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

Naomi C told Russel that NHS Fife should sue her for professional negligence, Big Sond concurs!

😅

I think school kids could learn a lot from Bryson. It could be a bit like stranger danger classes, back in the day. That's the kind of visibility I support. Sunlight!

Please can I thank everyone who's explained this so clearly. It's much appreciated.

Very nifty by BS. He gives JR what she wants, avoids giving her ground for appeal, and then exacts delicious revenge. I don’t think NC will be too upset, she knows he has to argue that she has not been disadvantaged by this. And she now has proof that batting your eyelashes and cooing doesn’t prevent you from being branded negligent -who knew?

IANAL If judge calls you negligent it's not a good thing, right? - asking for a friend

I would guess it’s astonishing. Foran will be boggling. He still owes us a podcast, and had better watch what he says!

Well it seems to me very strong language pre judgement.

and i think NC did refer to a claim for negligence as an appropriate remedy for the respondents should their defence fail, without the inclusion of the “objectionable manifestation” argument.

But the Judge has in effect allowed this defence to be considered in their judgement.

So i think it is what could be described as an admonishment of the defence counsel.

Judges are usually far more circumspect in anything they say about the lawyers. So no, it is definitely not a good thing.

Can someone explain what the judges criticism of NC was please? How dare he?!😂

So Fife got a bit of a ticking off but basically got what they wanted - they can't amend the pleadings because the judge said it was fine and they didn't need to amend the pleadings to argue it the way they want to argue it. And they can amend the list of issues so whether or not Sandie manifested her belief in an unreasonable way is now an issue the judgement will settle.

Not sure if they're saying negligence as in professional negligence so much as negligence in the factual sense of oversight. They shouldn't be having oversights either - but will wait to hear Foran's opinion on just how damning that choice of words is.

Which possibly leaves Naomi with an open goal for an appeal if she needs one. And maybe that's why she made this point about it not being pled properly.

Honestly nobody in this tribunal wants to have to go back to witnesses. I think Peggie's team got plenty out of the witnesses to show they have no convincing evidence she was manifesting in an unreasonable way and that Upton was going to take exception to absolutely any way she manifested her beliefs.

I've seen the odd 'surprisng' in judgements before, but I really thought that was a strong as they got. 'Negligent' has astounded me.

I should imagine the judge wasn't best pleased with having to extend the hearing of the case due to the disclosure problems, and the last minute stunt from JR was the last straw for him.

Times article about the negligence comment:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/d5ccf006-a562-4535-84b1-aaa45485679c?shareToken=73c177e023348dc6d8b8dd71bcee8ba5

Absolutely extraordinary.

Thanks for the share token.

I'm holding out for 'batshit'.

Very annoying that in the Times' article they've misspelled 'critical' under the headline.

But yes, the Judge is not well impressed with JR is he?

I expect there’s a fair few people Big Sond is not best pleased with!
I’m waiting to see how scathing he is in his judgement

No, they didn't get what they wanted. What they wanted was to amend their pleadings. That wasn't allowed. Adding it to the list of issues is not a real victory for them as the list is not binding on the court and the question of whether SP's manifestation of her beliefs was unacceptable was already clearly on the table.

I wonder whether the judge's suggestion that JR's team were negligent will lead to a reduction in their fees?

If anybody needs a legal 'fix' whilst waiting for the Peggie judgment; one of my all time favourites in from Jo Phoenix's tribunal. It was so scathing that several of the paragraphs are on the TT substack page here.

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

Don't hold your breath

Might mean JR gets fewer of these cases in future. Leonardo must be congratulating themselves on choosing someone different.

The accusation of SP being objectionable in her behaviour reminds me of the 1985 film 'Bliss' where a man says to a waiter: ''Did you just raise your eyebrow in a disagreeable way?". It's just silly.

After JR & Fife's strenuous efforts to badmouth Sandie Peggie and make SP's alleged "bigotry" the headline news, it feels very special to see the msm focusing on that one single word in the ruling, even though the outcome wasn't brilliant for either party.

Oh Jane Russell, the virginal white suit didn't quite cut it for your final day in court, did it?

I am so looking forward to reading the tribunal's published decision. Big Sond has so much more to give, I'm sure.

Well it's always interesting to see the layman's 'IANAL but this looks absolutely fucking mad' turn out to be a fair assessment of the situation in the eyes of a judge.