NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #47

[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/womensrights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/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/womensrights/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/womensrights/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/womensrights/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/womensrights/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
Thread 46: mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5381640-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-46 28 July 2025 to 29 July 2025

DH (mid 50s) from a nice bit of Glasgow and I had to train him to stop saying ‘p*kis’ for every single small shop. His parents used it frequently and in fact I fell out with my FIL over it was and I don’t think we ever recovered from it.
To them it had a generic meaning for a small shop (regardless of who ran it) but still not okay.

That was about a Pakistani/white family with identity issues.

Please don't kid yourselves that Pakistanis were ever happy with being called 'P' by white people or anyone else.

I told my Mum's carers off for using the word P**i in 2015. They laughed, they were of Pakistani heritage.
(Edited by MNHQ)

I think it’s really helpful to hear how widespread and normal the usage was, and without ill intent.

Obviously we understand that even without ill intent, it is still racist and has negative ramifications.

But that’s not always obvious until it’s explained.

AI being boring!

Although it chose the airline.

I spent a lot of time in Slough in the mid 70s and P… shop was in common use there, but not in London or Birmingham (moved around a lot). Only shop open on Sundays so quite useful.

Oh I do dislike Jane Russell's special caring voice.

JR admits she's been using incorrect pronouns for SP........sneaky little point.

English, Irish and, Scots jokes were rife. The 'come here there's more' guy was on the telly. I remember the b&w minstrel show, which i didn't watch. It Ain't Half Hot Mum, which i did. Lenny Henry joking about flesh coloured plasters.

I sort of know that it's not ideal but as a family who like to play around with Cockney Rhyming Slang we often use 'kitchen sink' with regard to a Chinese takeaway, but I'd like to think that we use it ironically. Perhaps we'd best rethink our usage...

JR using her talking to a child voice

I'm way ahead of you 🍸🍹🍻

On the use of the p word or ch... for Chinese - I'm a bit older than SP but probably from a similar background and me and my siblings would have got a metaphorical clip around the earhole from our parents for using such disrespectful language about other people.
Not tolerated in our household, and we weren't anything special.

It was very common where I grew up in Lanarkshire. The shops were initially referred to as the P-word shop but eventually as several opened or shops taken over, and numbers grew they were referred to by the owners name to differentiate. Most people were not using it in a deliberately derogatory way but it was clear that some did. Sectarianism was a much bigger issue back then than dislike of Pakistani shop owners.

Tricky line this. It's possible to thoroughly disapprove of a religion, or of religion in general, and to wish they would diminish in the number of their adherents, without denying people their right to follow their religion. There's no requirement to be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

What the hell have mosques got to do with any of this? Utterly ridiculous. The tribunal isn't about her thoughts on islam.
The racist smear campaign goes on

JR: defending the treatment of women in sharia law as second class citizens, now.

Goodness Gracious Me suggests otherwise. It's on iPlayer atm if you want to give it another watch.

JR - I've called you a racist, homophobe and transphobe but I want to make sure I'm calling you Miss or Mrs?

That's some cheek.

I wonder whether JR was told off?

I don't know why but this is making me cry. Because it's a tsunami of hard working women who were terrified of being named and now they have been because of the utter toxicity of NHSFife. It's horrible and I feel for Sandie having to do it.

JR Issues c [? Brae?] not put to DU so no opportunity to respond
/JR make note
JR Do you prefer I call you Mrs Peggie not [Miss/Ms] as I have. I'll make sure my subs refer to you as that.
JR [to doc] In Feb I took you to pg shared by close family member and you said youdidn't share their views. Not true.
SP I don't believe it's all Muslim people - Don't believe that children and women should be treated like [miss] under Sharia law
JR everyone has right to practise their religion, christians/muslims anyone
SP Y
JR And have right

I've heard people say it about themselves but more in a reclaiming the slur kind of way... like the N word which isn't ok for white people to say.

JR labouring the bacon comment

Stop with the bacon.