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

Definitely a question that needs to be put to him.

Sorry, just to clarify, when I say that "it seems pretty clear that they don't intend to actually use" this data, this is because it is actually useless, garbage data. If they were planning to use it to comply with their equality obligations, for example, it is useless because it does not robustly pick out a protected characteristic. Rather, it merges sex and gender reassignment and so provides reliable data about neither.
Generally what they intend is to allow people to perform a pleasing self-expression by ticking a box that they like, thereby enhancing the organisations brand. This is not a lawful purpose under the GDPR

Personally, I'm finding it curious that NHS Fife is paying the next round of legal fees - of course just the first £25k. The Scottish people, who mostly won't wheesht, get to pay the rest.

This hugely benefits the trio who pretty much single-handedly implemented the Mrs McCarthyism that is TWAW. Safeguarding their homes, pensions and savings.

But you do have to wonder if they've offered to pay for the nurse's legal fees too. Otherwise I feel a third discrimination charge a-coming.

How can you justify paying for one group and not the other?

In the 2022 council paper I posted, I think their conclusion was that they are not mandated but will ask in same way they ask about other protected characteristics.

Not sure how the confusion over sex/gender and reliance on voluntary info fits with other legislative requirements but I guess that is for them to fight over at every council meeting for the forseeable future, as they work their way through the Upton registratiuon mess.

If Sandie is suing Searle, Currer and Davidson personally, in their private capacities, how is it right that NHS Fife are paying their fees? Is it not a misuse of public funds?

Dr Ben Sessa discharged from his private caseload a very vulnerable patient with drug and alcohol problems (following a medical appointment held in a pub), so that he could enter into a sexual relationship with her. She ended her life at the point that he later ended the relationship.

His defence described this as an 'unfortunate blip' on his career and she was unable to give evidence as she was dead. He was suspended for 12 months and reinstated in April 2025. It's a shocking case and there are many reports and blogs about it from women within the same profession or specialism.

medium.com/@kgreenstien/my-statement-to-the-gmc-re-dr-sessa-9fa32b85fe7b

Surely Seattle, Currer and Davidson should be funding their own defences, via their PI insurance?

Searle’s emotional claims that she and Upton as Doctors are above any question of wrongdoing due to the professional standards they need to uphold didn’t convince me much in July. Now that I am reading some of these horror stories her claims are quite frankly laughable.

And she needs to be funding her own defence!

But surely, Fife will only offer to pay coists where they believe it is in their interests because of the employer-employee relationship and what they view as a unified defence?

Given the way Fife has applied to change its plea at the last minute because of the now divergent interests between Fife and Upton, I think Searle, Currer and Davidson must feel vulnerable even before the next case gets started?

Esther Davidson's name has been led by JR so often, she must be terrified of accepting shared defence funding from an employer that is already scapegoating her.

i don’t know the details of that case and from the article it seems very complicated. And he sounds like someone with a complex profile and lots of professional opponents. As I don’t know the details I can only grasp on to the GMC’s comment “the facts of this case put it on the cusp of suspension and erasure”. So I think this is a slightly different example to what I was discussing with someone above - where a Dr is sanctioned with “erasure” which is later reduced to “suspension”.

Has Fife yet released the names/roles of the people responsible for the All Weekend Press Release? Those should be big names and those individuals will cost a fortune in defence fees.

Isn’t it standard practice that an ET Claimant has to self fund or get help from a union, while respondents will be covered by their employer?

I’m new to all this ET business but for those of you who have observed a few - are there any other hearings with more respondents than SP’s case?! Is she setting a record?

And doctors have more power over vulnerable people than almost any other professional group.

It is more red flags than Moscow on Mayday terroritory.

In the Guardian article. Rapist excused because 'it was a one off'.

"In a related paper in the British Medical Journal, the authors cited several recent high-profile cases that had “fuelled concerns about the consistency and adequacy” of sanctions. This included an MPTS tribunal earlier this year that found an acute medical consultant guilty of rape but handed him a 12-month suspension rather than striking him off, because it was deemed to be a “one-off event”.
Another doctor was found to have “pursued and groomed” a vulnerable patient from the age of 14 but was only suspended from the register for 12 months, with the tribunal panel citing evidence of “insight, remediation and remorse” as the reason he was not struck off."

In the ET it is expected that each side pays its own costs and that for this reason, claimants will often/usually need to self-represent, and the tribunal will facilitate their undertstanding and participation.

Employers don't have any responsibility for claimant's legal costs unless an application for costs is sought following the judgment. Costs awards are rare but in this case may be justified as Fife failed to disclose documents on time, and R2 potentially falsified phone data, and those failures could be argued to have caused two adjournments.

It's relatively unusual for individual employees to be called as respondents because the employer ordinarily has vicarious liability for staff actions. Calling the individuals as respondents is a means of getting them to attend court, maybe?

(I really want Jamie Doyle's digital fingerprints to be found on the Press Release, and for Fife to force him to show his shameful face at a future tribunal)

Davidson is a nurse. I don't think nurses have PI insurance.

I am not familiar with the PI insurance for doctors, but I would imagine that covers them mainly for medical malpractice. Their actions towards SP cannot be classed as medical negligence so may not be covered.

NHS Fife's view would be that they were acting on behalf of NHS Fife in their management roles. Making them face a well-funded opponent without any legal assistance would fail Fife's duty of care as an employer. I am therefore not surprised that they are funding these individuals.

I would agree that they have failed their duty of care to SP quite spectacularly, but that doesn't mean they should now fail Searle, Currer and Davidson.

There is no basis for a discrimination charge from not offering to fund SP. Employment tribunals rarely award costs. This is to encourage both sides to represent themselves rather than using lawyers. SP has a backer who is paying for her representation. Since she could have represented herself (not saying this would have been a good idea, but this is how the courts would look at it), there is no reason for NHS Fife to offer to pay her legal fees. However, Searle, Currer and Davidson were acting on behalf of NHS Fife and, given that they are facing a well-funded opponent, there is good reason for NHS Fife to find them.

As someone who couldn't watch the livestream, I found this interesting as it shows the three women. https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5324520/nhs-fife-sandie-peggie-second-legal/

NHS doctors have no need for professional indemnity insurance as NHS Indemnity covers them against any claim for medical negligence. PII is necessary if you see patients privately but membership of one of the indemnity organisations like the Medical Defence Union is not compulsory for NHS doctors. Membership is however extremely desirable because they also support members with complaints & employment disputes in fact anything where the doctor's interests may diverge from that of their employer's. In this way they are operating more like a trade union.

It’s the same for nurses. Indemnity insurance is usually provided by employers though the RCN will cover assistance to passers by etc outside of work and, with exceptions, can cover where there is no employer scheme (long time since I read the small print).

However, Searle, Currer and Davidson were acting on behalf of NHS Fife and, given that they are facing a well-funded opponent, there is good reason for NHS Fife to find them.

Well, were they? You would expect an organisation to have a proper complaints policy, and I can't imagine that any policy tells someone to e-mail substantial numbers of other employees about someone's supposedly bad behaviour before even hearing that person's side. It seems to be to be well beyond the bounds of an expected standard of employee behaviour. But I am not a lawyer.

We haven't yet had the treat of seeing what might be lurking on the exec/independent board member's nhs mail, but they will have known about the matters very early on @Peregrina. I think it's right in principle that Fife should cover all legal fees when fife is first respondent. But I am sure there will be an abundance of strategic reasons too.