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

I can. As she seems to have been good at doing her job.

I expect the tribunal to have noted this very clearly.

Because it's pretty clear she doesn't just mean illegal immigrants.

JR done.

These are memes she has sent as an adult, not as child from decades ago.

5 min break

Thank fuck for that.

If it was the bloke with the ponytail that I saw when I needed to be at the Vic A&E at the time in question, then I can assure you that it was obvious...in spite of the fact that I was there for visual problems.

No it isn’t.

I wonder what Upton's Whatsap would have looked like. Oh right, we aren't allowed to see his because he is special. Not like those nasty women.

Sandie is the Claimant but it feels like she is the one on trial.

JR trying to undermine the menstrual flood part of the evidence by saying she'd been looking up policy on menstrual privacy and then made it up - is that really likely to land well?

JR's suggestion that SP was making it up about the menstrual flood was a good place to stop, as tbf it's all too plausible that she was. Unproveable either way now, of course.

menstrual flood. True?
SP No
JR Nearest toilet to where you were working wasn't the F CR
SP Yes
JR Could have gone there
SP No, my underwear and trousers were in the locker room
JR Reads c policies and privacy. Was your menstrual flood a cover
SP no JR Nothing further

Why else would SP have been back in the changing room mid shift?

Well, that was painful. But, sandy stuck to the CR issue. If TW stayed out of Women’s spaces, we wouldn’t need this board. This is the issue that has caused all the upset.

They might also be allocated lockers to keep personal possessions safe during a shift, so obviously would have to access the CR.

But I’m not talking about things she did or said or learned as a child. That was context. These incidents under discussion may be recent but they are still in the past. There is room here for her to learn and see things differently which I think is possible given the evidence that she is capable of remorse and regret.

We were still calling them P**i shops at uni 30 years ago. It was the universally accepted term. (edited by MNHQ)

Not sure when it went out and obviously in some social groups it will take longer than others.

My elderly DM will still say coloured instead of black, as when she was campaigning it was the polite term.

But then there is the kids, which is the other issue.

I know it's not the same thing as Irish Travellers, but I don't often volunteer the fact that I've got some Romani background. That's one group that almost everyone feels they can be derogatory about...

...except for a few annoying people on the internet, none of whom seem to be Roma themselves, who try to win virtue points by policing language, and don't seem to be interested in the real problems of a socially marginal group.

But yeah, I think many people aren't aware how prevalent Irish jokes and stereotypes used to be in England, and they've never entirely gone away.

I can't imagine her views not impacting the quality of case she gives to Pakistani people.

I think that's quite a stretch you've made there.

The "who's funding you" keeps being asked about Sandie towards Tribunal Tweets on X as well. People really desperate to know.

But people can have slips of the tongue? Or can be misheard?

Having learnt German, I would pronounce it Forshtatter. It would be easy not to hear the first t, especially in an open room with a lot of people in it.

JR's case is that she went there at that time deliberately, in order to have it out with BU. Can you put your hand on your heart, given the message she posted about having been looking up menstrual privacy, and say you're 100% certain that isn't true? I'd like to believe her, but right now, I'm not 100% sure I do.

Rather than trying to redeem themselves, NHS Fife have gone with the 'let's take everyone else down with us' route.

I can't see how it will do them any favours.