NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #46

[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
Thread 45: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-45 28 July 2025 to 28 July 2025

Women have the right to single sex spaces.

I stand with Sandie Peggie.

@Kucinghitam Broadly agree with you. As a mixed race person I would not want me or my family anywhere near NHS Fife. And have had major concerns since all this talk of racism and no action.

I was, however, on reflection shocked, surprised and disappointed by the evidence against Sandie today. Prior to today we only had very vague rumours and no concrete or direct evidence of racism, even contradicting other claims which smacked of bullying.

But there is relevance imho - there's a distinction between being unhappy sharing a changing room because someone is a "weirdo" and respectfully because they are biologically male. The former is bigoted which I don't support, the latter a valid viewpoint.

I fall into the later. I would not have wanted to change in a room with Dr. Upton, however I would respect that they are trans and should be treated with dignity and respect.

In conclusion I don't feel like I can support anyone in this case.

It has opened up a really horrible world of institutional issues inside the NHS.

For balance here I was also very shocked by the attitude of Dr. Upton, as reflected by some TRAs, especially treating those who ask for a female doctor without clarification, which is assault.

I don’t think her credibility and reliability are deeply in question.

They've tried to paint her as a transphobe, homophobic and racist but the witnesses were not at all reliable and from the evidence presented SP is clearly not homophobic. Transphobic is meaningless here because if you breathe the wrong way you are called transphobic and the only evidence is that she called DU a weirdo. But as NC pointed out that wouldn’t be problematic if Pete was in the f cr.

So we are left with the sharing of awful racist jokes. As NC pointed out if the witness had said this was unacceptable, as she claimed she felt, and had said that in the chat the evidence of other chats is that SP might likely have apologised.

The mosque comment was said by someone else, a paramedic, and the timing was all off so a very spurious claim.

I also suspect SP had not read all the jokes and underestimated their overall vileness but we will probably hear her own account of this on Wednesday.

I think they were all a bit racist to varying degrees and that’s not good at all but there isn’t a connection established between that and the reasonableness of SP not wanting a TW in f cr.

I would like to think that the revelation Peggie forwarded racist jokes will not affect her claim, as it's barely actually relevant.

However, I don't trust the courts to be unbiased. Also, it just about bolsters KS's claim that a mixed-race person totally saw something untoward, but can't testify because she is scared of big bad racist Nurse Peggie.

It also allows NHS Fife witnesses to fabricate any claims of racism they like against her, as it now can be seen to be realistic. If they can't win, they will ruin her reputation, and potentially her life and career, for daring to seek justice for their abuse towards her.

This is a classic example of the "perfect victim" fallacy - and more misogyny as this myth primarily impacts female victims.

People who have done bad things are just as likely to be victimised as any other person, and are equally entitled to justice as anybody else.

The fact remains that Sandie Peggie had her privacy and dignity violated by being forced to share a place of undress with a male. She was then victimised for complaining about this, suspended unfairly and without evidence, ostracised and bullied. This is true regardless of if she has shared racist jokes or holds unpopular political views. It would still be true even if she was a serial killer or a paedophile. Extreme examples to demonstrate my point that her goodness or badness is irrelevant to the fact she was victimised and suffered discrimination.

"So we are left with the sharing of awful racist jokes. As NC pointed out if the witness had said this was unacceptable, as she claimed she felt, and had said that in the chat the evidence of other chats is that SP might likely have apologised"

SP's being racist or not is not contingent on the response of others on the chat to what she has posted.

I thought SP had earlier claimed she wasn't racist? And now there is lots of evidence about her posting racist jokes etc?

Is that not a credibility issue for her?

@suggestionsplease1 "I thought SP had earlier claimed she wasn't racist? And now there is lots of evidence about her posting racist jokes etc?
Is that not a credibility issue for her?"

this is what I'm thinking. That was an outright lie - unless the messages turn out to be fake. That's not gonna happen, is it?

Also, if I encountered racist treatment within the NHS, I probably wouldn't feel able to say anything for a number of reasons. Suffice to say I've had enough engagement with the health service to know that raising any issue is a battle I'm not strong enough for.

So posters who are saying that SP has not had any patient complaints made against her, that we know of, that may be why. Similar to how a woman might feel unable to raise objections to who was allowed to use the women's changing room....

You can easily end up in a situation where people have the issues, but no one wants to raise it.

again, sorry for the sidebar, but I feel shocked about what I've heard today. Strangely enough, I actually know someone who's doing one of those junior or resident doctor placements up in Scotland at the moment. And looking at the messages that went between these people, I'm really hoping that he's okay. Although I suppose no one's going to say stuff like that to his face.

People don't tend to say stuff to my face or at least they haven't for awhile. These nurses, are they the kind of people who would be inviting me down the pub? But then that would be the content of their private chat?

Going back to the case, it makes me feel as if something major is going to be revealed to undermine the whole thing.

I wasn't trying to make a hero out of an employment tribunal. I did not need SP to be a saint. But I was not expecting so much truly awful stuff to come out of this.

It makes the EDI people look better. If you told me that I would make that statement last week, I'd have laughed.

It's all making me feel that we are in a much bigger mess in the UK than even I realised.

Listening to one of the witnesses today, they declared they had never used the basement CR as it was "dank".

Was this an alternative CR that SP was advised to use?

@EmeraldRoulette it's not necessarily a lie. I don't think forwarding racist jokes necessarily makes a person a racist, in the same way that starting one fight doesn't mean that someone is violent.

She probably doesn't identify as racist (if you will). Many people think of racism as actually thinking worse of somebody, or treating them differently just because of their race.

I'm anticipating that she will explain this is black humour; that she always makes horrific jokes about terrible events; that she was trying to fit in with the other members of the WhatsApp group; and that she has always treated all patients equally.

I'm not sure why you are asking me why I'm "defending" a word. How do you "defend" a word. High fences? Passwords?

I've just figured that this successful unearthing of dirt against Sandie Peggie serves a big purpose in preventing anybody else pursuing such claims: if you try to go against us, we will go through all your private communications to find anything that will destroy your reputation.

Only if it looks like you might win.

They all use the locker room near A&E.

The changing rooms are in the basement and not a direct stair down
The women’s is tiny about the size of a disabled toilet. The men’s is about 8 /10 times the size. Planning drawings were posted a few threads back
No one uses them. Dr Upton could have, had he wanted to give the female staff privacy. Clearly that never occurred to him.

Let’s have a reminder what this case is about

Sandie has brought this case against nhs Fife and Upton.

I’m only loosely managing to keep up with events but this does feel like whataboutery, an attempt to discredit SP despite the fact it has no real bearing on the case.

I think that's nearly right but I think the 3000 pages is what NC and team had access to; then I think they picked out another selected 24 pages (on top of what JR had introduced as screenshots, without having seen the rest) to introduce as evidence. Point being that I don't think the panel have to read the 3000pp!

today was a major victory for the NHS.

They referenced it themselves - there is a media frenzy. They might not have improved their chances of success at the tribunal itself - but they certainly changed public opinion on SP. This is significant because up until this point, SP was being well supported by public figures such as MPs, people were calling for NHS Fife to be investigated and hoping SP’s victory sets a precedent etc.

Whereas all of that will simmer away now, no one will want to be seen as supporting SP and everyone will hope this tribunal disappears into the ether as opposed to setting precedents.

It’s permanently destroyed SP’s reputation. I can confidently suggest that if SP is awarded any compensation, the press will state it’s wrong for a racist to be given compensation (regardless of why she is being compensated). That’s all this case will boil down to.

I don’t know exactly what SP can say, but she needs to restore faith when she gets on the stand. I don’t even know if that is possible, but surely she foresaw these messages coming out and has previously thought about how she might respond…

This is what SP previously said at tribunal, when questioned by JR about racism & other offensive remarks: archive.ph/wUFTk

It’s Delusional to think nhs Fife won’t be investigated. Yesterday changed nothing in terms of their complete ineptitude

Of course people support Sandie. She has stood up to a man in women’s changing rooms. She has stood up to an huge public body allowing men into those single sex spaces.

Yesterday’s testimony doesn’t change Sandies rights fgs!

I find the post insulting to think women will all stand down, beg for mercy and throw away our rights because Fife decided to spin some dirt into the mix. Do posters on here really think women are so weak!

I think a lot of people will rightly condemn SP’s posts and consider whether she specifically is worthy of their time.

I think it would be a very interesting precedent to set, that only people with Correct Thoughts And Words (for the time and place) are worthy of privacy, dignity and due process.

So let me check I've got this right.

In an effort to prove they didn't harass Sandie and single her out for unfair treatment, Fife brought out a witness who hates her, can't wait to stick it to her, and wants her to lose her job?

In a nutshell 👏👏

The use of the P word is racist within the UK context but not in the subcontinent where it is an abbreviation which I have seen Pakistanis themselves using. Being aware of the UK context, I (non-british Asian ) would not use the word myself but I wouldn't judge anyone in the subcontinent using it.
So Sandie Pegg has passed on jokes that are racist and has strongly rightwing political views - does that mean that she is unemployable? I find that a troubling situation. This is like with the policeman who was dismissed for private whatsapp comments about the boat migrants. Are people with RW views or even those with privately held racist/sexist/islamophobic views beyond the bounds of employment even when there is no evidence of these views impacting their ability to do their jobs?

Yes, a lot of Right Thinking (tm) posters seem to edging towards this. "Racism" is the original sin. Racists apparently do not deserve their human or civil rights.

I don’t think that was their “effort” at all. It’s the opposite. They have been shown to treat Sandie unfairly, they are now pivoting to justify “why”. They are using these views to attack her own credibility, especially if SP has ever denied having these views or denied sharing this sort of content before. As far as I have read, SP never denied having strong views about transgender individuals but denied having strong opinions on race. If she can be shown to lie in areas, it weakens her overall credibility. That will be JR’s approach to cross examination later today.