NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #53

[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].

The hearing was 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: 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
Thread 52: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5403218-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-52 2 September 2025 to 4 September 2025

That's right. It's pretty much legendary in our household and gets quoted regularly as a reminder when dealing with 'authority'

I suspect Fife have probably missed the exit for that one. FWS offered them a reasonably graceful way to cut him loose, if that was what they wanted. Could've been done without any criticism of him, albeit I accept he'd then have had to arrange his own representation. But it was a way to do it that didn't involve calling him a liar, bully etc. I don't see them being willing to sever themselves now in a way that actually would involve throwing him under the bus. Not without such sufficient personnel and institutional change that he'd probably fuck off elsewhere to avoid it.

But there is the issue of the GMC. If, as looks reasonably likely, something is said about him clearly interfering with his 'contemporaneous' notes and lying, that will be brought to their attention if not by DU then by some of the millions of observers.

A few thoughts from me on this.

It's worth taking a squint at the judgment from Jo Phoenix's case at how a judge metaphorically points at a witness and says 'we gave no credence to a word you say, you were either stupid or lying'. See excerpt below. The panel may well believe that the patient care incidents were inventions from start to finish, that they served the nefarious purpose of getting Sandy suspended; a key part of burning the witch. But they won't say it explicitly, it will be wrapped up in 'we gave no weight to.... or ....the Rs did not present persuasive evidence to support these incidents and were wrong to suspend'. They don't have the power to find DU in contempt or to charge obstruction of justice.

Any immediate consequences for DU would be via the GMC & MPTS which, having reported the tribunals of the Webberleys, is both captured and incompetent. Not much hope there.

However.

I think there will be long term career consequences for DU. The professions are all about trajectory. At best the career curve is flat for DU and may be trending downwards. He'll probably always have a job but he won't have a serious career in medicine. The Peggie Affair, no matter the outcome, is like somebody hung an anchor on a hot air balloon.

I gave in too, but did so much cross-checking with how events were reported here or in press, that I had to sleep before finishing it.

I think we should instruct MG to sue NC and her accomplices @MyrtleLion and @Boiledbeetle for entrapment and the loss of an entire Friday night and Saturday morning.

Those Bugs Bunny lines look amazingly like a direct reference to Wittgenstein.

That may just be my aspect perception though.

Ooh, please can I borrow that? It'll be so much fun to use with my relatives who went to Oxford rather than vocational qualifications and the OU. Obviously, I knew it all along!

The major career consequence for DU is that he is at a very early stage of his career when contracts are typically short as you try to move up the ladder.

He now has a very long period of sickness and a national reputation for causing drama at work.

Just at a time when junior doctor recruitment is more competitive than ever.

He's not an appealing prospect.

He's now the sort of potential candidate for a job who you'd have to invite for interview to show willing, but you'd never be considering him at all.

Oh, the questions you could ask him at interview.

Upton was made a respondent in this tribunal to ensure he was required to disclose what he said and did to the defence and if he declined to give evidence then the court would make the appropriate inference. You can refuse to give evidence to an employment tribunal as a witness, as James Doyle did. I believe you may be able to subpoena though.

I agree that the GMC appears to be 100% captured. However, publicity is powerful, and being found unreliable / likely dishonest about patient safety would have a different impact on DrU’s career from bullying nurses or being trans. It might put other doctors at risk of malicious complaints (and believing in them may have contributed to the reputational damage to ES, AG and KS, so it can be argued that those complaints have already had a cost to the medical and nursing profession).

NC ‘invites the tribunal’ to conclude that the disappearing and reappearing patient safety concerns are connected to Dr U realising after consulting the GMC how seriously unsubstantiated allegations would be taken and the risk to his own career.

He really has dropped a bollock on that one. I'm not sure what's worse, him having invented a patient safety concern or had a genuine one and sat on it for an extended period.

I agree. I suspect he has a very narcissistic personality and needs to be special as the rules don’t apply to him.

He was far from outstanding at school, either socially or academically. Perhaps he didn’t get into medicine first time he applied, as there’s 3 years between leaving school and starting his MbChB at Dundee , which he will have to explain on his CV.

He was remarkably average on his course, he graduated with no merit or distinction. He did his foundation training at the local hospitals , not the more prestigious teaching hospitals in the cities.

He’s not doing core training for a specialty , as far as we know.

So he’s at best very mediocre in a profession with many high flyers. However he’s also demonstrated he’s unable to work in a team and has a total inability to self reflect or comprehend how his actions might affect colleagues or patients.

You will note that of all the NHSF staff lining up to say how wonderful he was , none of them actually had to work with him. Not one. Some had never even met him before this blew up.

So that’s all a bit of a disaster, before you throw in the trans identification and any possible disciplinary matters of dishonesty , failure to respect patient autonomy and potentially putting patients at risk by failing to report issues promptly.

So I’ve no idea who would employ him now.

Yes there are rural areas in Scotland which are desperate for medical staff , you might think they would take just anyone . But arrogant people are even more of a problem in small teams and working with less local back up actually needs more clinical skills not less.

Perhaps he will go aboard where he will be less notorious. Or change his surname. Or go into Public Health Medicine in some DEI role . He’s not clever enough for academia . Maybe a GP practice in Brighton might like him. Or the Webberleys off shore branch.

KS (and the rest) must be absolutely bricking it. First, I assume that NHS Fife in no way will pay their legal fees, and having watched this set of hearings burgeon out of control, will cost them their houses just to defend.

It's not as if you'd want the industry expert, JR of name-clanging Isla Bryson-Bumba, on your team. I know it's supposed to be cab-rank rule, but she's turning up like a decrepit donkey offering rides with her "Oh shit, I've got your defence wrong so I'm going to nick the idea from the other team's submissions!" And here's my new bill.... with the industry expert surcharge of course!

Or they have to settle. I wonder what a nurse who had another 15 years of work ahead of her, at two days per week plus "hurty feels of the authentic sort", could reasonably expect?

.

Maybe Canada would suit better. They're desperate for medical staff (isn't everywhere really) and extremely captured.

I think Jane Russell KC is barely less ridiculous a character as Jolyon Maugham KC.

I would love for JKR to have a JR type character in one of her Strike novels. There are so many well-drawn aristo set awful characters already that I think a thinly-veiled JR would slot right in.

Yup. The performative white suit, the horse riding through London to collect her KCship, the Forshattering. She's a buffoon.

Re Upton, did the GMC not say they'd wait until the end of the ET before starting their investigations?
Remember there have been many complaints about him saying he would treat a woman who'd asked for same sex care.
Also the 'datex' sorry if I've got the name wrong. The reporting process for dangerous incidents didn't report immediately, (or he made it up).

Surely if they strike him off that would have international repercussions, ie he wouldn't be able to go and take a doctors role in Canada or anywhere else.

Actually, being unsure of the dates, perhaps I should have said it looks amazingly like a direct reference by Wittgenstein to Bugs Bunny.

Depends on how you look at it, of course.

I know it's supposed to be cab-rank rule, but she's turning up like a decrepit donkey offering rides

That is because the GI side think she is on their side and will therefore do a good job for them. The cab rank rule means the client can choose their barrister. The barrister cannot choose their clients. Every time she turns up, it is because her client has chosen her. We may think that choice is ill-advised, but it is their choice.

Thanks, that's even better. Of course I watch cartoons because I like that era Bugs Bunny because they're surprisingly deep.

KS and MC copied in the entire consultant team almost at the start of the drama, and we don't (yet) know what we don't know about how the others may have responded. It seems possible/likely that the Board has been complicit in the attempted cover up over a long period, and so it may be in their interests to stick together to the bitter end.

It looks as though Esther Davidson is most at risk, judging by the way JR has thrown her under a bus with each of the more recent witnesses?

I imagine Lottie Myles will get the most glowing references imaginable to evict her as soon as she makes a bid to move up the ladder elsewhere.

If JR was making the submission, Bugs Bunny would be the background context in which Ludwig Wittgenstein worked, of course.

I know someone who decided she wasn’t that into the heavy lifting of her medical career (she was more into the idea of being a doctor than actually being one, basically) and she now injects Botox for her living. Lots of people into injectables will pay a premium to have a doctor giving that service, and I have to imagine that there’s a market for a trans Botox doctor among a certain well-off Be Kind demographic.