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

Does a woman not deemed nice by the JR et al (even if only on flimsy evidence, or unsupported allegations by self-serving or untrustworthy accusers) also deserve no legal recourse in cases of rape or murder by men either, one wonders? JR seemed to be saying that the real baddie is the woman when a women protests or is angry (her claim) at a male intruding into women’s supposedly a single sex changing room. Getting his kit off, and having access to a view of women getting their kits off. Without their consent. So potential flashing and voyeurism not always bad. Men just need to target victims who it is ok to flash or peep at. And apparently these men are lovely little poppets. Not like real women, who are either handmaidens or horrible harridans. The latest version of Madonna and whore, if you like. My understanding of what happened anyway.

I’m a good 50 posts behind, but it just struck me that the Darlington nurses case is scheduled to be heard from 20 October.

It might be done and dusted before this case.

Which would be silly, really. Because even if JKR isn't the backer here, surely the assumption must be that she'd be up for stepping in if the current funder turned off the taps.

Gosh thread 52! I've blinked and missed 51, I thought I was doing well all caught up to 50.

Let's hope it's not long for the decisions to be made. Will it be November now?

Oh I agree that the way that JR has conducted the case has been outrageous, but my point was I don't think it's legally unreasonable to try to argue that a claim for belief discrimination fails for unreasonable manifestation. (Ironically it's another Bananarama issue 😉) However, some people are interpreting it as she was trying to argue that SP forfeited her right to a single sex space due to her behaviour, which isn't something that any court should be entertaining IMO, but as I'm only getting this 2nd or 3rd hand, I'm not sure if that interpretation is correct.

JR is not at all saying that SP doesn't deserve SSS because of her behaviour. She is arguing that NHS Fife behaved properly in sanctioning SP's manifestation of her protected belief, because the manifestation was so far beyond acceptable behaviour that it was not protected.

The Forstater judgment was very clear that it didn't give Forstater (or anyone) the right to eg be abusive. Iirc there was a whole very amusing thread about what the judgment didn't allow Maya to do, but there remains a serious point that noone has carte blanche to behave badly on the basis of a protected belief.

Presumably all the character assassination stuff is to add to the credibility of the idea that, although there was no shouting and SP had asked managers for help before speaking to BU, SP is the type of person who would behave badly.

I disagree with the analysis and think the approach is vile, but I follow the logic.

I also think JR is arguing that SP does have a right to a SSS, but that the CR remains SS even with BU in it.

This is where I lose the thread of her arguments, especially as she won't say what bio sex he is.

I can understand her not taking instructions on that, as we have seen BU say that he is a bio woman. If those were her instructions then, as she knows he is a bio man, she would immediately be professionally embarrassed.

I think she is saying that it remains a SSS, as FWS doesn't apply to the 1992 workplace regs and in any case FWS is not very clear about whether uncertified TiMs can enter a female SSS. But this seems to be to be back in Alice in Wonderland territory.

Is JR’s amendment if granted (and hopefully it won’t be) not only going to affect the claims of direct discrimination on grounds of religion and belief and possibly the harassment claims? I can’t see how it would make a difference to her direct sex discrimination claim or that it would help in an indirect sex discrimination claim

I think if Maya referring to Pips Bunce as a part time cross dresser was not deemed objectively manifestly unreasonable, it’s hard to see how SP’s comments would be. She’d asked for help to remove him from the CR and none had been forthcoming. What was she meant to do? Even if she does dislike trans people so what. Many people have contempt for men who say they are women and invade their spaces. It doesn’t deprive them of their rights, nor to the trans person of their own rights under the PC of GR.

JR seems to be concentrating on attacking SP’s character rather than the details of SP’s unacceptable manifestation of her GC beliefs, which suggests that the argument is indeed that she doesn’t deserve rights.

If there is evidence that she expressed her beliefs in an unacceptable way, it’s very unclear why this wasn’t picked up by the investigation that cleared her of all wrong doing.

@Peregrina The judge was a lawyer asking a lawyer for her client's legal sex. He was exposing the major problem with her case. So there was no answer she could give unless it was either male or "my client instructs me to say ,,,,"

How would JR manage to prove that SP was a big meanie at work?

Dr U, the copious phone note taker, would surely have to submit his phone to a proper examination and, if he refused, everybody would draw their own conclusions.

Reading through NC’s papers on TT she has pointed out significant flaws in just about every NHS Fife’s witnesses’ evidence.

Finding something in the Benidorm group chat wouldn’t be sufficient.

The atmosphere in the A&E dept must be horrendous at the moment.

(Ballsed up switching username on this thread; my nebulous identity will return next thread)

a claim for belief discrimination fails for unreasonable manifestation

I can’t help but feel this is equivalent to telling women that they must always speak in soft and feminine tones even when they’re angry for being ignored, minimised and abused.

But… are there / there must be some equivalent scenario where men hold a belief that has manifested unreasonably. Are we talking Stephen Yaxley levels? Not quite SP telling DrU that he shouldn’t be in the female CR surely. Or do we then go down the rabbit tunnel of defining unreasonable?

Be careful not to read too much into the investigation clearing SP. That isn't an automatic get out of jail free card for her (not that I think she needs one, but that isn't the point of this post). If Fife can convince the tribunal that there were reasonable grounds to investigate SP's behaviour, that may justify some or all of their actions.

If, say, an allegation is made that an employee has used racist language directed at another employee, the disciplinary process that follows may well be reasonable even if the process ends with a finding that no racist language was used. if the process is reasonable, the fact the employee was found to be innocent would not help them with a claim against their employer.

My view is that Fife's investigation was not reasonable. There appears to be no justification for the initial suspension. The claimed justification that it was impossible to ensure that SP and Upton were not rostered together and that there were patient safety concerns doesn't fly given the evidence. The repeated, largely unexplained, delays in the process were also unreasonable in my view, and the rush to condemn SP with senior staff interfering in ways that compromised the investigation was also unreasonable.

I don't think the Bananarama defence helps them even if they are allowed to argue it. At best, it gives them a justification for starting a disciplinary process against SP. It does not give any justification for allowing Upton into the female changing room, nor does it justify the way the disciplinary process was conducted. And personally, I don't think the Bananarama defence flies. It seems pretty clear from the evidence that SP was being punished for saying that Upton is a man, not for the way she made that statement.

JR is not at all saying that SP doesn't deserve SSS because of her behaviour.

Thats not true: JR has been saying that all along, in running the “SP is a racist” defence. JR has all along been arguing that SP’s objections to DU in the CR are founded in prejudice, and therefore unreasonable because of the kind of person that SP is. A reasonable non racist person wouldn’t want a single sex space where DU doesn’t enter. Catch-22. If you’re prejudiced enough to want a single sex changing room, you don’t deserve one.

In contrast, what we consider the more reasonable line, i.e. the Bananarama element, is new. That is, that there ever was a reasonable way for SP to have come to and express a complaint about DU (albeit that she didn’t do it that way) is not something she asked the court to consider (and now needs permission to argue).

arguing about the meaning is “single sex space” is irrelevant. If I want a yellow curvy starchy fruit for breakfast, whether it’s called a banana or an orange doesnt affect whether I should have one; we both know perfectly well which fruit I’m referring to.

A well known US clinic beginning with M?! That is utterly horrific. This is the stuff of Dr Moreau come real.

"noone has carte blanche to behave badly on the basis of a protected belief." @prh47bridge Indeed. Unfortunately for JR that means Upton's protected characteristic of gender reassignment doesnt mean he can manifest that belief by insisting women undress in front of him.

The manifestation of SP’s protected belief was to say that the man shouldn’t be in the women’s changing room. She tried to engage with NHSF with her grievance, but they just fobbed her off, all the while letting said chappie still undress and have access to women undressing in the women’s changing room. The hullabaloo was caused by SP having the temerity to say how he shouldn’t be in there and she was so uncomfortable with it. Eventually to Upton himself as she was distressed having to deal with a man inserting himself in such a space, and NHSF didn’t care that women weren’t consenting. Even Upton admitted SP didn’t say it in an angry manner.

There would have been a hullabaloo even if she had gotten down on her knees and begged him to leave the women’s changing room. NHSF seem to be raging that they couldn’t ignore her or shut her up, and she had the gall to stand up for her rights. Normally NHSF ignoring her complaint, and suspending her (with allegations which seem to have been embellished) would probably work. Very suspect interaction by various people in the should have been a fair process. Goodness, maybe they and other NHS hospitals have successfully trodden over many women like this. In order to facilitate men who wish to undress front of unconsenting women, and have a view of unconsenting women undressing.However, they didn’t bank on SP having support. Financially as well.

She is arguing that NHS Fife behaved properly in sanctioning SP's manifestation of her protected belief

They didnt sanction her. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing.

The claim relates to the conduct of the investigation. Any NHS Fife decisions about SP’s treatment e.g. suspension were made before the investigation was complete.

It was actually @peakedtraybake that posted that. However, I agree that arguments about the manifestation of a protected belief apply as much to Upton as they do to SP (on the assumption that GI is a protected belief which, as I've said previously, I believe it is).

Since the Forstater decision TRAs have been saying that (under the law) that you can have GC views, but voicing them is transphobic. This seems along those lines. Hopefully the judge won’t have it.

oops - trying to catch up and not reading thoroughly. Apologies @peakedtraybake

Fife did not consult women in its policy. Had in place a DEI policy which meant it was very hard to actually speak about the problem. Believed DU's account without questioning SP and KS spread that account by email to others uncritically. Even though Fife had nothing but hearsay and assumptions to base it's actions on They suspended SP. DU has been very clear that SP could not have done anything to appease him - leaving the room to avoid confrontation? Not good enough. Avoiding entering the room? Not good enough. Speaking to line manager? Nothing happened to help SP.

That the judgement of who said what is now he said/she said (and accounts differ in what was said about prisons and chromosones) is because no proper investigation happened at the time because FIfe rushed to believe one party. They tied their own tribunal case to that belief (as co-respondents with shared legal team), some of their own witnesses denied their own sex under oath. They did not behave properly (even handed and without pre judgement) at any stage. The middle class doctor was favoured over the nurse with 30 years experience and uncomfortable views.

My personal take on JR during summations is that with more time they hope to have more mud to doing at SP as they firmly believe that helps their case. They also - by talking slowly and having this last minute extra side issue - gain by reducing the time that NC has for saying yet more about why the case for Fife and DU is unsound.

@peakedtraybake not meaning to disagree with what you say but it's not possible to manifest GC at Fife or to DU. Not sure JR wants to go that route. Can you really sanction someone for not doing the impossible?

Haha, no problem - it's a massive compliment for me to be mixed up with prh47bridge. IANAL and am just flailing around trying to understand what's going on.

But it isn't necessary to paint the mother of a lesbian as homophobic in order to argue that the way she expressed her views on men in female single sex spaces was wrong. All she had to do was say she ranted, raved, shouted, hopped up and down on one leg, asked nicely, raised her voice, waited outside, failed to express only via the means of interpretive dance in a locked room with the lights out (which ever of the above is the problem). ----