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

Thanks @nauticant hope this thread lasts till tmrw...

Yip. I wouldn't like to be sharing a changing room with him.

Sandies obviously always been quite body conscious that she's always changed in the loo any way.
I bet thats something Upton picked up on and took it personally she wasn't willing to change in front of him.

To pp who wondered about finding a way to read out threads; I’ve been technologically stumped on an iPhone. Android seemed more doable. It must be possible due to accessibility reasons but I spent 3 days messing about with child locks on an iPad recently and I’m not keen on repeating that.

im considering temporarily subscribing to Foran and listening to his podcasts so I can be hands free and get shit done.

Institutional misogyny runs through the NHS like a stick of rock. That isn’t worth headlines though because effectively it’s still implicitly accepted.

From women having treatments without pain relief, to inadequate trialing regimes on women, to sexual assault.

And the rights of men to call themselves women being upheld over a woman’s rights to change in privacy.
I would expect to be allowed to call a man creepy or weird in private messages to friends. If the was a surgeon who stood too close, or tended to pop up whenever I was crossing the car park alone, or down in the basement collecting supplies, you bet I’d have words for him that aren’t usually used in professional environments.

Doesn’t this work? support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph96b214f0/ios

not in the app. Maybe on the website? 🤔 you’d need to select loads of text

Just a few posts on this page away from yours:

Pollynomial

She's not. Making comments like that should bar her from every staff changing room because the NHS shouldn't employ people saying racist things.

💯
To me, the issues arising provide a salutary reminder of how misguidedly polarised people have become (across the board on a range of issues). Individuals are cast as goodies or baddies, victims or oppressors, deserving and undeserving. In real life, humans are not all that stable in character across different roles and contexts.

SP’s case is about the right to a single sex changing room and the impact the failure to provide this had. It is also about how her employer dealt with the issues arising from providing a mixed sex provision.

Whether DU or SP are lovely, horrid, or something in between shouldn’t be relevant beyond their behaviour relating to the issues at hand (the specific grievances raised by DU and SP and the organisation’s policies and practices relating to the grievances).

It is possible to take a strong position such as ‘I support SP’s argument’ and expressing ‘it’s outrageous how she has been treated’ without expressing global support for her character. Unless you know someone well, it’s not possible to make informed judgments about their character. There is a world of difference between agreeing with the case being made and citing unconditional support for her as a person.

Exactly the same goes for DU ‘supporters. I could write the exact same paragraph about people supporting him unconditionally.

Of course, people on the GI side will be regarding yesterday’s evidence as proof that DU is ‘the real victim’ and somehow that means women shouldn’t have female only changing rooms. However, it would be equally ridiculous if the evidence showed that SP had donated a kidney to an asylum seeker and the conclusions drawn from this meant winning her case should be a slam dunk.

I think the lesson here is to play the ball, not the man. Don’t idealise or degenerate characters in cases like this. Focus on the substantive issues, the rights and wrongs of what happened and what is needed to redress this.

As for him and bra - is the bra stuffed?

When I read the wise crack about do they do size 40 trainer bras. It made me think is the bra part of a fetish or is it part of 'looking like a woman'.

Then it brought to mind a Q&A session with wheelchair tennis players, a kid asked "why do you wear in tennis shoes?", the answer was "your right it makes no difference but we'd look daft in slippers so its about looking the part feeling like a tennis player."

This is clearly a rhetorical way of saying that Peggie should not be employed as a nurse, not that single-sex changing should be unavailable to racist employees.

I just realised something. Everyone heard the gossip about SP being racist, even the consultants, their managers, the investigation managers etc. Those rumours must have circulated from the other women in that group chat!

The same group of colleagues that SP went on holiday with yearly, so presumably saw herself as close friends with. That’s really icky.

I don’t agree with SP views - but for me personally, I never would have progressed a friendship with SP once I realised her views. Let alone listened to those views for 7 years and spend time on holiday with her. LN has absolutely bizarre behaviour, crusading for justice in such a manner? If you think about it, LN was probably the one who informed the colleagues investigating SP in an attempt to get her sacked. It just comes across as vindictive.

Personally I wouldn’t want to be treated by anyone at that hospital, they all seem like loose cannons.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with the case at hand. Men and women can be ‘weird’, but this doesn’t warrant excluding them from single sex provision that aligns with their sex.

If a ‘weird’ female was in a female changing room, the person viewing them as ‘weird’ needs to review whether there is something tangible that they are doing that breaches the law, or organisational policies, and if not, they need to try and be more accepting of difference.

Well everyone has just experienced what it’s like to be a trial lawyer. It’s challenging- witnesses don’t tell you the whole truth day 1.

Things that are relevant don’t get disclosed (all the stitch up emails from NHS Fife, Sandies Benidorm thread), people don’t realise how things are perceived (sharing racist jokes makes people think you are a racist, male Dr touching female patients who ask for a female doctor - so without consent is assault) and general lack of clarity in human witnesses.

This is why the case has been so compelling. This is why people are reacting and losing sleep.

Every single person here has shared views that would be seen to be intolerant to one group or other in their lives. It’s no defence - it’s just a fact. Someone I know shared a theory that given access to everyone’s emails / phones - they could turn up content that would ensure sacking / public censure. I think they’re right.

The reason why JR is showing Sandie Peggie shared racists/ phobic views is as follows:

Jr - you are also intolerant of people of other races
NC - I'm sorry how is this relevant ?
NC - it seems to be a general attack on Cs character.
J - how will this help us in our decision in this case
JR - by analogy, to intolerance of race is also to intolerance of trans people
J - wide latitude in x examination, I will allow, but I hope it will be short chapter

Not sure legally being a racist makes someone transphobic. So the judge is allowing this evidence but it may not be given any weight in the case.

Yes public opinion may change - but this case will be a very important step in women reclaiming single sex spaces - for all women.

is the bra stuffed?

Trans women on hormonal therapies will grow breast tissue.

There are also obviously available surgeries

Every single person here has shared views that would be seen to be intolerant to one group or other in their lives. It’s no defence - it’s just a fact

Can we please stop minimising racism.

So I listened to most of Michael Foran last night (he was still going after eleven - what a trooper!) and hi view is that the panel might not view this day of evidence as particularly helpful in the grand theme or things.

The first witness, FW, couldn't recall very much, and much if her testimony seemed to be based on what people usually did, rather than what they did on that specific night in the changing room. And the cross examination of the second witness demonstrated that if you pull the worst thing that someone said in even years out of a chat group, you can probably make anyone in that chat look back (as NC did with FW) but should you judge their whole character on that? Interestingly, MF pointed out that discussing private patient info on the chat wasn't the worst thing FW did, there was something worse NC referred people to in the bundle but chose not to read out publicly.

And the fact that the two witnesses spoke at lunch, despite knowing they shouldn't, also casts doubts on their credibility as witnesses.

The racist jokes from SP were vile. But hopefully they won't be used as an argument against whether women at NHS Fife have a right to a single sex cr. It will be interesting to see how the testimony today goes, especially if it indicates there were other women who weren't happy about the situation. Character assassination is all JR has really.

Who is up today?

I’m so sorry for feeding the troll. But @Tandora - I am not minimizing racism in any way - you can see that from my history. What I am saying is for example if someone who purported to work in research - but shared public views that sex is a multidimensional linear multifaceted swirling spectrum rather than there are two sexes - that might make their employers judge their intelligence or skill and lead to performance management for example. And it would undermine them in a legal case because they believe the equivalent of conspiracy theories. And that’s before we even bothered to do a deep dive. It makes trials very uncertain.

It does seem like a totally toxic culture. I think parts of the NHS is a bit like that. The banding structure is over rigid and used to judge colleagues. "She's only a band 5".

Agenda for change T&Cs make it difficult to implement change and there seems to be an acceptance that investigations and disciplinary matters run into months.

Also if matters do get reported to the regulatory bodies, they take years to respond. There is a huge sense of inertia.

There is loads of long term sick, which isn't managed, which is really public money down the drain. But the IT is so poor.

NHS Fife seems particularly toxic. The days of 'clapping for the carers or whatever are well and truly over.

I stand with the principle that men don't belong in women's spaces.

Cross examination of Maggie Currer by NC scheduled to be first, then SP returns for more evidence, 2 more witnesses, possibly 3.

Witnesses have not been named - not sure what plan is on this - will they be allowed to be anonymous. 3rd potential witness is also unusual - apparently someone from NHS Fife called Sex Matters with some whistle blowing type stuff. Will the Judge allow it to be repeated?

I need to get on with my real life, really hope Big Sond holds the line, NC & JR crack on and the evidence finishes today.

I also had yesterdays events on my mind last thing at night, first thing in the morning.

I’m crestfallen.

But very angry and confused as to why the Judge has allowed this time wasting diversion tactic that has the sole purpose of utterly destroying SP on an unrelated matter.

To me, JR has become a very unpleasant and unprofessional figure willing to forever stoop to new lows and inflict as much damage as she can to SP. She got what she wanted but has made herself look incredibly vindictive and childish.

I do this in most public changing areas anyway - will always opt for cubicle if available. It’s just self-consciousness.

Also, I’m not sure if it’s been raised on these threads before, but what will happen in schools with girls or boys changing areas?? I’d really like to know. Each sex should be entitled to their own area. The problem is, and has always been, that people who have changed sex - equipment down there or not - are forcing that upon people who haven’t…. Not fair, not right, not at all. I follow this case today with most interest as it has wide implications for us all. I will bet most of the world is following it as an example too…

I’ve been called paki many times, although I’m glad to say it hasn’t happened in a long time.

I think the jokes are racist. I also think that Sandie is entitled to single sex spaces and still support her in securing her, and all women’s, right to this.

Can you please stop trying to distract from the fact Sandie was forced to share a changing room with a bloke, then suspended and treated awfully because she objected to it? The fact she has racist views has nothing to do with the actual case.

Please stop trying to character assassinate on something which isn't relevant to the case. Also, please stop being a troll and doing your best to cause chaos in the thread at every opportunity.

I'm starting to think you're Beth Upton....

Thanks for that summary.