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

The Courier headline had me wondering what the heck was going on:

"Sandie Peggie judge blasts NHS Fife’s ‘negligent’ defence – but makes key ruling in health board’s favour"

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5341939/sandie-peggie-judge-nhs-fife-ruling-negligent/

No, they didn't get what they wanted. What they wanted was to amend their pleadings.

I hesitate to contradict an expert but the defence did say we don't think we need to amend our pleadings but in case we do here's the amendment. This note says they were right in the first place and can use the unreasonable manifestation argument on the basis of the original pleadings so don't need to amend.

The fact that they didn't plead and their witnesses were unable to articulate what it was about Sandie's conduct exactly can't be good for their cause at the next stage, but Fife basically got exactly what they wanted here. No amendment to pleadings because not necessary.

Otherwise the fact that they /can/ amend the list of issues would be contradictory.

I'm confused about this whole argument about SP's gender-critical beliefs and the way she expressed them to BU. It is absolutely clear that NHS Fife were in breach of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulations (1992) and therefore SP was legally correct to challenge BU. Why is it relevant that she was allegedly insufficiently polite and deferential in her challenge?

Like @Peregrina I’m very glad I didn’t make the decision to go into law - I did seriously consider it at one stage. I would so not have been cut out for the level of precision and paying-attention that would be required!

I can’t stand the tribunal process, it doesn’t seem fit for purpose. There has been a 20+ page decision on two relatively small issues, ahead of the full decision. I appreciate the tribunal want to be thorough and lessen the likelihood of successful appeals, but this highlights the rigmarole involved. Sorting out employment problems shouldn’t be this protracted and difficult.

I don’t understand everything discussed in the full documentary - it seems like a win for NHS Fife? The judge might have suggested JR negligence - but he ultimately accepted 1 of her/Fife’s amendments. Whilst he refused the other - it is only because the amendment isn’t required as Fife always have been able to run that argument. Hence I’m not sure how much weight the “negligent” comment has. JR can’t have been that negligent, if she was given what she requested, it suggests she was legally correct & advocating for her client. I imagine Fife would latch onto that “negligent” comment if they lose, to suggest bias by the tribunal.

I mean isn’t this like a textbook argument in adversarial processes?

Ie Stage 1 - what you said was wrong. Stage 2 - okay, what you said wasn’t wrong but it’s how you said it.

Agree. And would add that using and abusing legal processes has been one of the main games played by the gender ideology movement in the same way it's a game played by domestic abusers to continue their abuse of their victim.

It should not be allowed to take this length of time.
It should not be allowed to escalate costs like a magic money tree grows in the garden by the court room.
It should not be allowed to filibuster and attempt to bankrupt or destroy a victim's will to fight for their rights
It should not be allowed to demand and control this kind of expensive expert time and attention when a child could see the obvious issues and verdict in about five minutes.

The system needs sorting out.

Negligent means neglecting something. You can be a little negligent or much more so. In this case the respondents neglected to make explicit the thrust or a particular aspect of their argument, realised it late in the day and (successfully, it turned out) tried to address it. I don’t think the comment is quite as condemnatory as is being suggested.
But IANAL and could be entirely wrong.

I am firmly of the opinion that JR's "midnight amendment" came because some other "barristers" realised that this is a rather important legal case and started to "advise" their non-client(s). I expect that there are quite a few who have been getting it in the neck about not asking to intervene in the FWS appeal.

As an aside, it would have been an interesting exercise to see how often Sandie and Dr U were on the same shift; I don't recall this question being asked of anybody.

I don't know. I don't really understand how this works, though. If I find a burglar in my house and tell him to fuck off, does he have a case against me on the basis that I was rude? Surely the fundamental thing is that he shouldn't have been burgling my house.

I realise this isn't an exact analogy - NHS Fife weren't breaching the criminal law. But their case for suspending Sandie Peggie seems unbelievably weak.

I mean it’s common sense surely, at work there’s generally polices around being nice to colleagues and not rude. So the NHS are saying SP breached standards of behaviour in the manner which she confronted him.

Whereas in your analogy, neither the burglar nor the victim has a duty not to be rude to the other. No contact/handbook exists to govern that. At work, if you tell someone to fuck off, you’d generally be seen as in the wrong wouldn’t you?

Doesn't Fife have an anti-bullying/harassment policy (I seem to remember it being mentioned in <gestures vaguely> an earlier thread)? Iirc it advised trying to approach the bully/harasser. Isn't that what SP did, after speaking to her line manager failed?

I can see your point but look at it from a slightly different perspective tho have no expert knowledge.

Kemp knows this tribunal
is of vital importance and appeals will be sought on any judgment.

Appeals can only really be made on legal points (or if the judgement was so ridiculous) so Kemp is ensuring that a legal position for an appeal by Russell can’t be made on this basis.

He is covering all points to remove arguments for an appeal on the basis of decisions made about the law as applied to the Respondents case. That’s a good thing.

Naomi in her submission asked the panel to consider this argument even if not allowed and by doing so she sets out the importance of this panel tackling this.

It has wasted time which is why he rebuked Russell but Peggie case is about, in my view, ensuring that other women don’t have to go through this process either in work or through a tribunal so Cunningham’s team need all points argued. The panels document sets out a rationale that means witnesses don't have to be recalled. Also, a good thing.

it says nothing of import about what the judgment will be other that the panel have tolerated Russell’s bullshit during the trial to be scrupulously fair to the defendants during the hearings but they don’t have to tolerate it beyond that. I think that means they will consider the evidence fairly in their judgment. and if you are following the detail…there can only be one reasonable outcome if that is done.

The annoying thing about the 'negligence' comment is that you just know that Dr Upton's supporters will seize on it as meaning that if they lose the case it will only be because their legal team messed up. (Or, heaven forbid, that they won the case despite their legal team, so they were doubly-right.)

100%

Much of this stuff should not be court business.

'Failing to make eye contact when I said hello' is not a legal matter.

Exactly! Vibes of, 'And she should look at me when I talk to her, doesn't she know who I am!?'

And also, wasn’t the whole thing about their exchange a bit ‘he said/she said’ (definitely NOT she said/she said!)?

Just going to say this.

I feel like she did definitely question DU on this. (What should/could she have done that would have made it ‘okay’)

Nit sure if she questioned others on this point, can’t remember

I think they weren't allowed to amend pleadings on the basis that amendment wasn't necessarily and they could run their argument on basis of existing pleadings? So, refusal is less significant than it first appears

I agree. The only 'proof' that SP expressed her WORIADS opinion in an unacceptable way is that DrU said so; and what DrU finds acceptable or unacceptable is ... er, idiosyncratic , as we've seen from his evidence.

I've skimmed the 21 pages and realise that it'll need a long long read with ample supplies of strong tea to really get to grips with it.
Is the Law the last area where words have to mean something specific?
So 'literally' has to literally mean literally? I love that. But it also makes for challenging reading!

Being very shallow, I couldn't resist a totally immature giggle at a case called
Kong v Gulf International Bank (UK) Ltd
and yes, I was immature enough to imagine the illustrations😁

This part stood out:
In any event, as sex is binary (so held by the Supreme
Court in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers [2025] ICR 899) an
averment that a person is not a woman is equivalent to a statement that
the person is a man because of that. 54-30

I loved the brisk 'in any event, as sex is binary..', and there's a hint in the last sentence that Big Sond* really wanted to write that 'a person is a man because of a' that'
*for the uninitiated: the judge has been nicknamed
Big Sond/Sondie/Sandie/Alexander and SP is Little Sond/Sandie.

Reading the judgement again, what happened is that NC argued that whether SP's manifestation of her beliefs was objectionable was not a matter before the tribunal and that JR would need to apply to amend if this issue was to be addressed. JR argued that this was not correct and that neither pleading (which is about the written submissions) nor inclusion within the list of issues was needed. Her late night submission on 1st September put the same arguments but asked to be allowed to amend their pleadings and the list of issues if the Tribunal did not agree. It appears from the judgement that her subsequent written submission abandoned her original argument and gave the specific terms of the amendments to her pleadings and the list of issues that she sought.

The problem for JR was that the tribunal could hold that they had abandoned the objectionable manifestation issue as it was not in the agreed list of issues. The decision of the tribunal prevents her modifying her pleadings to address the issue directly, which is what she wanted. Adding it to the list of issues means the tribunal will consider the question, but without the benefit of JR's thoughts on the subject. It could be taken either way but, given that the question of objectionable manifestation was already on the table, even if not phrased in that way, Fife being allowed to amend their pleadings would have been the bigger win for them in my view. Getting the list of issues amended makes no practical difference to anything.

She didn't have to be deferential, but if the way she expressed herself was objectionable that could justify Fife's actions. This is an important distinction. If you highlight unlawful conduct by your employer, you are a whistleblower. Your employer cannot take action against you for the act of whistleblowing. However, that does not give whistleblowers complete immunity to behave however they want. If it was, a whistleblower could stalk the CEO and subject them to a campaign of terror and claim that, because it was related to them making a protected disclosure, they were immune.

Most tribunals are much quicker than this. In most cases there is only a single hearing. In more complex cases there may be a preliminary hearing. Cases like this with multiple hearings and several long decisions are extremely unusual.

The judgement on Fife's request for changes is that, in practical terms, nothing has changed. The amendment to the list of issues is purely a housekeeping issue. It doesn't change anything meaningful. Refusing Fife's application to amend their pleadings means that Fife cannot directly address the issue of alleged objectionable manifestation in their pleadings. So personally, I don't see this as a win for Fife.

I think we can probably expect 'strong language' in the ruling however we cut it now.

Which possibly isn't that unexpected, but it's a confirmation of that.