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

DU is the second respondent in the ET claim, so yes they are a party to the legal claim.

If the judge couldn't order that DU's phone be handed over that'll be because of a limitation of his powers/jurisdiction.

She didn't make the weirdo comment in the workplace so I think she had a clear divide.

I don't like her views at all re racism, but she did seem to keep all of her views out of the workplace until Upton was in the changing room. The rest was on a friends chat with colleagues, which she and indeed they didn't see as an extension of the workplace. Now that was stupid, but her professional attitude i don't have a problem with.

Believe they are a woman and want to live as one - really if thats the case he needs mental help, what if he believed he was a bitch, would he really go eat kibble and sleep in a dog bed?

I'm still trying to work out what live as a woman means?
What exactly does it mean?

I cannot stand purity spiralling. People aren’t necessarily minimising, they’re mostly just explaining their own experience of other people they know (sometimes their closest loved ones) who make bad taste jokes and use highly inappropriate terms, and how they personally wouldn’t do that but think these people aren’t actually as terrible as is being claimed. That it’s possible to make the odd awful comment and still be a reasonably good person.

You can be angry at Sandie Peggie as much as you want (although she isn’t in any way accountable to you), but other people don’t need to join in or be themselves denounced for wrongthink. As I said, be careful what you wish for.

Because we all know menstrual flooding happens at proscribed times. What a misogynist prick.

This is extreme institutional racism. Which will have direct impacts on women. There may well be women excluded from healthcare right now.

Haven't there already been studies done which show that ethnic minorities don't engage as much with health care? As for maternity care and how women of colour are treated, leading to worse outcomes - I think there are threads running about that.

Yes, there are. It’s a real problem.

She doesn't use the C word about Chinese people, she uses it about Chinese restaurants. It's clear in the TT tweets.

Oh come on, Essentially saying SP is both 'bad' in this way and 'very good' in this way is obviously not purity spiralling.

And yes, some people were absolutely minimising. I'm not talking about every person who explained their own experiences.

Am I on balance very glad and grateful that SP brought the case despite her racist views? Yes.

Agree.

The group chat member was not called. NC mentioned something arising overnight, so witness may have withdrawn, but I guess issues were tactical - available time would be guillotined, & wanting to put SP on the stand for an honest warts & all rebuttall, so that the last word was not from the back stabbers.

And yet again we're talking about one nurse, who will probably never do the job again.

As opposed to the entire NHS - hundreds of hospitals where all Muslim women and other women of faith who require single sex care or spaces either cannot use any hospital facilities or have to accept they will have to risk breaching their religious rules and that a man can walk in on them in a state of undress in their 'female' hospital ward, their 'female' toilet, their 'female' changing room or have a man provide care when they've asked for single sex because his delusion he's got a 'female' inner essence apparently overrides her consent.

It's absolutely clear from the audit (thanks @KnottyAuty ) that this is true.

As this becomes more well known, I wonder if women from very religious observant communities that require single sex spaces may come under pressure not to attend or work at NHS hospitals. Because under current policies there really are no single sex spaces that any man can't id into by saying the magic words 'I'm a woman'.

What you are doing is purity spiralling. No one is expecting you to approve of SP’s comments. But you think you can criticise others on this thread for not condemning her comments as strongly as you feel they should be condemned.

The new group chat member was someone in support of SP who also objected to DU being in the female changing room ... that would arguably have been stronger than SP having more time for a rebuttal so I really think the witness either bottled it or something was discovered that would weaken their evidence.

It’s hardly surprising that the mystery witness “bottled it”, is it? She doesn’t have as much invested in this as SP, and she was going to be smeared in a possibly career ending way.

I'll say it, I'd be very very wary of him. Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

Nothing to do with him being male, I adored the male nurse who looked after me a long time ago.

Nope, not very surprising at all

So sorry if you don't like my choice of term

But I'm not convinced that it wasn't more complicated than the witness withdrawing. We'll never know.

tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life!
(& mine)

It’s a quote, not a judgement on your choice of term 🙄 not really sure what you’re getting at here?

I wonder if NC only recalled SP because at the time the other Sandra from the group was also planning to give evidence?

Sandie's additional evidence made for a very flat ending to what had otherwise been a quite triumphant week for the case.

I wonder what happens next for Sandie? Having been cleared of misconduct and with the evidence concluded, it may have been time for a phased return to work?

It's hard to imagine what sort of state that A&E department is in right now for any of the tribunal participants.

I think possibly she already went back to work?

Earlier I pondered what happens if she has patients who are Muslim, Pakistani or Chinese given that we all now know what she thinks of those groups.

Will patients have the right to refuse her and request someone else?

Any thoughts on whether a Jade Goody deathwatch is at all deplorable @Christinapple

And can you honestly say that if your private WhatsApp chats or discord or telegram or Reddit profile or whatever were put under the scrutiny of a high profile court case there would be nothing that anyone could ever perceive as problematic and could be used against you in any way? I somehow doubt that.

She’s been working there for 30years with no complaints. A pp on previous thread noted her excellent care of her father who was from an ethnic background

People are capable of being professional.

SP hatefully threatened a mosque, laughed at large numbers of people dying in a foreign tragedy, calls LGBT people "weirdo" and "it" and admits to using hateful racial slurs.

Yes I can honestly say I don't do any of that.