NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #52

[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 51: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5402652-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-51 1 September 2025 to 2 September 2025

All I can think of is what an extraordinary amount of money is being spent on this utter shameful waste of everyone's time.

JR looking rather forlorn.

NC has finished her response to JRs last minute shenanigans I think, but the sound went.

Didn't NC establish earlier in the tribunal that there was no way that SP could have manifested her beliefs in a way that would have been acceptable to NHS Fife? Even if she asked DU to not be be in the changing room because he's a man in her softest, mostly kindly voice, she would still be in breach of their harassment policy.

God JR is talking.

Again!

NC And all that is on R's either incompetence or deliberate choice to plead case properly

i.e. knowing they were going to lose and playing for a replay/appeal??

Surely any discussion re misgendering should factor in

Trans does not work like this - it is not about the misgendering, it is about the person who has been misgendered's feelings

So it is OK if my friend does it, just a simple mistake, but if an enemy does it then it is the most heinous of crimes

From TT

Timing is deplorable. Manner of application is even more deplorable - attempt to blame C for R fault. Balance of prejudice is all one way. And any difficulty on R can't be laid on C at this stage.

JR Objectionable manifestation isn't factual, it is a legal one.

Break for ten whilst panel discuss

If we think back to the original X exams, there was a lot of evidence that Upton and others weren't questioned on because NHS Fife were so bad at disclosure.

Maybe NHS Fife are hoping to throw Upton under a bus?

from herald
11:56am
Ooft. Ms Cunningham is saying if the amendment is allowed, the only way to ensure fairness would be to recall witnesses and adjourn again — pushing hearings into mid-October, during the time currently set aside for tribunal deliberations.
That, they suggested, could mean at least another three days of evidence and submissions before closing arguments were completed.

Not necessarily, if the NHS investigation related to different allegations eg patient care and they're now saying SP shouldn't be protected due to her racist jokes etc

But I don't understand how that argument works either.

I can understand the legal argument that you can express a belief in a way that isn't protected by the EA, but not that there are groups of people who, because of their beliefs, do not 'deserve' the protection of the EA.

I wonder if it is a deliberate tactic. Listening to Michael Foran yesterday, he pointed out that the 'time machine' moment re the 1996 case being a forerunner for 1992 regs had been lifted from another case involving GLP (sorry, I can't remember the details). I think JR and GLP just see these cases as publicity for their cause, which is why they are so careless about what the case law and legislation actually says and so little interested in engaging in this - much easier to sidestep it all.

I'd be interested to see, if the Judge grants the application only if witnesses are recalled, whether JR would then rescind the application.

An interesting thing NC said was, paraphrasing, that it was the Tribunal's job to ensure justice between the parties, and wasn't their job to smooth things over between the respondents and their legal team. Then there was another mention of how there might be other remedies for any such thing as latter kind of dispute. Does this indicate that what is actually going on here is that JR is in trouble with NHS Fife and/or Upton because of what they've decided to argue? That would be delicious.

This farcical, surely the Judge cannot allow this at this time.

From TT

eg objectionable manifesto wasn't in list of issues for Bailey.

JR C did put to ED if actions had gone too far. Aspect also covered in DU evidence. So these have been addressed and no need to recall witnesses.

[Judge and panel leave to discuss]

J Back in ten minutes.

Thinking through what I said - this would amount to JR&Co appealing on the basis that Fife/DrU's legal team had not represented them properly...🙃

TT's 2nd Morning tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1962819266245218612.html

Looking forward to Michael Foran explaining all of this.

I need the loo and I’m on crutches. I hope to be back within the break.

Is it intentional incompetence?

I think it is. I think they're using every dirty trick they can think of to get this tribunal to swing in their favour.

Herald
12:00pm
Tribunal adjourned while the application is being discussed by the panel.

IANAL, so this is a daft question/statement

But when hearings and cases are SOOOO long like this one has been, how do they make sure that they keep track of relevant information that has been discussed in the past. I know that they take notes as the hearing goes on, but doesn't some stuff get missed out that could be incredibly important?

How do they make sure it's all fair and they haven't misrepresented, or mis-noted items of relevance or important.

On that note, in the stacks that they are presented with, surely there's a lot of information to digest?

It's hard for them to get all the key points out in submissions, like PPs have pointed out plenty of astute and relevant factors from earlier in the case that haven't been discussed in submissions.

I’m going out for my anniversary dinner at 6pm, though. I’ll have to catch up tomorrow.