NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #48

[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 was 29 July 2025. It will resume again on 1 to 2 September for closing submissions.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February 2025. Sandie Peggie returned to give evidence on 29 July 2025.

Access to view the second part of 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
Thread 46: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/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
Thread 47: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5382102-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-47 29 July 2025 to 29 July 2025

I’m not a racist and I don’t laugh at tragedies, but I think the monstering of this one brave woman by her colleagues, some of whom she considered her friends, and her employer for a thoughtless meme on a completely private chat, just because she stood up for herself and other women against a controlling and entitled male creep, is despicable and some on this thread should really be careful what they wish for.

Just goading, as per usual.

Sandie used racist words.
All males should use male facilities according to the supreme court.
Two truths, no lie.

I look at the rainbow lanyards and worry.
On the audit thread we’ve all seen it written how the NHS could refuse our treatment if we expressed GC views.

Craig Murray’s solution is to give DU an allotted time to use the female CR. I gather he thinks the females should just wait outside. What a prat!

https://x.com/craigmurrayorg/status/1950263935854399784?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

“The reasonable woman adapts herself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable woman.” GBS, edited for sex.

Quite. This issue is going to be pushed to the highest level for a decision. Hopefully not the Supreme Court again because the law is clear but I’m not sure an ET will want to to make the call.

He can fuck off.

Showing he knows fine well that men like DU aren't women. But he wants them to take everything that's for women anyway.

This, 100%

I wonder if this is a theme - I was thinking the other day that sexism seems to be on the rise

ETA I’m sorry to hear that

I might ask to be treated by a female medic. I might be brought in wearing an AHF t-shirt or a suffragette badge. They might find a Tunnocks in my pocket. I might eyeroll if someone mentions pronouns, talks about sex assigned or asks what gender I id as.

Regarding being Asian I'm not qualified to comment but for 30 years SP has been treating patients without a breath of any complaints. If Upton hadn't happened or if Fife's management had given the slightest thought to the dignity of their female staff she'd still be working there. I suspect she'd have worked there until retirement treating all the people who needed her care regardless of their skin or hair colour. Along with the rest of her colleagues who were in the WhatsApp group.

However, you can't unring the bell. If someone decided they'd rather be treated by someone else I suspect Peggie at least would respect that.

To be scrupulously fair, she copied a post from Facebook, she didn’t individually post multiple jokes at different times, it was one sick meme about the tragedy. I’ve mentioned several times about how absolutely fucking awful Facebook comments can be in many scenarios. Not to excuse them, just to demonstrate how they aren’t unusual. And yes, occasionally a particularly witty one has got a guilty laugh out of me, I’m not perfect. I certainly wouldn’t share anything of that nature on a chat with colleagues (or anyone else) though, but I think that speaks to how comfortable an environment that chat group was for those kind of remarks.

I’ve been trying to get to grips with this in my own mind. My experience of the P and C words were as descriptors. Never as slurs thrown at people. I don’t recall ever hearing the N word “in the wild” but I can’t recall that as a descriptor ever - only a slur. I say this not to justify the use of these words but to understand changing social attitudes. And this is of course a central theme to TRA arguments - that GC views are as old fashioned as these unacceptable words and eventually they will die out and TWAW… For me not so much - I was ignorant about those words and now I’m not. Regarding trans people I can say I was BeKind but now not so much… no doubt my understanding will continue to evolve

If it hadn't been for the employment tribunal, caused by NHS Fife's and Dr Upton's actions, it's very unlikely that any authority would have known about any racist comments or attitudes. The evidence disclosed in the tribunal would have remained private and Sandie Peggie would have remained an unexceptional nurse with a good record of nursing service in the Fife area.

Ive been thinking about the 'be kind' mantra. Being kind can still take place as honesty is a longer term kindness, while misleading people doesn't help them.
If Upton had been told to use male facilities or if Fife had identified a space for him as he felt uncomfortable around other males, then none of this would have happened.

Not sure about that. If you start bandying your racism about amongst groups of friends, you really can't guarantee that they will all sympathise with you and keep quiet.

Funny that they kept quiet until this high profile court case, then, really.

SP shared the meme about the Pakistan floods in 2022, no?

Ok I read different things so wasn't sure: whether the 10 jokes (as it turned out to be) were contained in one meme or posted separately. Even the transcript doesn't make it that clear, with witnesses referring to several posts.

I still think that doing that, along with SP admitting she still uses the C-word about Chinese people and a few other things, have been minimised too readily in these threads by some people because of SP's undeniable huge services to us all on the sex reality front.

Interesting that no one who is saying but it's not that bad or that over there is so much worse has admitted they laughed at most of the jokes in that meme and they still refer to Chinese people or a Chinese restaurant as "Ch* or the corner shop as the P** shop. Of course they're not bloody going to, because they know how wrong it is. And SP should do but clearly doesn't agree or she wouldn't be using certain terms still.

I believe the judge didn't have the power to order anything to be done with DU's phone.

I think there was a culture of not escalating things, and I'm not entirely sure they all disagreed with her.l, some may well have done. But I suspect there was a distrust of HR from nurses as they'd believe they'd favour doctors so they'd stay away from contacting them even about other nurses. Pure speculation, of course.

In evidence, SP came out with some lines that are straight out of the Reform hit list, particularly in relation to immigrants. She seems to accept the line they pedal uncritically. As those are views she genuinely holds, I question whether she would have held back indefinitely from making them pretty obvious in the workplace, just as she couldn't hold back from publicising her views about transpeople being "weirdos".

I think that's probably right, given that DU wasn't a party to the legal claim.

Upton was party to the claim. He was 2nd respondent