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 have been thinking a lot about the issues raised in the case in particular the behaviour of professionals. I am not in anyway perfect although take my professional standards seriously.

I have been the Sandie Peggie at the office asking questions about changing CYP names and sex on legal documents without deedpolls or GRC’s. I made sure I used the CYP name in correspondence and avoided pronouns and insisted when dealing with external professionals I required the legal name.

The case for the defence has been a witch hunt!!! There is no perfect victim. Would Sandie Peggie and I get on as humans I cannot say. I do not like racism at all. However she has owned up and stood the stand again that I respect.

There is an ex-neighbour who is a HCA, a horrible representative for the NHS. She actually used the C word to describe my husband and had supported her nasty son to harass me due to my disability. He was a fit healthy (paratrooper apparently) yet was a lazy entitled brat who would park in my blue badge space or the neighbours on purpose. If she ever was working in a clinic or ward I was on. It would be made clear she is not involved or accesses my care plan in anyway. However she has the right to change with privacy, no matter my dislike of her.

To those acting as paragons of virtue, who have never been influenced by common language of their era.

Do you never say or think or share anything nasty about another women? Are your thoughts and jokes entirely pure?

Have you never made a judgement on a child with corporate parents thinking you would not wish them to be friends with your child?

Have you never made a judgment on a disabled person in receipt of benefits, without knowing background in depth?

For those of you with SEND CYPs have you never commented or laughed at the nasty videos about abusing SEND professionals? Not thinking they are human too?

Have you never judged a rape or sexual assault survivor by what they were wearing or the rumours you have heard about them?

Do you never use offensive language for disabilities in your younger years?

Have you never judged another women for self-harm or spending time in a mental health institution or made nasty comments about another women based on rumours?

Have you never judged a woman who is Neurodivergent for not fitting in or understanding the jokes?

For professionals how do you write about your patients or clients in their notes could you stand up to scrutiny?

I have experienced all those types of judgments by other women and it has impacted my self worth. Yet I am not a paragon of virtue myself. I have made mistakes and needed to learn from them. It is human nature. As I said I am not perfect and have used the common language of the day in the past without understanding the meaning.

I was told off on here yesterday for making a mistake about feminism and the suffergette movement. Individuals on an anonymous forum making presumptions about me and my background due to my writing a comment on Mum’s Net not writing an in-depth academically researched paper on feminism. I reflected understood that these commenters do not know me personally. I shall be ordering a copy of the book recommended.

I understand that for those who have experienced significant racism that Sandie Peggie’s actions have casused pain. You feel she should not get a large financial compensation. This case is not about the financial aspects it is about the justice and treatment of a women wanting a private space to change and impacts ALL WOMEN no matter our personal view of them.

This situation started with the implementation of GRC’s. It has been hijacked by a MRA movement for nefarious purposes. The significant issue with legislation and policies are the unintended consequences are unpredictable. This situation could not have been predicted when the legislation and policies were created.

It is due to women including the ones who are not perfect standing up and taking a stand. Putting themselves in the firing line and this is what we must all remember. Put aside your personal views and support each other as women.

THANK YOU AGAIN TO @nauticant, @Boiledbeetle, @BezMills and others (sorry I do not have everyone’s names to hand) for highlighting this case and sharing valuable information. I hope your contributions are shared in the Netflix series in years to come.

Completely agree on honesty as a longer term kindness.

It is not kind, IMO, to go along with someone’s fantasy that they’re right to think of themselves as the other sex. It is deeply unkind to encourage them to take cross sex hormones, block puberty or have surgery. All of those have significant negative impacts and the potential to be extremely harmful if not fatal with complications. You don’t need a medical background to realise this.

Though, I’m not sure that DrU felt uncomfortable around other males. Perhaps inasmuch as males likely to be less fawning/affirming of DrU as a TW. As said many times on FWR, TW want to be in female spaces as validation of their womanliness. Plus, there’s some men who enjoy making women uncomfortable.

I agree

SP posted racist jokes on a private chat on one occasion. (I don’t mean only one joke, but as far as we know this wasn’t a persistent behaviour over many years). She probably has attitudes that I don’t share and uses language I don’t, but the fact she posted this in the group suggests she had no reason to think that the others wouldn’t find the jokes funny/ wouldn’t share some of her views. It’s not like these are people with no other contact, eg people who only know each other online or old school friends who’ve set up a group to get back in touch. I can’t imagine posting something so controversial in a group unless I was pretty confident the rest of the group wouldn’t be really offended.

To add, there’s nothing to suggest she ever posted anything racist about either colleagues or patients. And we know at least one other member of the group discussed patients.

Edited to add. Some people have compared this ti Met Police group’s misogyny. This was often directly referring to victims of crime or others the police had direct contact with. It wasn’t only jokes.

BUT
On the other side we had performative cluelessness about sex, lies about when notes were taken, partial disclosures about what was put in a WhatsApp group and quite probably collusion among witnesses. All these much more relevant to the case. We also saw that workers in an NHS trust were apparently happy to let racism, Islamophobia and possibly homophobia slide. The idea that SP comes out of this significantly worse than others is mad.

Tribunal Tweets have been live tweeting and they've linked to all their sessions here.

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6

Lindsay's sessions were the afternoon of Monday the 27th. The first session was mistyped as her when it was actually still Fiona Wishart, but we do get treated to some discussion about them having talked over lunch. Which isn't allowed, for obvious reasons.

https://archive.ph/lAwUg

It doesn't get any better for her as the session proceeds.

If I put my HR hat on you are correct but there are more issues:

• GDPR breach - all 7 on the benidorm chat should have reported. This is serious for them all and potentially gross misconduct.
• racist meme’s and other unsavoury comments - the full 2600 pages potentially could see all 7 on the Benidorm chat reported to NMC.
• DrU’s admission he would see a patient who requested a female doctor should be referred to the GMC. This level of arrogance or delusion means he is a safeguarding risk. This has shaken my faith in the NHS more than SPs views.
• DrUs false allegations about professional misconduct. Again referral to GMC on fitness to practice grounds.. If he would do this to a colleague what would he do to a patient?
• DrUs delusion they are a biological woman. Again referral to GMC on fitness to practice grounds. All the other TWAW medical professional witnesses very reluctantly agreed DrU is a man. A bare minimum.
• KS, ED, MC and others working together to undermine a fair investigation. Referral to GMC. Again if they can do this to a longstanding colleague what would they do if one made a clinical mistake and a patient made a complaint. Disappearing notes? Embellishing DATIX? Colluding to get their story straight? Again undermining public confidence.
• NHSF unlawful policy about SSS. As KnottyAuty’s audit has shown the whole NHS is potentially guilty of sex discrimination as well as race and religious discrimination for not providing female only wards, changing rooms, toilets and care. This is huge in terms of public confidence.
• NHSF not following its own suspension and investigation policies. Plus clearly not drilling down to get all the evidence. Again huge in terms of public confidence.
• NHSF culture is toxic as clearly no one wanted to go against its TWAW policies and culture of fear. Again impacting public confidence. This laid bare the institutional failure to accept criticism or mistakes. It is a known issue yet this ET showed the whistleblowing and speak up schemes have not worked.

SP is flawed, like all of us, but my god her courage in revealing the truth warts and all about herself, NHSF and many of her colleagues is to be applauded.

Finally managed to catch up and everything has ended exceot for summing up. The dead cat has clearly been extraordinarily successful here, and unsurprisingly given what was revealed.

However, having speed-read the threads over a few days, I find myself coming back to the sheer unprofessionalism of NHS Fife throughout all of it.

I have fired people in my line of work, including memorably one man who called his line manager a P b* in front of other staff and (also South Asian) customers. I still did everything by the book, followed HR advice to the letter, kept him properly informed of exactly what was happening and why, and logged absolutely everything. That man was then supported by his union in his claim of unfair dismissal and fortunately I had all the evidence to back up that not only was it right to fire him, but that I'd followed the exact process so he didn't get compensation.

It is notable that NHSF not only did not follow process, but seems to have been collaborating to get their stories straight. Why would they need to do that if Sandie was such an obviously bad person? No, the thing they took issue with was her request for SSS and then they went hunting for a reason to get rid of her.

And only one, that Sandie is guilty of.

Agree with all of this.

And in addition, Fife have put themselves in a position where it's going to be difficult for them to investigate and potentially discipline Sandie for racism. I'm not saying they won't attempt it, although maybe not, but their actions have made it so much more of a delicate, controversial, resource intensive minefield now. And they may not be able to do it for ages, meaning more time Sandie is going to be employed by them and costing money.

That’s very true. It really could be the end of Sandie’s nursing career.

Have I remembered correctly that LN’s evidence was a late addition to the proceedings?

I wonder whether she was angry at how well it was going for SP. In the group chat, she told SP off for criticising DU. LN confidently on RSoH, feeling superior, and getting an apology from SP. Then the ET starts to look as if LN isn’t RSoH after all, SP may have been right. That would motivate some people to try to spike her guns.

@Harassedevictee great informative post from a HR bod - thank you.

Wowzer - its looking like everyone could end up in some kind of process. Surely NhsFife must be placed in special measures if this were to happen? Who could trust the current board to act fairly to anyone (based on what we've seen/heard)?

This situation started with the implementation of GRC’s. It has been hijacked by a MRA movement for nefarious purposes. The significant issue with legislation and policies are the unintended consequences are unpredictable. This situation could not have been predicted when the legislation and policies were created.

This is not so. I have learnt from the earlier threads that Norman Tebbit back in 2004 predicted exactly this, which is recorded in Hansard. But no one bothered to listen, it would only affect a few thousand people, it was said.

Meanwhile the voyeurs and the perverts saw exactly what the loophole was and exploited it to the full.

@Harassedevictee You've captured it better than I could. An excellent summary, and I suspect you could probably also add in some capability measures too for IB as clearly she falls short of the ability to do the job.

Thanks, Updo. LN doesn't come out well, does she?

Also interesting that in passing she mentions that hardly any doctors use the particular changing room that Upton was using. I can't imagine why Upton was so keen to use it.

@Wasitabadger "I understand that for those who have experienced significant racism that Sandie Peggie’s actions have casused pain. You feel she should not get a large financial compensation."

that's not the case for me at all. In fact, I would argue that it should never have been brought into evidence.

I think it's more the comments on here have freaked me out, as this kind of language and conversation seems to be part of so many posters' normal lives.

Definitely less MN for me.

Interesting that his union were willing to support him in those circumstances (racially abusing someone) but RCN refused to support Sandie for evidently far more heinous GC views.

The idea that it was impossible to predict when the GRA was passed is laughable. There are a few occasions when I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard something; Radio 4 Today reporting the GRA is one of those occasions. I remember feeling sick and hoping it would take time for my fears to be realised.

@GirlsInGreen On catch up but can you tell us more about the case of the Muslim woman you mentioned and specifically if she is crowdfuning?

@EmeraldRoulette you are right it should never have been brought into evidence.

I was commenting on it as the fact is it was brought into evidence rightly or wrongly.

These conversations do happen in everyday life in a casual manner. More so on annoymous forums. It is easy to hide behind a keyboard and make snap judgments.

I'd almost forgotten about her, after the ensuing events!

Bumba is an interesting case because she's the only one where you wonder how she was ever appointed in the first place. The behaviour of a lot of the clinical staff has been appalling, but it's clear why people who hold current, valid registration as doctors and nurses would be offered jobs in those roles. The problems with Searle, Nicol etc came after. Can't blame whoever initially chose to employ them, they met the required criteria as far as we know.

Whereas with Bumba, it genuinely throws up questions about whether the recruitment team were doing their jobs properly at that stage.

I missed that bit. So did a NHSF witness doctor more evidence?

I missed that bit too, did it come out in her cross by Naomi?

Yes. NHSF witnesses have not shown basic honesty.

Yes to the word queer.

As a young bisexual lass I was called queer as a slur. I was constantly bullied for it. It's such a nasty word.

As I've grown I've learnt that people still call me queer because they're uncomfortable with the word bisexual. It's still routed in homophobia, even if they're trying to sound polite about it.

When people try to identify as queer I think it just highlights their own internalised homophobia and they want to make being oppressed sound interesting.

@NaomiCunninghamHasHadHerWeetabixAgain This is the Scottish equivalent of special measures https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-scotland-support-and-intervention-framework/

Several commentators have suggested that clinical care at the Victoria sucks, not surprising why they seem to be entirely focused on trans issues. They should have already been at stage 3 but it's now entirely obvious that they need external people in there immediately.