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

How could she have answered the question?

Could she have said something like " At a quick glance I might have thought male, but looking again, I can see that might be questionable?"
Upton himself stuck to gender with sex being a nebulous dog whistle.

I'm more inclined to question the ethics of the medical team members recommending this, rather than label the individuals requesting it. I feel quite sorry for anyone who's so confused that that sort of surgery is an attractive option.

Well, both, for me.

Which gives us all the opportunity to tell him to go fuck himself. Soz (not soz)

Apologies for misnaming. Would love to see pic of Beetle and Mrs mother of Rupert having a cuppa at Rupert's home. And was there a wizard or scientist?

That was quite the day!
I suspect the very late bananarama intervention is coming from R2. If it had been anywhere in R1s sights I think they would have used it to come to the opposite conclusion in the disciplinary.
R2 has already said, I think, it's not what she said but the way... so this would make sense. He must have R1 by its collective short and curlies for them to be dancing to his tune like this.
Whoever said that the punishment is the process is spot on. R1 are determined to break Sandie and make it completely impossible for her to ever return to her job or any job with them.

Illegal behaviour is punished but even mass murderers don't lose their human rights. Privacy, dignity and safety are not rewards to be handed out for good behaviour Sandie Peggie shouldn't have to earn single sex spaces anymore than she should have to reveal her past abuse to try and justify her need for single sex changing rooms. How does a transwomen know their accessing a single sex space is only going to impact the unworthy? Can they magically sense the presence of the pure in thought, word and deed and thus grant them the dignity of being allowed to change unwatched by the male gaze?

Exactly. And that is true not only morally, but in law too.

Did the Supreme Court findings say single sex facilities should be provided with a superscript star to a footnote, 'NB. Not Sandie Peggie'?
Perhaps the mystery can be solved through a technicality we've all missed. Sandie Peggie is obviously Satan in disguise as a nurse.

Found it.

From TT second afternoon session today, JR saying that Upton is not one of the edge cases for whom sex determination is difficult - so no DSD.

J FWS says limited to Sex assigned at birth. Bio sex = sex at birth.
JR It doesn't say what that entails beyond the act
J Wouldn't it be your birth cert
JR Could be. But doesn't go on to describe genitals, chromosomes etc
J What do you say
JR Difficult. From memory,
BMA have said terminology used here isn't medically literate. As a lawyer, not a medic - sex is complicated and nuanced.
J on vast majority of cases
JR Not complicated
J And with regard to R2?
JR Not complicated and not making that argument

So if it's not complicated with regard to Upton, why couldn't she answer the question, or am I missing something?

this is really reminding me of the victorian era 'deserving poor' eligible for 'charity' while the undeserving starved.

Not medically complicated. Not legally complicated. But philosophically tricky when your client insists on something you've just told the court is untrue.

JR's choice was go with the law - he's male so contradicting her client, her witnesses, her case & upsetting the TRA faithful, or stick with the dogma, contradicting the law she's just been discussing, & look foolish. Instead she went with evasion (I think) which might have got her off the immediate hook, but should draw adverse comment in judgment.

I think she went with silence, and yes, I hope that is taken into account. But then she shouldn't have said it was uncomplicated.

I agree; whatever anyone's behaviour, single-sex spaces where appropriate, are their right.

The question about unreasonable behaviour only arises when that behaviour amounts to harassment of someone else, and even when it does, it shouldn't and must not jeopardize the single-sex space.

That's the deliberate confusion at the heart of JR's argument; that allegedly bad behaviour by SP means she doesn't deserve a single-space. A just argument is that bad behaviour by SP gets a sanction, if it was found to be bad, but the single-sex space is protected and provided despite the bad behavour and any appropriate sanction. Alas, that is not what JR's line of argument entails.

You've got to admire Sandie Peggie (aka Satan's Nurse.) If Ms Russell is to be believed, she timed her period so she could attack poor fragile tiny 6 foot plus Beth and made sure there were no witnesses. So obviously, no equal rights for her.

Meanwhile, Dr Upton has some very dodgy voice notes of what happened that no one else has ever seen. He is, of course, a totally reliable witness and everyone at the hospital said how kind he was. Those of us who saw and heard and read his testimony at the tribunal were all subjected to a spell cast by Sandie Peggie, probably involving Tunnocks tea cakes, caramel wafers and snowballs, which even made the amazing Naomi decide that he was, shall we say, not entirely kind. The question is, did the spell make Dr Upton reveal his true nature? Do we all need to eat more Tunnocks tea cakes or caramel wafers to make it keep working so we can see that a man in a dress is still a man and should not be in the women's toilets, changing areas or rape centres.

Or alternatively, all my nonsense makes as much sense as the nonsense Ms Russell talked yesterday.

Times's summary of yesterday:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/103295a5-9be3-4e2c-a88e-ac3480609df8?shareToken=a3a1a04fd6d75312f9896b87f6828235

Summing up Rs position:

If you're not kind enough, equality law shouldn't apply to you. (jusr equality law, or should we just be thrown into a dungeon and deprived of all liberty and rights)?
R2's sex is so uncomplicated it's not worthy of being dignified by an answer about what it is.

There's potential for a dreadful precedent to be set which strengthens the misogeny surrounding some mens' invasion of SSS and their almost silent dismantling of women's rights and women's spaces.

I think Big Sond when he asked Naomi to explain things yesterday about legislation was partially to close off any route to appeal because the silly judge and panel simply didn't interpret and understand it correctly.

We're back possibly in October? Hopefully scheduling means it's in mid-term break.

I'm hoping that JR was trying to argue that SP's behaviour meant that she wasn't being discriminated against for her gender critical belief, because the manifestation of it was inappropriate, rather than that she isn't entitled to single sex spaces because of it. The former might be arguable, even if we don't agree where she's drawn the line here, the latter is outrageous.

JR's repeated (and largely unfounded) attacks on SP are outrageous, along with the suggestion she seems to have made (if the Times report is accurate) that SP's character hinders her case. NC is right that JR has produced no credible evidence that SP is homophobic or transphobic, and the evidence of racism is one single message with some seriously off colour jokes in a conversation running to thousands of messages over 7 years. The rest of JR's evidence for her contentions is just gossip. I don't know if they will, but I would like to see the tribunal increase the damages awarded to SP because of the way the respondents have conducted this case.

I think this case highlights so many failures, not just with NHS Fife but the whole system.

"The process is the punishment". This case has destroyed reputations and caused huge levels of stress and pain.

20-25 years ago HR Managers used to self represent at tribunals and claimants were sometimes represented by citizens advice, or advised by someone they knew with an interest in the law. Now there are 'legal teams'. The process us exploited by companies with deep pockets.

The CIPD rather than advocating for change, seems to be making money by creating their own legal services.

The unions aren't advocating for change. Why not?

There are never any winners in ET (except maybe Maya F who has built a career from it). I say this with respect.

It is so broken.

I hope more questions are asked about why NHS Fife is spending public money prolonging the case in this way.

The only possible reasons for the change in plea are incompetence or a deliberate attempt to drain the complainant’s funds.

With regard to the Bananarama defence, Michael Foran says it's context-dependent. Which is only common sense, anyway. If Sandie had stood in the middle of A&E surrounded by patients and shouted out the words she said to Upton, it could well be totally unacceptabl, some form of harrasment and so deserving of sanction. However, she didn't. She was in the confined space with him at the time he was committing his transgressions and she pointed it out to him. Nobody has even suggested she was shouting at him or being abusive (as most of us would understand that word). She was, in fact, being quite reasonable in the circumstances. But, since reason is sadly lacking in trans circles, it's not how Upton sees this.

Yep. Draining funds and psychological abuse. Pour encourager les autres.

Edited to add:
If only the decision makers at NHS Fife could be held personally liable financially, or the insurers or legal practitioner pool could practice gatekeeping and tell these people that they cannot waste public money on a hopeless defence of the Trust nor can they use public money to defend the employee.