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

Do we know what exactly was Upton's understanding of 'the legal side of things'? I'd loev to know more about the context of that discussion!

But DU didn't worry about any policy document. He told them Day 1 what he was going to do, and he did it.

"Right wing" wasn't my description and is from TRA side. I was trying to explain. Apologies for digression as it came up r.e. funding.

It's not inaccurate to describe Christian Legal Centre in at least in the USA sense of right wing social conservatism. Sorts of cases it takes on includes: allowing discrimination against same sex couples, against abortion, pro-life including extending medical care to extremely unwell children. Lobbying in these areas.

It's worth examining the cases it takes on very carefully. It's aim isn't yours of "dignity, well-being and safety". Alleged to actively encourage Christians to "religiously object" to policies they might otherwise "agree to disagree" and challenge in court, as a form of evangelism (at substantial cost to defendants).

The aims of the people putting up the money are irrelevant.

It's worth examining the cases it takes on very carefully.

Why is it worth it? If the case is one I support I’m very glad they’re funding it. Less money to fund the ones I don’t support.

From ACAS (my bold for emphasis regarding your question about whether DU might escape this claim:

To be harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:

• violated the person's dignity
• created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the person

It can be harassment if the behaviour:

• has one of these effects even it was not intended
• intended to have one of these effects even if it did not have that effect

By law, whether someone's behaviour counts as harassment depends on:

• the circumstances of the situation
• how the person receiving the unwanted behaviour views it
• if the person receiving the behaviour is 'reasonable' to view it as they do

If someone makes a harassment claim to an employment tribunal, the judge would consider whether a 'typical' person would see the behaviour as harassment.

https://www.acas.org.uk/discrimination-and-the-law/harassment

DU is both legally and biologically a man, and FWS was about holders of GRC/self ID is unlawful. SP complained to managers about the unwanted behaviour of DU using the female CR saying in evidence that it was humiliating and upsetting. So it’s likely to come down to whether the Judge believes other “typical women” would see a man using the female CR as harassment.

DU claimed in Part 1 that he did not undress in front of SP, but over the tribunal this looked less and less believable imo. A legal male undressing in front of a lone woman in a CR late at night would not usually be considered socially acceptable behaviour… so personally I’d be surprised if this isn’t nailed on - but that might not stop DU appeal if he finds some legal backers

The only winner out Upton going to Appeal will be the JRs bank balance.
But it would be helpful for women if he did because then it sets a precedence in a higher court rather than a ET.

She surely hoped for either SP or JB to slip up and name the backer, so that the headlines would be exciting for other reasons than that her clients and witnesses were a team of clowns?

From twitter:

"Neale Hanvey ALBA
The biased and dismissive attitude towards political representation of Sandie Peggie laid bare here by @justinbowie1997 in the@thecourieruk. All decisions about media coverage were carefully considered.
Furthermore I submitted a subject access request to NHS Fife who told me they had no communication about me. It would now appear that this was not true. "

It's going to be hard to find anything that Fife has done correctly in this whole damn case.

The Information Commissioner is going to be delighted when Beale Hanvey makes a complaint to them about NHS Fife and not fulfilling their legal requirements for a SAR...

Considering he has his eye now firmly on them after he has odiscovered their previous discrepancy, I can only assume that he will be thorough. They obviously need better trained people doing their searches or their policy changed.

And to add to my post above -

The mythical Pete is the method by which NC has shown that almost all the witnesses object to a man in the female CR. Either simply by just being there or definitely by undressing.

JR tried to counter this by framing SP as a bigot but most of Fife’s witnesses (even the most faithful) would NOT just accept Pete’s declaration of womanhood (requiring visible changes) - even though legally a simple declaration like this is all that’s required under the EA.

At this point I’m 95% sure that the harassment claim is going to stick - but IANAL!

ETA missing word

I am not familiar with the tribunal process and had some questions for those that are.

Late on in the trial, the holiday Whatsapp group messages were entered into evidence.

Do we know if all 2,400 pages of messages were entered as evidence or was the submission limited to the 24 or so pages that included the racist 'jokes'?
How much time did NC have to review this information before asking questions in the tribunal?
If, on review further information was found in these messages can that be included in the submissions to the tribunal?

DU submitted a flawed 'forensic examination' of his phone.

Can the tribunal request that this phone is re-examined properly?
Can DU now accidentally drop-the-phone-off-the-back-of-a-cross-channel-ferry and claim that he had discharged his responsibility to the tribunal?

The actual forensic expert found evidence that DU submissions were likely falsified.

Is there a scenario where this would be considered a criminal offence prompting a re-examination of DU's phone?

Early on in the tribunal there was a suggestion that DU had received advice from the BMA over the Christmas period.

Did NC ever ask questions about the involvement of the BMA?
Was any e-mail chain to the BMA ever published?

NHS Fife was instructed to gather evidence from its employees for the case. It seems that they left the actual document and e-mail searching to their each employee

Was there any documentary evidence of Fife ever sending an e-mail with details of how to search?
Any document were Fife told employees which terms to search on?
Any evidence of Fife ever checking that employees were being truthful with reporting messages that they found (any sort of audit)?

Edit - en-bold-ed some parts

Even if Betheodore does accidentally drop his phone off the Scrabster to Kirkwall ferry, he can relax! All of his fantasies contemperaneous notes are backed up on the cloud.

Edited for spelling.

I thought NC had managed to get all the what's app conversation submitted, I might be wrong.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/b12dcfb3-9479-480a-a876-0c7f94065564?shareToken=e5798c607bd332b6a1830c30b5552e

I know that the Times has been good on this overall but I found that article a bit disingenuous and contradictory.

The assertion that "Upton raised the absence of a clear transgender policy" appears to be contradicted in the following paragraph, "HR representative Melanie Jorgensen asked Upton at the conduct hearing in June if there had been a missed opportunity for intervention".

The Times's use of "Lamented" seems to be over-egging the pudding a bit. My reading of the conversation would be that HR bod asked Upton if things could have been handled better and Upton effectively responded. "Um, ah, I suppose so".

IIRC, the WhatsApp group messages - and the fact that Fife intended to add 6 pages of them to the submissions bundle - were revealed on the Thursday or Friday. So NC and team had the weekend to go through them and on Monday added 24 pages of them to the bundle.

I'm not sure if this was 24 pages in addition to Fife's 6 or 24 in total. It definitely wasn't all 2,600 though.

BMA messages weren't covered in oral evidence. It's possible they're lurking somewhere in the bundle.

If the phone is dropped off a ferry, the court must assume the worst possible interpretation of what it contained.

If the judge suspects the evidence was tampered with I don't think he'd deal with that within the tribunal, but he could refer it to a second court to be dealt with as a criminal matter (contempt of court, and maybe obstructing the course of justice).

I wonder what other messages lie within

I don't think that the messages before and after SP's racist jokes have been published - it would be useful to see them to try to get an idea of context

@SlackJawedDisbeliefXY

Late on in the trial, the holiday Whatsapp group messages were entered into evidence.
Do we know if all 2,400 pages of messages were entered as evidence or was the submission limited to the 24 or so pages that included the racist 'jokes'?
I believe there were 6 pages from the respondents (Friday) and 24 pages from the claimant (Monday) entered into evidence.
JR objected to all the pages being included.
How much time did NC have to review this information before asking questions in the tribunal?
If, on review further information was found in these messages can that be included in the submissions to the tribunal?
As far as I am aware it’s not been made public when NC first saw the chat group messages.
JR indicated 15th July the witness was known about but it was a vague reference.
I would hope SP had been honest with NC so they had been plenty of time to review them. However, it is feasible it was the Friday and NC and her team had a busy weekend.

DU submitted a flawed 'forensic examination' of his phone.
Can the tribunal request that this phone is re-examined properly?
No - the judge didn’t think he had the power to order this. It was a voluntary disclosure but that backfired.
Can DU now accidentally drop-the-phone-off-the-back-of-a-cross-channel-ferry and claim that he had discharged his responsibility to the tribunal?
Yes. The problem for DU is that the forensic expert has cast doubt on his honesty in providing the evidence.

The actual forensic expert found evidence that DU submissions were likely falsified.
Is there a scenario where this would be considered a criminal offence prompting a re-examination of DU's phone?
No.

Early on in the tribunal there was a suggestion that DU had received advice from the BMA over the Christmas period.
Did NC ever ask questions about the involvement of the BMA?
I think NC did in February. She did not ask about it in July.
Was any e-mail chain to the BMA ever published?
It maybe now in the bundle and if so NC may reference it in her closing arguments.
Personally I think it was never disclosed. The failure to disclose so much e.g. 1000+ pages added to the bundle is a negative for NHSF and DrU.

NHS Fife was instructed to gather evidence from its employees for the case. It seems that they left the actual document and e-mail searching to their each employee
Was there any documentary evidence of Fife ever sending an e-mail with details of how to search?
It maybe be in the bundle as at least one witness said they searched for the words asked for by NC.
Any document were Fife told employees which terms to search on?
As above it wasn’t covered in evidence but is potentially in the bundle.
Any evidence of Fife ever checking that employees were being truthful with reporting messages that they found (any sort of audit)?
No. The bundle may have evidence but I get the feeling (no evidence) the IT team may have sent an email and given verbal assistance.
What I haven’t seen is evidence of a proper search through the historical data by an IT person. Had this been done I strongly believe there would be a highly inappropriate email chain.
The question is did NC, with help from KS’s inappropriate comment, give the panel any doubt about non-disclosure of the full email chain. I think a reasonable person would say they had doubts which is all the panel need.

And sorry but that close-up of BU just gives me the heebies, I wish you could post links without the picture appearing.

I think she had trawled through the 3000 pages and the 24 mentioned were those in which the 'friend' from the Benidorm group giving evidence had written some self incriminating things. We found out about where she discussed a patient using their name but it was hinted at there was even worse and NC was kind enough not to go there. The panel have seen it though.

That was an excellent episode. If it's the same one I heard, they went with the title How Did We End Up With A Case Like Sandie Peggie? which is somewhat a case of mis-selling, because it was more like a review of where things stand in the HR and DEI sectors, and what does it tell us about the sector response to cases like SP's. The episode was looking at a recent CIPD conference (https://www.festivalofwork.com/) and Tanya de Grunwald in particular commented that nearly all of the content was subjects that could show professionals in the sector being kind, and what was distinctly lacking was any content, focus, or interest in the legal underpinning of their work.

It's interesting all the way through but the last quarter is especially so when it becomes clear that some influential people in the sector are solidly in opposition to following any law they don't like.

Do photos get backed up too?

I got the feeling Sandies team had already gone through the WhatsApp when the 'friend' was named as a witness.

It must have taken hours for people to go through, 7 years worth of chat on WhatsApp. And that probably meant multiple people going through sections of it each.

If the phone is dropped off a ferry, the court must assume the worst possible interpretation of what it contained.

One of my favourite moments in the Wagatha Christie trial was when Coleen Rooney's barrister said in relation to a missing (dropped in the sea) phone that it must be in Davy Jones' locker, and Rebekah Vardy said she didn't know who Davy Jones was - she must have been panicking so badly that some bloke called Davy Jones had found the phone and she was going to have to answer questions about what was on it.

Meanwhile, one of the Times' leader writers has had ENOUGH: https://archive.is/BYsl5

"Enough is enough. The public sector in general and the health service in particular cannot be allowed to treat the law as optional. It is time for ministers to assert their authority. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has been admirably assertive in his dealings with the trans lobby in banning the prescription of puberty blockers to children. Now he must show the same initiative in forcing hospitals, NHS leaders and the NHS Confederation to abide by their legal obligations to female staff and patients. Mr Streeting must also ensure that the Scottish government duly falls into line."