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

I don't really see why they would? It obviously came from one or both of them, and JR surely must have advised them that it might mean the proceedings being dragged out for longer.

It would get very interesting if they disagreed on the point though. JR might have a conflict of interests then!

Yes, i wondered if Upton might pull out and Fife not.

At some point JR mentioned an email from Mr Watson - I presume that is someone at Fife - so is Fife saying you were incompetent in not using the banarama defence from the get go and if we lose this we'll sue you for incompetence or similar.... I really don't understand why/how this has all come up at the literal last minute....

Horrible that this will drag on.

Can anyone help me with the absence of evidence point?

There is no evidence that [whatever - let's say that Nurse Peggie begins each morning by praying to the devil for an end to the manufacture of Tunnocks Teacakes and the murder of everyone with different protected characteristics to her, while wearing a highly patterned Roman dress]. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so the court should take this into account? As it may be true? As long as one of the witnesses thinks that they once heard it from someone, even if the someone doesn't recall it at all?

Help me understand?

I wonder if it could be this Mr Watson? https://www.nss.nhs.scot/people/adam-watson/

Isn’t it Adam Watson the solicitor…the Rs equivalent of Margaret McGribbon?

What an absolute mess. And it does sound like JR has made a complete hash of it. That's what you get when you hand your mind over to the TRAs. This nonsense infects everything and everyone it comes into contact with.

Yes.

That suit does indeed have a lovely neckline, and would photograph beautifully on the way into an event.

After a morning with the extremely fitted (=tight) skirt when lots of horizonal creases have baked across it, less so.
Puts me in mind of Diana, Princess of Wales, leaving the royal coach in her wedding dress. Her very full skirt was crushed in that small coach.

Still, I suppose JR's supporters won't mind her being associated with the Queen of Hearts, as some tabloids described her.

Miaou, Miaou.

Straight from the abuser’s playbook - “it was the way she said it”.

I’m wondering tbh if JR’s instructions are motivated by kicking the can down the road/avoiding a decision. The judge should disallow imo, but will he? I get the impression he’s trying to close off grounds of appeal. JR may also think this and is therefore exploiting it with this last minute can kick.

I hope Sandie Peggie is managing to relax on her holiday. This must be hard to watch from abroad

Her very full skirt was crushed in that small coach.

Yes, MIL said it made it look like an old rag. Not the look anyone wanted.

Whaaaaa ? Is this still going? Has Upton's lot changed the story and/or the goal posts again???

This man is the most entitled wanker I can remember in a pretty big field of entitled men ...

At the time I put it down to the designers' lack of experience, linked with how young they all were.

JR is not comfortable in that suit. She's very aware of it. She spent some time tugging at the jacket and adjusting her neckline before the panel came in this morning. As a PP said, it's definitely a deliberate 'choice' for today's proceedings.

SP/NC have multiple arguments in the alternative (thanks Michael Foran for this excellent piece of legalese) set out in their skeleton argument - so sexual harassment is the highest bar, then harassment on the basis of sex and then some other stuff too.

I don't understand why JR/Fife haven't had this baked in from the start - they could easily have argued that SP's behaviour was discrimination/harassment and that alternatively if that defence failed that it was the manner in which she expressed her objection that was the problem.

Why on earth didn't they?

How big is Jane Russell's mortgage if she's trying to pour out months more of this gravy train?

It's almost as if she's got no other work lined up ....

I always thought it was intentional - that taffeta was supposed to look like that.

I should add, she has to do as she’s told up to a point but can’t knowingly mislead the court etc. Her duties to the court come above her duties to her client. Just for clarity.

One good thing is that the second hearing and yesterday and today have an accurate record of the evidence because Sandies backer has paid for the stenographers.

Seeing as we are commenting on appearance and have been whisked back to the 1980s, I'd like to say that Adam Watson bears a remarkable resemblance to Marc Almond. I think we should be told.

I'm going to try to post a screenshot from Green Wing to suggest how that might look - let's see if it works!

I don't understand why JR/Fife haven't had this baked in from the start - they could easily have argued that SP's behaviour was discrimination/harassment and that alternatively if that defence failed that it was the manner in which she expressed her objection that was the problem.

I would guess that when the ET started the Supreme Court hadn't ruled and they were certain that the decision would be TWAW. Then the ET stalled because they played their cards badly and whoops, the whole basis of the case collapsed after 16th April. Upton was never a woman and will never be a woman.

Could Fife and Theodore Upton appeal on the basis of inadequate/ incompetent legal representation?

Just because no one presented evidence that SP did something (absence of evidence), doesn’t mean she didn’t do it (evidence of absence).

So we may not have evidence she prayed to the devil for an end to the manufacture of Tunnocks Teacakes and the murder of everyone with different protected characteristics to her, while wearing a highly patterned Roman dress, but she still might have done that.