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

That makes more sense! 😅

I thought it very odd that jr spent so long on a character assassination and then, at the end, suggests that a- SP ambushed BU and b-asked if sp had referred to bu as a torturor.
Then finished.
Was it because, if she spent more time questioning on this, they would prove groundless, so mentioning at the end d, almost as an afterthought, was a smear?

Thankyou @nauticant and @MarieDeGournay and Bez for your steering today and previously. The threads have been helpful and illuminating but have taken a turn for the repetitive and tedious. Roll on September and an actual bloomin' judgement so that all involved can put it behind them and other trusts can learn what I expect will be fairly extensive lessons.

I have come across people who are very strong about policing the language used by others and would never dream of using a derogatory term themselves, who are amongst the most racist people I have ever met. They think they are good people, but they are completely blind to their own racism.

I have also come across people who still use terms that once used to be common but are now considered offensive, and who tell and laugh at racist jokes, but are completely colour blind. Their language may not be great, but they are good people.

I know which group I would rather be around.

Can NC demand information from NHS Fife re: the management and possible interference with post addressed to SP & DU and add that to her submission?

Aaaarrrrggggghhhh - I was so convinced there was a big final flourish re Fife reading the mail.

My bad - sorry I got that one wrong.

On the racist stuff - totally no acceptable- and I am sure if a court had free rein with all my comms they’d find offensive things.

Don’t think the evidence proved that Sandie is all the phobias and JR hasn’t done enough to make the Panel think that means she’s just after Upton because she is transphobic rather than she doesn’t want a man in the changing room.

So September it is. I didn’t get a pass to view so fingers crossed for next time.

Reminds me of the who's going to clean your house and your toilet if you stop immigration? brigade. The soft bigotry of low expectations.

It's really not that hard to not be a racist.

The scrambling to present Sandie as a poor, misunderstood, flawed human is truly eye opening.

These memes aren't in the distant past, the floods in which she described drowning people as 'cocopops in a bowl of milk' were three years ago.

Can you imagine anyone saying that about the tsunami in 2004?

I mean we could try!!

But I reckon people will be knocking on your door asking for a new thread way before that!

Thanks for all the timely thread starts @nauticant Bb xx

There is a great deal of grim 'humour' in Fife. (Not condoning - I'm elaborating.)

In the '80s, I recall a kid in my class saying "Do you know what the last thing they heard over the Challenger [space shuttle] was? The schoolteacher saying 'What does this button do?'

A pp just reminded me of something. I was driving behind a big 4x4 car when I noticed the reg. was P1KEY or some mix of numbers and letters that spelled the word. I was horrified. Thinking back I'm still surprised that reg. was released by the DoT. Anyway when I got back to work I told a colleague. She knew the guy who owned the vehicle, he was from the Traveller community.

Thank you. That’s very interesting. thanks for sharing.

Unlike many here I came into this thinking that SP would likely have views around race, religion and immigration that I might find abhorrent but the legal question which I find very interesting given we live in a pluralistic democratic society is about whether she acted on those views and, in particular, did she act on them at work to the detriment of colleagues and patients.

I have not seen any evidence that she did.

JRs case seems to hinge on the idea that her acts of indirect racism mean she is also homophobic and a general bigot who sought to harass and bully DU because of her bigotry. But they don’t seem to hold up — particularly if you review DUs testimony.

He and KS had to work very hard to find unsubstantiated examples of where they claim her private views influenced her work but I think these have been effectively proven as false.

So that leaves the fact that she didn’t think a man should be in f cr. the tribunal will consider if that was reasonable based on evidence presented to them.

Was SP victimised by the failure of process which discriminated against her? Undoubtedly.

Hmm. They’re talking a lot about religion now too. Upton said he would go ahead and treat a woman who had asked for only female care. Is this respectful of those women from religions for whom his doing this would be a violation on their religious grounds. I don’t think so. Of course, it is a violation of any woman to whom he would do such a thing. On two counts. Saying he is something which he is not, and then trampling roughshod over their wishes, and consent.

You could view the oral submissions on previous Trib's so this should be no different.

It really is. Saying illegal immigrants should be returned to their home country is a bit of a no-brainer, and a pointless thing to say because they are. She clearly is referring to asylum seekers, and I suspect other legal immigrants also.

The NHS employs like 1.7m people. It is the 5th largest employer in the world. Some of them are bound to be stinkers, it would implausible for them all to be sainted…

Yes it's not that long ago. When i had my first cars in my teens and 20s I had to sit in garage waiting rooms with page 3 calendars on the walls.

When I started my first job after uni there was a smoking room in my office block.
It's only 18 years since smoking in pubs was stopped.

Exactly.

When did objecting to racism turn into being holier than thou?

Nicole Kidman (red haired version) could play Sandie in the Netflix series. Bill Bailey could be Dr Upton.

You, scrambling to distract everyone from the fact a woman was being forced to share a changing room with a man (then unlawfully suspended and victimised when she refused) is the truly eye opening thing.

Hasn't for Lindsay 😭

@WearyAuldWumman
I was scolded by a high school pupil one time, because I mentioned buying something from - wait for it - "the corner shop" and was told that I was being racist.

I wouldn't say "corner" is inherently racist, but it does have an edge to it.

I wouldn’t think it all too plausible she made it up. If she’d gone to the trouble of making that up, then I’d think she’d be sufficiently conniving to present herself in a different light with these questions about racism. She’s also of the right age to have flooding in relation to being perimenopausal.

Scotland, including the Scottish NHS, does receive some funding from Westminster. Plus English and people of other nationalities living in and paying taxes in Scotland also contribute ( you don't have to be Scottish)

Would they joke about Dunblane victims? Lockerbie victims?