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

Thanks Marie. You, @Internaut and @FloridaCat seem to be the few decent voices on this thread.

The idea that it's really difficult and holier than thou to not be a racist and the mental contortions from people to justify racism has been eye opening.

You get no sympathy from me due to no bacon. You weirdo, if I'm allowed to say that, with all the shenanigans, I forget....

No green whatsoever for ours, unfortunately.

I'm trying not to get too sentimental about it: the lady who ran it sold single cigarettes to schoolkids, saved the cigarette coupons and sold them to adults who needed more coupons to buy whatever from the Players catalogue. (My first bike was bought with cigarette coupons.)

DU, in his definitely contemporaneous notes.

Bet the chat around the coffee machine and the canteen at NHSF is going to be a bit stifled in future for fear of who is going to grass who up to the management.

But of course there were jokes about other people and places! I listed some earlier- not dunblane and Lockerbie because I didn’t look them up, but 9/11, the shuttle,

Man United for goodness sake! I think in your righteous anger you are missing people’s explanations and rebuttals.

And I’m bowing out now- dead cats and squirrels.

Why are you pretending that people haven’t answered whether sick jokes have been made about all these events and more? I have personally recounted that they have, and so have others.

@Veryweirdsadtimes has actually met SP and experienced her nursing care of her father. Their family didn’t experience any terrible behaviour from SP yet here you still are attempting to force people to agree with everything you say.

I accept that people from all walks of life can be horribly unpleasant, I have experienced rank misogyny from doctors within the NHS on a number of occasions. Refusing to accept that people aren’t always paragons of virtue is unhelpful, of course they shouldn’t behave like that, but sometimes they do. We all know SP’s views, they have been discussed ad infinitum, and everyone finds them abhorrent, so constantly badgering people about it is pointless. Your own attitude towards other posters on this thread hasn’t always been exemplary.

I can imagine the furore had Peggie been found to insult the victims of Dunblane or Lockerbie. There is a double standard at play here.

Fucksake no there isn’t! You are blinded by your own rage and seeing things that aren’t there.

I think I have the prefect person to play Pete the plumber in the televised drama.

Ricky Gervais - HER penis you BIGOT !!

No, when I posted, no one had said which memes have been shared about Lockerbie and Dunblane victims, or 7/7 victims. How many have you seen?

I'm a professionally diagnosed weirdo so it's OK.

There I was, sat talking about how my wet foods shouldn't touch my dry foods and how pasta is a wet food but rice is a dry food except when there are other dry foods I want to keep dry and then rice is no longer a food at all, and is in fact a wall and the consultant psychiatrist said "You really are a weirdo aren't you"

Anyway that's on how I got diagnosed with autism.

irrelevant accusations and making character assassinations ! We see through it all

JR desperately trying to make out that Sandie was on a mission to take Upton down. Purely because there was evidence to show that Upton was doing exactly that

It wasn’t Sandie taking notes down about her colleagues. ( what sort of behaviour is that !! )
It wasn't her that ‘fiddled’ about with the ‘no longer’ contemporaneous notes adding stuff in to build a case against Sandie.

I’m surprised NC didn’t do a final cross exam at the end. Although, let’s face it do we really need it all spelt out again

It's interesting that the daily reddit drive by has taken a different tack today. Well done them for diversifying.

As a 70's child my earliest memory of dark humour was when Elvis died. I heard it in the playground but was more shocked when I heard adults also saying it. Years later I remember the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and the sick jokes doing the rounds. It's not all to do with being racist.

Very has 3 posts to her name. Anyone can say they're anyone on MN. Including you and I. It's an anonymous forum.

Would you be happy if your doctor or nurse was sending racism memes about your ethnicity?

The surgeon who saved my life after I'd been resuscitated could have hated me personally for all I cared.

He could have been slagging me off to all and sundry (although that was actually the surgeon who'd done the surgery the day before that ended up with me dead on my way back into theatre)

All I cared about was he'd helped save my life and as I repeatedly told him whilst taking industrial amounts of morphine I loved him and wanted him to be the father of my children!

I have never ever heard anyone joke about Dunblane, ever. Its beyond horrific.

I'm sure there must have been Lockerbie jokes at the time.

Massive disasters become faceless and beyond human they become rounded numbers on a screen, people crack jokes because its beyond comprehension
smaller disasters that can be pictured and faces displayed tend not to have so many jokes

I specifically mentioned 7/7 and I saw Dunblane ones. I was too young to see Lockerbie ones and there was no social media but obviously they will have been made 🙄

Can you search MN effectively? Are you able to see if that poster has engaged on anything other than SP and racism?

If I’ve been drawn in to sour the thread by someone who hasn't otherwise contributed l’ll be raging.

My pleasure

I can see the food logic there.

I’m not sure why Sandie was put back on stand. She didn’t help herself and I would have thought her legal team would have realised that.

her views aren’t acceptable and if there is to be action regarding this, then I don’t this it’s unreasonable (any action from Hospital or NMC should be against any in that group who made racist jokes etc).

One comment I have to make - the SNP like to make out that Scotland is this wonderfully friendly and diverse place and it is in many ways (it’s my home country although I now live down south and I love it ), but Sandie isn’t unusual in what she said although I think she is a few years behind the times. But growing up in Scotland, we had 1 non white pupil in the class, probably 4/5 max in the whole school. I would imagine it would be even less in the East Coast.

one of the things I like about not living in Scotland is that my kids aren’t growing up with all the sectarian sh*t that I was surrounded by growing. That doesn’t mean the people were full of hate - it’s just how it was.

i don’t think Sandie would be my cup of tea - I suspect her views are a lot more right of centre than mine - but I also don’t think her views are that unusual for Scotland - just others may be less likely to voice it.

and now I will probably get pelters - but Scotland is wonderful , but it’s definitely behind other parts of the Uk on its diversity although catching up fast.

I was not denying the existence of people who don't use derogatory language themselves and are not racist. I am surprised you took what I wrote in that way. Of course I would prefer to be around people who don't use racist language and don't act in a racist way. What I am saying is that what matters is that people treat others for who they are, not the colour of their skin. That is more important than the language they use, but that does not mean the language they use is unimportant.

Most significantly in terms of this thread, I am seeing some posters adamant that the fact SP has posted some racist jokes into a chat group must mean she treats members of racial minorities differently. That does not follow.