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

So excited for the next bit, as that was all about Upton. Fife must be hoping to mitigate tonight's headlines by last minute change of plea, but how far will they go? Will the CEO and chair come and do a Dying Swan dance, led in by Oscar?

TT's 1st Morning tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1962784161015456021.html

"Contr char is one of the inconvenient truth that hinders the C's case. We invite the Tribunal to conclude that C holds strong and intolerant views on people of colour, gay people and trans people."

Not clear what legal argument is being made here,

Also, even taking her frenemy's claims about the text chain at face value, her relationship with her daughter and her daughter's girlfriend demonstrates that she isn't particularly set in her views.

That is an astonishing statement from a KC! Thankfully for a lot of people, no names no pack drill, even absolute so-and-sos are equal before the law and have the same rights as lovely lovely people - y'kknow, like me and Boily😁

all I can say is if yer a nurse in the NHS, good luck.

JR shouldn't have wasted so much time yesterday then. 😡

I saved one of @DrSpartacularsMagnificentOctopus posts from another Sandie Peggie thread. JR could do with reading it!

'Seems like Andrea Dworkin's wise words are necessary again:

"Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy in behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with anymore. It doesn't matter who the individual women are."

Women do not have to be paragons of virtue in order to have rights and protections.'

I don’t care how objectionable people are, they all deserve protection under the Equality Act and all other laws.

FFS, even the Moors Murderers, Ian Huntley and the Yorkshire Ripper deserved a good defence.

Defence is like the Opposition. It holds the law to account.

I seriously can’t believe that an officer of the court, and a fucking KC, actually said that.

"Sandy is a baddy as so doesn't deserve any rights" Sums up JRs submissions.

News to me that I have to be kind to randomers in NHS changing rooms. I avoid eye contact and spend as little time in that badly ventilated body spray fumed cupboard as possible.

Soooo, I'm late to the party this morning.

JR has basically spent 45mins saying that SP is a big meanie and DU is super kind, is that right?

That's the best she has in this entire case to defend both her clients?

Really?

for anyone unsure what is happening now, SiJ on x posted
'Jane Russell (or her solicitors) would have written down what the defence is, and is changing that very late in the day. Jane Russell will submit, and Naomi Cunningham will respond to it.'

It is. What is she on? Shall we excuse murderers because the person they murdered was not very nice and therefore doesn't merit the protection of the Law?

"The claimants behaviour... so unpleasantly, is behaviour that ought not to be given the protection of the Equality Act."

So justice is a popularity contest?

*naice

(sorry, that is the aesthetic that seems to be at play here)

opens for me in an incognito window (so no login )
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6?open=false#%C2%A7submissions-and-closing-arguments

In the breaks, do you think Big Sond and the 2 lay members of the panel discuss what they have heard so far, to make it clearer in their minds and so the J can explain the law if necessary?

Lay Member: So, what did JR add to what she had said in February/July?
Big Sond: Nothing.

Apologies for being a bit thick, but shouldn't JR have been trying to defend why it was necessary for Fife to suspend Sandie for months and months and months and why it wasn't necessary for them to have consulted with nurses about making their changing room mixed sex?

Naomi said she was expecting to be able to respond to JR's closing submissions, but the Judge said, not in Scotland!

Panel back

presumably she thought she'd done enough to demonstrate that Lovely Beth didn't make a women's changing room mixed-sex?

JR talking again

Yes. But she is going to come back with a late change of plea for respondent/s

Are Fife gonna concede some of the procedural stuff, perhaps?

JR talking again

Email from mr Watson last night...