NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #51

[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 resumed 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 #50 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 50: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5387893-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-50 7 August 2025 to 1 September 2025

Witnesses in the hearing 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

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

NC has just finished.
Judge has called a short break.

Thank you all involved. And the bet that this case would exceed 50 threads has been wellabd truly won

Thank you Nauticant - I think you suggested some threads back that instead of filling up the thread with individual posts saying thank you, we just use the 'thanks' reaction emoji.

Obvs I've just posted an individual post saying thank you😏 but will we desist and just say thank you via the react emoji?
And you won't feel unappreciated? cos we are sooooooo grateful to you, we could fill up a whole thread just saying 'thank you for the thread-wrangling, Nauti'😄

I'm a big fan of posters just sticking a React emoji on the OP rather than posting thanks!

Thanks, Nauticant.

Just reposting this final bit from the herald on this new thread as NC is so clear!
2:01pm
What explains what Ms Cunningham describes as the "bizarre bits of behaviour on the part of the respondent and their representatives" is the health board has "taken up gender identity belief as its institution's position."
She says this "is not a rare delusion" but a "delusion that has been deliberately and elaborately bolstered".
"It can only be maintained and enforced with bullying. Reason doesn't work. You can't support a delusional belief with reasoned argument, and that in my submission is the simple, economic, elegant explanation for why you've seen that the claimant was subjected to the vicious heresy hunt that was the result of her refusal to undress in a room with a man."

Phew just caught up after running behind since 12pm.LOL

self assured, tending to smug

Can NC now do the shipping forecast? Pls?

TT's 2nd afternoon tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1962492423646384299.html

From TT

Naomi Cunningham has finished her submissions. Judge Kemp has said he and the Panel will keep questions until the end. We expect Jane Russell to begin her submissions after this break.

Panel back

And soon JR can embarrass herself all over again.

I am looking forward to this 🍿

Wow, what a tour de force. Those final statements extend far beyond the current tribunal, don't they?

""It can only be maintained and enforced with bullying. Reason doesn't work."

NC just raising two points, one the heating is boiling them to death and two the redaction of document, they've redacted it waiting for respondents to comment on it.

A great finish from NC there.

Let's see JR's 'reasoned arguments'. Drums fingers...

NC did a fantastic job. Will she get to speak again after JR has done her bit? In the same way it works with witnesses?

JR whinging

Such fun!

FFS JR saying they couldn't confirm the redactions were ok because they didn't have a hard copy - surely that's a thing you want to be able to do search to check, so a soft copy is what you want?!

The stalling from JR on checking the redacted document is appalling.

If they have a soft copy of the closing submissions, they can just do a word search for Theodore.

It is not difficult.

Such timewasters.

Yes, there will be closing remarks by both parties.

NC: control F