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

Thanks - a very good piece.

@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'?
It isn't clear if there were several thousand pages or several thousand messages. We know that 24 pages were submitted by NC in addition to anything submitted by JR.

How much time did NC have to review this information before asking questions in the tribunal?
We don't know.

If, on review further information was found in these messages can that be included in the submissions to the tribunal?
Up to the tribunal, but I would have thought it unlikely at this stage.

DU submitted a flawed 'forensic examination' of his phone.
Can the tribunal request that this phone is re-examined properly?
No. The tribunal does not believe it has the power to order a forensic examination of his phone. They can, however, draw adverse conclusions from Upton's failure to allow such an examination after previously agreeing to one.

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?
He can do whatever he wants with his phone. No-one is going to examine it.

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?
Unlikely, but not entirely impossible. It is rare for evidence given in a civil case to lead to a criminal prosecution.

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 she asked some questions, but the answers weren't very revealing.

Was any e-mail chain to the BMA ever published?
No.

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)?
As far as I am aware, the answer to all three of the above questions is no.

It isn't clear if there were several thousand pages or several thousand messages. We know that 24 pages were submitted by NC in addition to anything submitted by JR.

If the chat covers seven years that's roughly 2500 days - I wouldn't know how busy it would be, but a printout could easily run to several thousand pages.

My assumption is that both counsel have restricted themselves to the small proportion of the chat that might have some relevance to the character or truthfulness of witnesses.

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)?
As far as I am aware, the answer to all three of the above questions is no.

This seems like another case (faced with many, better options for gathering accurate data for the case) where Fife decided to use the nth worst option (where n is a number greater than or equal to 6)

It is a pity that no expert in data recovery was called so NC could have an expert witness point this out (I'm guessing that this was not something that could have been asked of the phone forensics expert)

The catalog of Fife's evidence collection failures is long and boring

• failure to disclose thousands(?) of relevant documents causing the tribunal to be extended
• failure to search email records correctly
• reliance on witnesses to decide what messages should be submitted
• 'remote' forensic analysis of DU's phone
• incomplete audit trail for DU's evidence (the connection dropping out - why were these dropouts mentioned at all?)
• late submission of the racist joke whatsapp message history
• apparently the racist joke whatsapp group was the only one that ever mentioned SP and DU
• the 'Re:' e-mail message chain that appears to have been edited before submission
• the lack of header information on most e-mails submitted
• Fife's apparent use of un-recorded video conferences to make decisions without any form of record keeping

etc.

Private businesses keep much better records, have better defined procedures for data retention and record the decision making process much more accurately than NHS Fife.

I wonder whether this lack of process is repeated in other areas at Fife - cleaning? purchasing? facilities repair? equipment maintenance? food services? The board at Fife should be overseeing all of these processes - as tax payers, we pay for it all.

The tribunal has allowed outsiders to gently lift the curtain and take a look at what is going on inside Fife.

As an outsider, it seems shambolic

My assumption is that both counsel have restricted themselves to the small proportion of the chat that might have some relevance to the character or truthfulness of witnesses.

Faced with possibly thousands of pages of seven(?) way conversations even working out who said what and when might take weeks. I'm not sure that NC would have had time to do much more than a sampling - how could one tell that all of the comments relevant to character or truthfulness have been found?

Also - there must have been many, many other whatsapp groups featuring SP, DU et al. but these all seem to have been kept private.

If whatsapp messages are fair game then were are DU's private groups?

I'm guessing that the point is that this set of messages have been voluntarily released.

My opinion, given the level of general sniping, bitchiness and classism at Fife, is that many of the players will have conversations that are much more incriminating than the one released but have chosen not to publish.

Fife released some of the messages that had been provided by LN in an attempt to prove that SP is racist as they had repeatedly claimed. SP then added messages that showed LN is not exactly pure as the driven snow herself. No-one asked for DU's private groups, and he did not volunteer them, so they are not in evidence.

I bet Melanie Jorgenson & the HR team Whatsapps would make entertaining reading, if they ever care to share them with the press.

I note that the woman behind that youtube channel replied to a tweet last night.

She had said:

"Is this M&S's Bud Light moment?"

In reply to which, another person said:

"Makes you wonder, at what point will employers start giving TiM a wide berth at interview to avoid all the potential problems having TiMs on the payroll"

and she replied (and, given her industry background, I'm ready to believe her):

"Already happening. Our sources say employers are increasingly nervous about hiring TiMs. SMEs were always wary. Now bigger firms worry too - esp after a series of TiMs were dismissed from City firms for harassing female staff. (NDAs were signed, but everyone knows)"

https://x.com/IsntWorkingPod/status/1953173494314783120

This bit really stood out:

"...esp after a series of TiMs were dismissed from City firms for harassing female staff."

It seems that, in the private sector at least, things are starting to change. It's just a pity that NDAs are still legal and it's unclear when the proposed Employment Rights Bill will pass in to law.

So the WhatsApp messages were not covered by the initial searches for relevant communications that Fife undertook?

In law are they considered to be non work related so there was no requirement to search and report to the tribunal?

Fife were not required to disclose the contents of private WhatsApp groups regardless of whether they mentioned SP. There was a disclosure order that set out what Fife were required to disclose. In any event, SP was part of this group so already had full access to all the messages.

I think so, I had a new phone in April and the guy transferred all my contacts, documents, photos etc - the old phone was completely dead.

That's because you wanted to transfer all that. I can think of some people that might not be so keen.

Would WhatsApp messages be something that could be included in a disclosure order?

Is it an oversight that they were not included in the order?

They could, yes, if there was a good reason to seek disclosure. However, you can't ask for information to be disclosed when you already have access. As SP was part of this WhatsApp group, she already had full access to all the messages.

Even if SP wasn't part of the group, not including it in disclosure would not have been an oversight. Disclosure is about things that are relevant to the case. The claimant in an employment tribunal can't go on a fishing expedition looking at the social media usage of random members of staff in the hope they might find something useful.

Also, the claimant can normally only request disclosure by the respondents, in this case Fife and Upton. Neither of the respondents had access to this WhatsApp group, so they could not be ordered to disclose it. It would have needed a third-party disclosure order against one of the participants in the group. The bar to getting such an order is high.

The Courier has linked this to SP's case, but it's different in that the person concerned was sacked before completing training.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5301766/kirkcaldy-prison-officer-trans-prisoners/?hss_channel=fbp-325681791214

Saw this on TwiX and it made me giggle.

I also loved the two little kids outside the court for Sandies case with a sign saying

Don't be silly you’ve got a Willy
🤣

Upton Girl,
He's been living in an Upton World,
Thinks there's nowhere that he cannot go,
Because nobody ever told him "no",
And when he's workin', he's feelin' so fi-i-ine,
Till someone says "he" and he bursts out cryin',
Looks like he's not so tough,
Life in Fife is just too rough
For an Upton Girl.

Hahahaha! An Info Commissioner - Neale Hanvey Whatsapp convo would be amazing!

That’s one for the forthcoming mumsnet book
Will @Boiledbeetle be doing the images again ??

Sorry if this has been asked already but do we know who submitted the message thread where Lindsey Nicoll called SP a fanny? I think it was an email conversation with Gina, after SP accidentally sent a text to Gina's husband asking for the photo of the 'weirdo'?

I was observing the tribunal and I think when NC cross-examined LN, NC said that Gina had had a few drinks at the time that convo took place.

So did Gina later share that convo with SP, and SP put it in evidence? Or did Lindsey share the convo herself thinking it helped her cause?

Did SP disclose anything from the WA group prior to the final stages of the tribunal?

Does anyone happen to know where doctors change out of their scrubs in that hospital? Do they have dedicated changing rooms for this, or do they all have to slum it with the nurses?

You can. When you post a link, the thumbnail appears below the post before you press post. It has a bin icon. If you tap it, it takes the image away.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/30/tribunal-employment-nhs-nurse-transgender

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/30/tribunal-employment-nhs-nurse-transgender

Without tapping the bin icon