NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #49

[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 over 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 more 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
Thread 48: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5382317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-48 29 July 2025 to 31 July 2025

Witnesses in the hearing so far with skeleton chronology:

Monday, 3 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Wedneday, 5 February 2025
Sandie Peggie
Maya Forstater
Darren Peggie (Sandie Peggie's husband)
Nicole Peggie (Sandie Peggie's daughter)

Thursday, 6 February 2025
a row about disclosure particularly over BMA documents
Sheila Bell (Sandie Peggie's mum)
Beth Upton

Friday, 7 February 2025
very late start, massive row over disclosure, agreed that Beth Upton would start giving evidence on Monday

Monday 10 February 2025
Beth Upton

Tuesday 11 February 2025
Beth Upton
collapse of public access

Wednesday 12 February 2025
Beth Upton

Thursday 13 February 2025
Esther Davidson

Friday 14 February 2025
Esther Davidson

a break of many months

Wednesday 16 July 2025
Isla Bumba

Thursday 17 July 2025
Gillian Malone

Friday 18 July 2025
Elspeth Pitt
Louise Curran
the omnishambles ending provided by the statement from NHS Fife

Monday 21 July 2025
a late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Lottie Myles

Tuesday 22 July 2025
another late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Kate Searle

Wednesday 23 July 2025
another late start seemingly with the panel and lawyers in discussions about something
Lauren Harris
Kate Searle

Thursday 24 July 2025
Angela Glancy
during AG's testimony there was a row over NC's entitlement to use correct-sex pronouns
Ann Hamilton (scheduled but might change)

Friday 25 July 2025
Peter Donaldson
Jim Borwick
Maggie Currer

Monday 28 July 2025
a chaotic start with Claimant requesting new witnesses and provision of new documents
Fiona Wishart
Lindsey Nicoll

Tuesday 29 July 2025
Maggie Currer
Emma Moore
Sandie Peggie

This is a list of Abbreviations used by Tribunal Tweets and has been taken from their substack

Claimant, respondents, counsel, members of the court

C/SP - Claimant, Sandy Peggie
NC - Naomi Cunningham, C’s barrister
MG - Margaret Gribbons, C’s solicitor
R/Board - first respondent, Fife Health Board
R2/DU - second respondent, Dr B Upton
Rs – first and second respondents
JR - Jane Russell, KC, barrister for respondents
AW - Adam Watson, solicitor for respondents
J - Employment Judge Alexander Kemp
ET - Employment Tribunal
P1, P2 - additional panel members; CM Russell, L Brown

Witnesses/Frequently Referenced Personnel of NHS Fife

MF - Maya Forstater, CEO of Sex Matters
DP - Darren Peggie, Claimant's husband
NP - Nicole Peggie, Claimant's daughter
SB - Sheila Bell, Claimant's mother
ED - Esther Davidson, SP’s line manager
IB – Isla Bumba, NHS Fife Equality and Diversity Lead Officer
KS - Kate Searle, A&E consultant
SF - Stuart Fraser, SP’s RCN Rep
AG - Angela Glancy, headed up in SP investigation
VV – Vic Valentine, Equality Network
AH - Ann Hamilton, Human resources advisor
MSF - Michele Sinclair-Farrow, HR advisor
GM - Gillian Malone, Director of Nursing, NHS Fife
MJ - Melanie Jorgensen - HR advisor
JH - Jackie Herkes - HR advisor
MC - Dr Maggie Currer, Deputy clinical lead
RA/HCW - health care worker who witnessed "missing patient" incident.
PD - Peter Donaldson, Information Security Manager, IT expert
JB - Jim Borwick, IT forensics expert

Abbreviations for frequently used terms (not exhaustive)

AE - Accident & emergency department
B&H - bullying and harassment
CR - changing room
CX – complaint
DX - disciplinary procedure or process
FtP - fitness to practice
GC /SR: gender critical or sex realists. Belief that biological sex is important, immutable and different from gender identity
GI – Gender identity is a person's internal sense of their own gender, which may or may not align with their birth sex.
HI - hate incident
HR - Human Rights
IX - investigation
PCP - provision, criteria or practice is a rule, policy, or practice that can put people at a disadvantage based on certain characteristics. The term is used in employment law to assess whether an employer's actions create different outcomes for employees based on their characteristics.
SocMed - social media
SM - Sex Matters
TM – transman (person born female who claims a male gender identity)
TMAM - transmen are men
TW – Transwoman (person born male who claims a female gender identity)
TWAW - transwomen are women
CS - Caroline Somerville, UNISON officer
OfS - Once for Scotland
EA - Equality Act 2010
PC - protected characteristic; 9 under EA
RA - risk assessment

I've just found out that in many previous threads there's a problem with the links to historic threads. It seems that sometimes when I copied those links either the underscore from womens_rights was deleted during copying or it was replaced with <u>. That means, looking back, there'll be a number of broken links.

However, the definitive list of threads in this thread seems to be OK.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Apologies for hopping on ahead of time to post this link when the previous thread is still going strong.

I made a thread for TerfRocks' Playlist for Sandie Peggie so that it does not get buried in all the Sandie Peggie threads:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5383522-terfrocks-playlist-for-sandie-peggie

That's fine by me. Feel free.

@Needspaceforlego

In a nutshell, jog on JR.

The law is settled.

Does that mean anyone can have their tuppence worth into an ET?

I assumed they'd only consider what the parties put forward and law rather than what others point out.

I'm confused too - I get the point about JR being (rightly) told to jog on, but Judge Kemp said "I think that's a contentious matter, what exactly For Women Scotland says and what it means. I think it would be appropriate to put this on a hypothesis that you have outlined - on the hypothesis of what you say is correct in law. That would be appropriate. But until we have had the opportunity of hearing all the submissions and making our decision on that, this is a point in dispute".

Why would he think this is contentious and a point in dispute?

I’ll try -
JR tried to suggest the Supreme Courts decision in FWS was only limited to women on boards & Scotland.

FWS have said that the Tribunal has made a mistake in law as the SC was clear that the meaning of men and women under the EA related to biological sex. That means it applies in this case - it’s not up for debate.

Both parties agreed that the submission could be put before the court.

It is another shot across the bow from FWS - this is the settled law that Upton is a male and to find otherwise will lead to an appeal. So Big Sond made an error and needs to wise up.

@Needspaceforlego long explanation
FWS were the successful party in the FWS vs Scottish GMT Supreme Court judgement. They sought permission to intervene in this case because JR, the KC acting for NHSF and DrU, made it clear she is going to argue the SC judgement only applied to women’s representation on Boards.

Anyone who has even read the summary of the FWS SC judgement knows it related to the definition of sex, man and woman throughout the EA2010 and not just the section on representation on Boards.

FWS are basically saying the SC decided the definitions are biological sex, biological woman, biological man and that anyone without a GRC remains their biological sex as observed at birth. JR is not permitted to try to re-argue the definitions in the EA2010 in her closing submission I.e. the judge and panel have to accept sex discrimination means biological sex, women’s changing room means only biological women are permitted to use it and legally DrU is a man because he doesn’t have a GRC.

The fact both parties have accepted their submission will undermine some of JRs potential arguments in defence of the respondents.

I was very puzzled by why JR brought that up at that point. Given that the parties had agreed that each would use the pronouns they chose for DU from the outset, it felt really odd. In her questioning and interjections this week, most of which has been unpalatable and/or irrelevant, it really felt to me that JR was sometimes being driven by personal feelings more than consideration of the points at issue.

Not keeping up?

If anyone hasn't seen it yet, useful review of the media coverage from SEEN in Journalism: Sandie Peggie and the media - SEENinJournalism’s Substack

Because JR has introduced it as a point of dispute in this tribunal, and the judge does not want to be accused of prejudging the case.

@Needspaceforlego

To add to that, at the start of the tribunal the Judge allowed NC to argue from the point of view that Dr Upton is a man (so from the POV of reality), Sex Matters have seen JR's plan to attempt to re-tread that ground and attempt to overturn the initial decision.

I think this is so she can then argue that everyone has been really mean to Dr Upton because TWAW. I'm a little shaky on this though, all I can think of is that apart from attempting to overturn the SC judgement (which is not going to work), what else has she really got?

Do one.

Also jog on to all the sealioning on MN saying this is a contentious subject matter.

As far as the law is concerned it's not.

It is now for them, to give EVIDENCE to the contrary. Whatever anyone has in their head as a thought or feeling is irrelevant.

In other words, get with the programme and start having the 2025 conversation not the 2018 conversation as per my previous comment on the last thread.

Basically it's saying exactly what I said but in legalese.

To put it into simple layman's terms "Fuck off, that's utter bollocks. Next!".

Unless there's absolutely nothing you can say, it's a good idea always to put in a defence. It might be weak but so long as it can be run sort of plausibly without everyone in the room howling with laughter, it's something you'd want to do.

One reason for this is that you can never be sure whether something unexpected might turn up. If you've put in a defence then you're likely to have more scope for manoeuvre.

Yes, I got all that, but don't understand why Big Sond thinks it's in dispute. It's not.

Would it be possible for people to turn their attention to this comment by@FayeRCfrom a previous thread:

I have a similar court case in England's side which aims to protect single-sex facilities for women. It is in need of support to cover legal fees and can be found by searching for Faye Russell-Caldicott on crowdjustice.com

@FayeRChas a thread here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5159395-employment-tribunal-case-to-protect-single-sex-facilities-at-work

And there's more information here: https://sex-matters.org/case-briefings/faye-russell-caldicott-v-nhs-england/

Same reason Jolyon and crew keep spouting legal bollocks. In the vain hope something eventually sticks. It won't, if you have competent opposition lawyers and judges. And then there's always the appeal route.

Sucks to be JR.

I think the judge was/is mindful this case is going to be the first following the SC judgement and it’s highly likely to be appealed. He has given more latitude to JR. The judge knows the law and will(🤞) apply the SC judgement correctly if not it’s grounds for appeal.

Because Big Song isn't fully educated and up to date. He should be. That's why they've been allowed this submission... Cos it's highly relevant to the case.

It was “contentious” or “in dispute” only in the sense that the judge knew that JR was contending and disputing it. His comments could have been clearer given the large numbers of people watching the proceedings.

I am referring to the judge! Not you!