or a year back (I wish I could remember the name of the youtube channel).

Cut a long story short it was a video made by a black African youtuber, Nigerian I believe, who came to the UK and now lives here I presume permanently and legally. He went to some of the "racist" anti-immigration protests last summer and much of his footage involved these alleged racist protestors shouting for him (a black immigrant remember) to come over so they could tell him how much they liked his channel and asking to pose for pictures with him.

Who is most bigoted?

• the middle class white people who look down at the poor and the stupid (as they see it) who object to immigration, whilst supporting the racist, sexist and homophobic idea that trans'women' are women just like black women are women, and that therefore trans'women' have the right to date lesbians and use women's changing rooms.

or

• the working class people who hate mass immigration, and who hate men who claim to be women in women's spaces, and who don't care if their words are a bit "fruity" or would have you kicked out out a labour party Islington dinner party.

I bet you anything that when it comes to her job Peggie is 100% fair to all, and that if racism impacts patient care it is more likely to be unconscious (or conscious) racism from someone like Upton than anything from Peggie.

May be you are right i just remember the witness saying there were 4 of them maybe that was about something else i am confused this has been a arguably bad day for SP 😬

The point I took issue with was that your opinion was that NHS Fife had a duty to accommodate both SP and DrU. It is my opinion that no special accommodation was required for DrU.

Just popping on to thank all for the TP recommendations.
What a day! Horrid texts to forward, but I don’t see the relevance to the case. Unless JR wants to argue that, yes, the SC ruling g does clarify that women are entitled to SSS, but this only applies to nice women.
So is this going to be the day that the Guardian stops ignoring the story?

I've always thought it was shocking that NMC referrals.are available to view by the public. They should only be viewable when concluded.
But all and any allegations are public even when the nurse is found to be innocent at a later date.

Mud sticks and not everyone goes back to read the final outcome

Jokes/comments Puns/not puns

Largely irrelevant to me, they are horribly racist and someone sharing them is clearly a racist.

I think it's pretty disappointing that some posters are trying to defend them.