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

Maybe they thought there was "no need" for the native files, as DU had already been shown to be a lying liar, who'd lied.... Just kidding. He's a doctor, and also "kind", so doubly above reproach. 🙄.

(I don't think we were supposed to read "kind" as "supercilious smuggy mcsmug face" in this instance, but hey ho.)

As for the weasels in the new litigation i am pretty sure they will all be having sleepless nights with knobs on, because they have already experienced the pressure and scrutiny of being a witness in a tribunal.

It’d be nice to think they’d reflect on their actions, take some accountability for the witch hunt they inflicted on SP and realised that it’s unfair to use their powerful and privileged position in the healthcare hierarchy to unilaterally impose an unscientific and sexist ideology on women.

But I don’t think they will. Instead, they’ll double down on beingkind, see SP as the literal devil, and continue to reinforce their echo chamber of TWAW. Such people are simply beyond logic and reason.

Thanks for the new thread @nauticant and for posting all the tribunal details.

Dr U and Dr S are the opposite of kind. Vindictive bullies is what I'd call them. Cry bullies as well, which are the worst type.

And the doctoring of the 'contemporaneous' notes is so weird. If he'd just said, 'Well the first time anything happened was back in the August but I didn't note anything down at that point because I'm not a creepy stalker desperately looking to catch people out. However, as things progressed / more stuff happened I realised I needed to keep track so in October I started noting things and added my best recollection of the August events then' surely that would have been OK? I mean ultimately these are all Dr U's own notes, own recollection, own interpretation whenever they were made. Yes it would be fresh in his mind if making the notes immediately and I appreciate that could give it greater weight, but it still doesn't prove that what he says / thinks happened actually did. And instead now he's literally proved himself to be a liar. If you're patient, narcissists will eventually always out themselves. It's quite incredible that they manage to wreak so much havoc when you think about that.

As someone with a foot in both of those camps, I think so too.

(I grew up no far from Wee Sondie and have cousins just like her, then went to Edinbawa Yooni and for a while ngl thought myself above the left-behinds and never-lefts I grew up with)

Isn't it just. It'll be wonderful if he's lied himself into a GMC referral when he could've just... not.

Maybe someone has already asked, but in the new case is it possible that SP’s legal team could ask for 3rd party oversight of Fife’s discovery process and production of documents given how poorly that was handled in the current case?

Notatmyage kindly posted this Herald archive report https://archive.ph/erA3u that covers the lengths the Herald had to go to to see anything from JR. As they are allowed to read it presumably they can make public comment on it.

I'm sure they could ask but I don't think they would get. I am not aware of any cases where this has happened. The usual approach is that each party is required to disclose all relevant documents and that the courts are entitled to draw negative inferences from any failures. In this case it is clear that Fife's disclosure has been shambolic and is clearly incomplete. The tribunal is entitled to infer that the documents that haven't been disclosed are even worse for Fife than those that have.

Re complaints to the GMC

I undertand that there are several complaints, which have been put on hold pending the outcome of the employment tribunal.

I would imagine that they would be focused on two areas - dishonesty and respecting patient autonomy .

The GMC regards dishonesty very VERY seriously . As do medical schools.

For example, some medical students lied on a report about how many weeks work they had done on an overseas placement ( called an elective ). They should have done 6 weeks clinical work but they only did four weeks. When this was discovered they were disciplined and made to repeat the whole year and told they were lucky they weren’t thrown off the course.

You will undertand this has a big financial cost, as well as the humiliation of everyone in the department knowing what you have done. It will follow you for years.

To be clear , there’s no suggestion that patients were harmed, or that they missed some learning that could potentially harm patients. It was all about the dishonesty. It’s vital that doctors never lie to their colleages, patients, superiors or in patient notes , especially if they have made a mistake. That could result in a patient’s death.

Dr Upton knows this. It’s drummed into every medical student before they even apply. Prospective students sit aptitude tests that have dozens of scenarios like this - if they don’t get a high score, they don’t even get an interview.

He will know about what happened to the students who lied about their elective.

I cannot comprehend how he thinks that he can lie about something as serious as patient safety and lie in the witness box under oath with impunity.

Of course the other area for complaint will be that he stated he would attempt to examine or treat a patient when he knew they didn’t consent.

Based on the timings, is it reasonable to conclude that the first time JR thought of the Bannanarama defence was whilst reading NC's coming arguments the night before the final day?

Please will a kind person remind me when the first mention of Bananarama was mentioned and by whom? It’s got lost in the fuddle that pretends it’s my brain.

Well they would have to radically alter their self image from “I am kind” to something quite different.

It’s a shame it’s all about who you are, not more about what you do. Much easier to admit to making a mistake than to feel it’s your whole character that is either good or bad. When that’s how you think, then admitting organising a witch hunt is an existential crisis, because if you admit it you are an Unkind Person and that’s unbearable. I would say it’s the kind of thing that could push somebody’s mental health into a crisis.

I've heard from a St Andrews resident that the Uptons are a big deal in the academic and intellectual circles round there.

She probably had Hearts 80s on in the background while she was working late.

Thanks to Nauticant for her dedication to the cause. 53 threads. Dear Heavens

I really REALLY hope Dr U goes in front of the GMC. Indefensible behaviour.

Once NC had read the submission, she would have called NHSF and DU to tell them that they are probably going to lose because NC has strung them up like a kipper on their own evidence.

Asked what alternatives they had, I can imagine JR saying, “not much really, except maybe … objectionable conduct”.

DU, grasping at straws as he watches his entire career go down the drain, all because he gets a stiffy funny feeling in private places at the thought of being in the laydees, eagerly asked, “what’s that?”

JR sighed, “Well, if SP had addressed you in a confrontational…” She barely got the whole word out before DU exclaimed, “That! Yes! She was rude and confrontational and all my feels were very hurty”, (damn right as his career as a doctor is going to be very short), “Do that! It’s my instruction!”

JR felt her heart sink. This was the third or fourth time, or, damn, she couldn’t remember how many times she had been on the losing side of a women’s rights case, (trans rights, she mentally corrected herself), and she was sick of it. Couldn’t this just be all over? Going with an amendment to a defence this late in the day was going to add days to the case. It was already nearly midnight and she’d be up for another couple of hours at least, researching the law for her application to the court.

”If those are your instructions?” she asked, hoping DU would change his mind.

”They are”, said DU, immensely pleased with himself. He was definitely going to win now against that uppity little nurse. How dare she challenge him, HIM. He’d showed her. He’d argued with her about his rights and forced her to back down and report him. He’d got her.

Disclaimer: All of this is completely imaginary and whimsical and not intended to imply anything about anyone.

There’s lots of people in St Andrews who think they are a big deal. Most NHS Fife staff won’t care about this - there’s plenty jumped up, arrogant junior doctors in every training programme.

Lots of students in every Scottish medical school ( if not the majority ) have been to private schools and have parents who are academics/ senior medics/ lawyers etc

I think they are scared of DU not because of his social class / connections but because of the trans issue. I suspect he came to Fife with an invisible red warning label around his neck saying “ Trouble Maker, handle with care”.

They might also be scared because of the Hate Crime issue.

I think that’s why KS didn’t even TRY to pretend that the investigation was objective, she couldn’t wait to show she was on the right side of history and not a hateful TERF bigot .

I think that in her mind there was no need to even investigate - the sacred person had made these statements so they must by definition be true . He is “one of us “ and we must all join to defend him against The Evil Transphobic Enemy.

I can’t see how any argument about “tone “ ( objectionable manifestation ) or DUs safety or Sandie’s character can be used to defend KS actions in pre judging the matter and Whipping up support for a witch-hunt. You will recall that none of her fellow consultants enlisted in her army and one even sent a veiled rebuke.

Her fake crying in the witness box and declarations of love for Beth “ she’s so sweet and lovely she wouldn’t hurt a fly “ at the end of her testimony made this even worse.

Despite all these months to reflect, she showed no insight into her serious mistakes of judgement and her abject failure to follow the correct procedures.

I have zero sympathy for her now being at the sharp end for a change. If she finds that stressful, she might reflect on how Sandie and her family have felt for two years.

Yes and snobbery about Drs v nurses too. I expect that a male nurse seeking to use a female Dr's changing toom would get short shrift

Medicine, IMO, is even more susceptible to being all about who you are and not what you do. One reason why the medical field as a whole really really struggles with admitting mistakes (plus lawsuits). I strongly doubt these women will have an existential or mental health crisis. I’ve met so many women like this. Utterly confident in being right, assured by their status and accomplished career. No chance of a whisper of a thought ‘am I being unkind?’ Or worse, ‘am I wrong?’ One would hope there’s scope for evolved thinking but they so clearly see SP as the baddie (homophobic / racist / intransigent) that they must be the good guys!

Edited to agree with this: Despite all these months to reflect, she showed no insight into her serious mistakes of judgement and her abject failure to follow the correct procedures.

I have watched all the proceedings. Kate Searle bursting into tears was possibly the most astonishing thing amongst many other astonishing things. Unless she is the most consummate actor the tears were not fake. She was almost inconsolable. Everyone in court appeared really embarrassed. It seemed astonishing that an experienced A&E consultant should be triggered into floods of tears by the revelation in court of the name of the nurse who had been unable to confirm Theo Upton’s account of one of the alleged patient safety incidents. She gave the impression that there was must have been more going on that we weren’t hearing about.

This (Fife/JR not making their written subs public) is yet another example of how the supposedly progressive side to this whole nonsensical palaver are not only anti free speech, but clearly also anti the principles of open justice.

I'm sorry if everyone else knows the answer to this, but I've come late to it, via dealing with other government funded service providers who live in a parallel legal universe and have an elastic relationship with the truth.

What do the transgender people think a woman is? It can't be biology because they're never going to have it. It can't really be clothes because we run a spectrum from sniff and pick from the wash basket in the dark because we're busy to full on Barbie. It can't be educational level or mothering style because we're all unique.

So what is a woman? Is it 'I don't like who I am, so I want to wipe out that person and try again?' That would explain the extreme reactions and the antagonism to them not being instantly believed. If so, then that's terribly sad because you can never do that so your sense of imposter syndrome must be so massive that you couldn't tolerate anyone disagreeing with you.

Or is it 'I can get power this way and I am never going to be good enough to get it any other way so I'll steal it. Again, that fits the reaction.

Completely off topic (obviously) does anyone know if Jolyon Maugham was a good tax barrister before he went down what I thought of as an Alice in Wonderland style rabbit hole, but learned here this morning is actually a purity spiral?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me out. It's probably awful of me, but I'm finding this laying out of how an organisation misuses power incredibly cathartic.

sniff and pick from the wash basket in the dark

🤣😂

All my carefully preserved illusions about all you ladies being elegant and refined - shattered!

Has nobody told you how seldom often we wash our bras? 😅