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

About the ‘weird’ comment. If a man was insisting he was a woman, and on that claim felt quite entitled to insert himself into a supposedly female only changing room (knowing he was causing distress) I might think that at the very minimum.

Now, from that, we know he is quite happy to transgress such boundaries which involve women. This moves on to him saying quite openly, and cockily, that he would transgress the boundary of women who had requested female only care.

I would certainly be thinking ‘dodgy fucker’. At the very least. Some males can exhibit tendencies which don’t have any corollary in females. Also, these tendencies can escalate to become even more transgressive. Someone this openly contemptuous of women being let do what he wants would scare me.

I think that NC should not have held back with exposing LN, usually I would be in agreement with her restraint, but not after her testimony yesterday. LN is happy to smear SP so it is par for the course that she should be exposed if she holds similar views to SP or worse.

Everyone is now talking about SP's distasteful opinions, instead of the substance of her claim. Fortunately I do not think the ET Judge & panel will be so easily swayed from the main focus.

I agree. The ET Judge and panel will have seen muck raking like this many times over. It's not Employee of The Month who ends up bringing cases to Tribunals,

They will deal with the issue and particulars of claim based on the relevant evidence before them.

It’s open - but you can also subscribe for 3 months for £1 to read all their coverage. It has been very thorough and their team and doing good work rather than relying on press association report.

I'm sure many people will have reported her to the NMC in view of her admission of guilt yesterday, while being under oath.

The silly girl, motivated by spite and envy, didn't think before she went off on her 'crusade of justice and virtue' manipulated by Fife and dropped herself in it big time. Of course NHS fife knew this would happen, but they couldn't care less how much damage they cause to her or anyone else or their careers, as long as they can get a bit of mud to stick to Sandie and protect one man at the expense of everyone else and public funding.

On Monday, we heard explosive evidence from nursing colleagues and former friends of Ms Peggie. They claimed they had witnessed Ms Peggie made racist comments while also referring to Dr Upton as "weirdo", "it", and "freak".

Isn't it interesting that we’ve focussed on the racism, and not about her referring to someone as “it” and “freak”. I hope SP is able to give some context that makes sense.

I suspect there are things I've written that could be pulled out of my past to indicate that I'm not a candidate for canonisation. I deplore racist memes and jokes about humanitarian disasters, but I'm not in a position to throw stones.

I trust the judge and the panel to sift out the dross from among the evidence.

I stand with Sandie Peggie.

@FloridaCat herald Scotland blog is free and easier to follow than TT , but misses out the detail.

Please could you share the link as I can't seem to get into it without the paywall popping up? Thank you.

Morning all

Let's hope today brings better things.

450+ posts even before the trib starts!
It's mostly been discussion about racism/jokes/words etc.
If everybody feels they've made their point on this topic, maybe we could restrict comments to mostly about what's happening at the trib today?

I'm not trying to police free speech on the thread or anything, honest! I'm just being practical. And thinking of Nauticant

If we were all on trial for our thoughts we would all be hanged.

I think there are WhatsApp and Facebook chats between NHS staff up and down the country that wouldn't bear close examination from an outside observer. I was shocked at some of the chat revealed in the Lucy Letby trial - true, no racism (that I recall) but then that wasn't what the prosecution was looking for. LL might have had nefarious reasons for discussing patients outside of work, but it's clear that she and her colleagues routinely discussed cases, ie confidential patient information, outside of work. If a widespread NHS examination of workplace group chats was instigated the workforce would be decimated.

Personally I keep my private life private, don't do Facebook, if I was aware of a work colleague discovering my X account and following me I'd block them.

I'm back under a new username 😎
I've been following the case since the beginning not only because I stand with SP, but also because as an ex staff nurse AND someone who took their employer (not nhs) to employment tribunal i have a personal interest.

Obviously I'm not not going to defend off colour jokes like the ones read out yesterday but if anyone thinks drs and nurses are somehow nicer people than the rest of us then I'm here to dispel that myth.

I worked over 2 large NHS trusts and can confirm that bullying was rife as was pettiness, back stabbing and sometimes incompetence. Nurses were worse than Drs, but that could just be my perception as a nurse. Of course I also worked with many fine people who were lovely and supportive and competent.

One thing this case reminds me of is an often repeated phrase when I was student nurse:

'You don't have to be a nice person to be a good nurse'

and I add to that, you don't have to be a 'nice' person to have legal rights either. That fact may stick in the craw of purists but fortunately, for all of us, it's true.

Edited for typo

JR will have known the judge and panel would not be swayed but she knew it would sway public opinion and make SP a pariah and was happy with that significant ‘vindication’.

Part of NC's cross of LN yesterday was to paint LN as having it in for SP. Wanting to expose and punish SP.

If LN left that chat months ago, but took screenshots that paint SP in a bad light doesn't that back up NC's claim about being out to get SP?

Makes me wonder if after 7 years somthing else happened between LN and SP that caused LN to hold a grudge against SP.

I agree.

@FloridaCat It's https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25348007.live-sandie-peggie-gives-evidence-nhs-fife-tribunal/

but I put herald Scotland in the search bar, then click on the Sandie Peggie blog...

"The judge and other panel members were to consider whether to allow Emma ?, the Sex Matters person who took a call from someone at NHS Fife, to give evidence via CVP, or to disallow that."

oo I wasn't aware of this bit? What's that all about then? 👀

My post doesn't disagree with this.

@FloridaCat https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25344685.live-sandie-peggie-tribunal-hear-nursing-colleague/

But if you’re getting a paywall use a fresh browser or clear your cookies because they may think you’re a frequent user and so likely candidate for signing up (not a techie this might be nonsense 🤪)

Hope they start on time today, I am unavailable from 10.30am for a couple of hours.

If nauti isn't back and the thread fills up, could someone do thread 47?

Swaying public opinion against SP will also do the groundwork of souring public opinion in adavance against a possible SP win. The press will help.
"racist nurse wins single sex spaces tribunal"

I hope they allow Emma from SM as her testimony as to the culture of fear for women within NHSF actually is relevant.

This ⬆️