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

What was it about the tech analysis that was making him giggle? Fife using "the 6th best option" or something else?

I think he knows what he wants to be and until now he's always got what he wants, but now he's finally left education where he was important and what he said mattered and come into the grown up world where he's not special any more and his mummy and daddy's influence can't stop people laughing at him.

In my ongoing effort to lower the academic tone, I'd suggest that the song 'The Emperor's New Clothes' from Danny Kaye's film of Hans Christian Anderson sums it up because it's all about no one wanting to look stupid so they all pretend they can see what the Emperor is wearing apart from a young boy who hasn't heard about it so knows he's naked. I think Dr Upton has convinced himself that he ought to be allowed to be a woman because he doesn't like the man he was and if he isn't one then where has he got left to go?

Obviously he's lovely and kind because everyone at the hospital says so according to Dr Searle so he just has to destroy the woman whose come out and says he's not a woman and then he can be back in his nice little insular and insulated cocoon and the sort of hero that means he won't have to do the messy bits of doctoring like treating patients.

Maybe I'm a softie, but I do feel sorry for anyone who feels that they have to kill the person they are and pretend to be someone else. The whole business of dead-name and being so upset if they're mis gendered suggests someone who daren't look back and can't accept that they can run all they like but they always take themselves with them. They still have to be responsible for their actions though, and they shouldn't be treating patients because if they'll lie about a colleague then they can't be trusted near vulnerable people. Come to that, neither should Dr Searle.

it was about the fact that in cross examination Jane Russell kept repeating to the expert that was he saying that Dr Upton’s was lying, when nobody else had said that, rather underlining that Upton’s had indeed lied, amongst other things.

He was profiled last night on R4. The headmaster's 'early retirement' was mentioned.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002jdqh

Precisely @Easytoconfuse Time for another good Pulp reference, 'You can dye your hair, but it's the one thing you can't change, can't run away from yourself'. That's from Help the Aged, which is somewhat underrated if you ask me. The whole attitude and approach is so unhealthy, it really is concerning that we ever got close to this point. All these poor kids being encouraged to believe a load of bollocks and look where it gets them. I appreciate the good Dr has behaved appallingly but he is also very much a product of our society.

Exactly, and all this unquestioning affirmation really worries me. I trained in behavioural analysis and the key words were 'prepare the child for the road' NOT 'the road for the child.' The fact that you can't look at what might be making someone feel that they aren't/can't be who they want to be worries me because it's not even a sticking plaster. It's interesting that it happens most often in middle age and teenagerdom because they're both awkward times. At one you have to realise that there's more behind than ahead and face mortality that makes you the grown up and at the other you have to transition to adulthood while you're in a clumsy body because you're growing so fast and, if I may say so, teenagers aren't very nice. They're all making the changes so are self-centred and moving from the family group so they have to reject the beliefs. If you watch young swans, they get cocky and bossy and evicted very firmly by their parents, and then they go off and mix with other young swans till they pair up, and I think that's happening with humans too. Now Dr Upton has been evicted from the nice cushy world later than most and is in one that I suspect you have to be very tough to handle. I know I couldn't do it. He needs to believe in something and that's that he is special and a woman, especially since it gets him what he wants; until someone like Sandie comes along.

That doesn't make it Sandie's fault. It's the fault of those who didn't question his feelings when they began, which I sneakily suspect has something to do with those 3 years when he vanished off the radar.

If someone asked me if I am a biological woman, I'd say "of course I am" with a bemused look on my face.

The fact that DU used semantics - I'm not a robot so I'm biological and I'm a woman, therefore I'm a biological woman/ sex is a nebulous dog whistle etc - suggests to me that he doesn't actually believe it. It might be a genuine expression of a desire, but that's different.

Off topic but, for the record, the retirement of E W Maynard Potts after 30+ years as head of Hendon County Grammar School had absolutely nothing to do with pupil power, whatever Mandelson and his friend, Steve Howell, think. The fact that Howell continues to believe that just shows how self-absorbed they were and unaware of what was going on around them.

The London Borough of Barnet had decided to convert schools to comprehensives by merging each grammar school with a secondary modern. For Hendon County, the obvious thing would have been to merge the school with St Mary's. It was within walking distance of Hendon County, had a similar ethos and there were already strong links between the schools. However, the borough decided instead to merge Hendon County with St David's - a boys-only school that was regarded as by far the worst school in the area. It was further away than St Marys, the other side of the A41, making movement between the schools difficult. Potts campaigned against this and was even interviewed about it on the BBC's main current affairs programme - a proper, sit down interview in the studio. The campaign failed. It was this that prompted Potts to go when he did, leaving at Easter to make life difficult for the borough. Those of us who had parents involved in the campaign knew Potts' plans long before the events that Howell claims triggered his retirement.

On his web page, Howell says that a temporary head was brought in from outside the school. This is wrong. Jack Driver, Potts' deputy (who sometimes gave me and my sister a lift to school), took over as temporary head. Sadly, he did not get the permanent job. A new permanent head was brought in from outside the school who proved to be a complete disaster. Mandelson and his friends had already gone by this time, and I was in the Upper Sixth so it didn't affect me too much, but my sister's education suffered.

Thank you for taking the time to post that @prh47bridge . It's infuriating when people dine out on untruths, especially so when people have suffered, unlike these fuckers who weren't even involved. Never let the truth get in the way of a 'good' 🙄story.

That brings back memories because I lived in High Barnet when this was happening. My father, who was a strong-minded old fashioned teacher felt it was a deliberate, politically based twinning of best and worst by people who didn't approve of grammar schools and that the head teacher was very good and wouldn't stand for it. He never understood why it was fine to excel at sport but not academically. I very much understood that parents evenings were good fun for me but rather less fun for my teachers and I rapidly learned that I wanted to pass the course so I had to have the 'right' opinions and then think my own thoughts because school was only temporary.

Something that's just occurred to me, that I wish had been asked, how DU would have felt if he'd been getting changed in the women's room and Pete had walked in?

Would he have been outraged, embarrassed or recognised a fellow traveller?

Upton was asked about Pete. The moment Pete puts a dress on he's OK according to Upton.

Or annoyed because he'd be getting all the attention? My mental image of Pete is a bit like a young Sean Connery plus beard, because I love Scottish accents to the point where I find myself listening to the voice not the words. Same goes for Welsh. I still wouldn't want to undress in front of him though.

Does Upton have a Scottish accent?

Not an especially noticeable one, @Peregrina

When I was observing I thought he had a kind of generic nasal posh boy accent, which at first he was trying to make sound more female but it dropped.

I would say not much of a Scottish accent, compared to many of the witnesses. One of my daughters went to Edinburgh Uni. She would have called his accent 'PP' - pretending to be posh.

And yes, trying to do the woman imitation but poorly.

PP rather than RP? A very neat label!

I think it depends if they decide that SP’s description of DU undressing in front of her was true…

I have just finished reading NC's submissions - and I think she does make it clear that it was sexual harassment. SP made it clear he made her uncomfortable, she told management, and they decided she was the baddie. Obviously NC says it much better than that.

Foran explains the various complaints as either/or, so if sexual discrimination wins the harassment falls, as one cannot win both no two bites of the same cherry

I think cross dressing men just being in the female changing room is sexual harassment and I hope that will be the finding, but I don’t know.

I think it depends if they decide that SP’s description of DU undressing in front of her was true…

We know from NHS Fife's other witnesses that he did undress in the women's changing room, because they saw him in a bra. Is it likely that he only undressed some times? Otherwise, why was he in the changing room at all? Unless that was the only female loo available?

There are two respondents, so what is decided about Upton's conduct as you have mentioned, and NHS Fife has the potential for the Tribunal to draw two separate conclusions. If i recall correctly, Foran is of the view that the claims against Upton’s might not succeed at all.

It's a shame that they haven't got "Just general fucking shitbaggery" on the books.