NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #50

[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
Thread 49: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5383443-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-49 31 July 2025 to 8 August 2025

Dawkins writes an amusing tale the only black man at a conference telling delegates they will easily remember him because of his red tie.

@BeLemonNow Interesting about your race blindness! I'm also from a very mixed family and a very mixed country, but perhaps because of our national culture we are the opposite - very aware of race and the subtleties of the different ethnicities and mixtures; also not in the slightest bit shy about mentioning it as a key descriptor in conversation. DH is constantly amazed that (when out and about in the UK) I can usually recognise people from my home country on sight, regardless of their race, and identify which specific ethnicity they are too.

OTOH I am absolutely terrible at recognising faces and depend hugely on context to work out whether I know somebody. Not long ago, I totally blanked my next-door neighbour at the bus stop across the road from my house, we got on the same bus and I completely didn't recognise him until he actually came up to me and said good morning! We've only lived here for nearly a decade FGS. But my context for neighbour is he's gardening/washing his car, or cycling to work, or out for a walk along the street. He hardly ever takes the bus. Therefore (says my brain), it can't have been him at the bus stop!

I have a friend who can get quite cross if people do not refer to her as black when appropriate. It can quite discombobulate the younger generation.
She used to work in local government, and says she's pleased to have left before she was up on a disciplinary for refusing to not call herself black.

When you know that, you probably correctly guess that it would be a good idea not to ask about pronouns either.

@myplaceyes my DD is pale skinned and you are probably right.

One of the reasons I find the internet refreshing is that unless someone makes a point of mentioning his or her skin colour, or hair colour, or politics, or sex, or whatever else, I don't know about it and therefore cannot accidentally offend by getting it wrong in some way. Thing is, I honestly do not care unless it's actually relevant, and very often it simply isn't: what has someone's race or sex got to do with eg their knowledge about birds of prey or photography or steam locomotives?

Sometimes of course, as on this bit of Mumsnet, someone's sex may be important because it indicates how seriously I need to take their views about all sorts of things, but mostly it ought not to matter at all.

@SerendipityJane laughing about your friend. Yes I had problems in a public sector employer when they started insisting on ethnic diversity questionnaires which don't work very well for me. And everyone putting flags up, that sort of thing.

I spoke to my grandad about whether he would mind what I put down and he was astounded: "why on Earth are they asking you about that?" Like they were surveying everyone on sock colour, and then started lecturing me on the unimportance of skin colour...

Relates to @Kucinghitam point. My grandad was part of a very early wave of immigration in 1948 and my wider white family lived in the same town and knew one another. We've been fortunate that there wasn't really any racism experienced, minor stereotypes really.

I agree about not thinking about anyone's background unless it's relevant. Trouble is we get TRAs popping up claiming everyone who who supports same sex spaces is white and racist. I might put UK BAME GC women list together.

It does relate to perception of sex. It's shocking how the same family member can be seen as white British, Indian or mixed (all three!) depending on the observer. Trans "passing" as a criteria for accessing spaces just doesn't work.

My friend, mixed race, Afro Caribbean, father white mother, was asked to describe his ethnicity at some place or other (many moons ago)

He said white and amused himself with the face contortions of the questioner.

He then said i am half white, so chose that today.

A South African friend (white) says her daughter, aged about 8, came to her one day and said of one of their family friends, "Mummy, did you know that Maria is black?" as though it were a state secret. My friend found it quite hard to keep a straight face, but was also pleased that it genuinely didn't seem to have occurred to DD before.

As I said 41 years ago:

"What if I lie ?"

when a very sincere student union officer was encouraging me to fill in the survey they had attached to the registration form. They'd tried to make it look compulsory, but I spotted the (very small) "Optional" advise in the footer.

Did anyone listen to Michael Foran on Substack just now?

Heh! I bet Jane Russell will be mortified that her oh-so-clever line of questioning has been criticised for being anti-gay. That won’t be how she sees herself at all.

Michael Foran said that the judge is booked elsewhere from November to a date I can't remember, so he expects the judgement to be published by the end of October.

He also said he'd be commenting again next Monday, on the first day of submissions, as he expected there would be much to comment on.

Yes, I listened. I was also interested that he thinks the judgement might be released in October, as Judge Kemp is booked after that until January, and MF doesn't think he will want to wait that long to release it.

MF thinks SP will win, but there are different potential scenarios as to which claims might succeed.

If the judgement is released in October, then this will be just before the Darlington nurses tribunal is due to start. I assume the NHS trust in that case will be closely watching the result.

Was Michael on? I looked at Substack and couldn't find anything.

Yes, I had an email at 19:28 to say he was live then. I wasn't expecting it.

As above, it was the Info Commissioner, BUT JR made me gasp by insulting the judge on the day they resumed the hearing after having a few minutes to digest the surprise press release that implicated FWS in threats towards witnesses. She was deflecting wildly, having been surprised by the news herself, but she said words to the effect that the threats only emerged in the first place because the tribunal allowed the hearing to be held in public and with online observers.

Another thing that MF said that I thought was interesting was that at times it sounded as if JR was pitching her arguments to the ECHR rather than the judge. And that in the likely scenario that DU will appeal of he loses, the GLP may step forward to fund it and this may be the case that they try to take to the ECHR.

DU is a died in the wool TRA. We could see that from his evidence in the stand. I wouldn't be surprised if he views himself as being the next Goodwin.

MF also made some interesting comments about JR’s arguments in the Tribunal. He mentioned that she was one of the team on the pool player’s hearing and made similar/spurious arguments which didn’t win that case. So he wasn’t convinced NHSF/DU had a convincing defence.

Also that while SP had been called to refute/comment on JR’s WhatsApp evidence of racism, DU did not get the chance of a re-call. So all the phone tampering evidence stands as it is! Looking at it like this, all that looks even worse - if DU hadn’t done it coming back to answer questions would have been best… not coming back will make the panel presume guilt?

And surely if the Good Law Project we’re hoping that DU will get them to Strasbourg, then this might be a bit problematic when trying to make the case for a poor harassed trans person? It doesn’t look like the actions of the “most vulnerable” to me anyway?

Yes we talked about her arguing the same and losing on the pool thread.

And the pool case is currently being appealed by Haynes and his team, so they obviously aren’t ready to give up on those arguments yet https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5384031-trans-identifying-male-harriet-haynes-loses-court-case-to-play-in-womens-pool?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Yes, it seems their chances of success at the ECHR are slim, but I guess we should never be too complacent.

DU is clearly not one of these transwomen who just wants to quietly get on with their lives. I bet he views himself as a martyr for his community. But all the phone tampering does taint that image a bit.

It was good that the judge in the Harriet Haynes case addressed the human rights claims and swiftly dismissed them. Hopefully other judges will follow the same reasoning.

It sounds like JR isn't trying to win with these novel legal arguments but instead is putting them forward to be struck down in order to get useable grounds of appeal to take to a higher level court.

Yes.

I can’t help thinking that as he has damaged his medical career he is doubling down on the most vulnerable stuff and may very possibly see himself as a martyr/leader for the cause.

I wonder if one day he will realise that if he does decide to quieten down he might just possibly be able to keep his medical career?

I would hope not. He has shown himself fundamentally lacking in the honesty and probity required of a doctor. Just from having followed the tribunal : his behaviour in not respecting his female colleagues, keeping notes on their behaviour, manipulating the investigation process, the question of the phone records and his arrogant misinformation on the witness stand call his competence and ethics fundamentally into question.

Either he has fabricated potentially career ending allegations about a colleague, or he has not reported or escalated a patient safety incident (if the events occurred as he stated, which was not substantiated by NHS Fifes internal investigation). I honestly think his behaviour during the whole situation warrants a fitness to practice referral, along with several other individuals who colluded with the attempted stitch up and destruction of a nurses career and reputation.