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

I was wondering that.

You're all behaving ever so well. Continuation thread for when it's required: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5418690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-54

I'm still on holiday and so you haven't seen me, right? <taps nose>

Justabaker gave an example of what she felt was an acceptable way to express GC views, and what would have been an unacceptable way to express GC views, but stated that who knows where in between the line lies. The unacceptable way contained a word that may be viewed as a slur which is presumably why it was deleted.
TERF is also regarded as a slur but doesn't get deleted - presumably because no-one complains.

I did see her post and I thought it funny.

As for TERF being a slur but not getting deleted - note to self - next time a TRA comes on and bandies this word about, complain, complain.

This.

It is hard to see how it can be done easily, but surely we need, for reasons of prompt justice and minimized costs to parties and taxpayer, short-cuts.

Certain things require cross-examination. Others need very very little other than a knowledge of simple law and a judge to say "cut the crap, this bit of the case is dead easy, read x, y and z"

I suspect you are right... but on the other hand a judge doesn't use the word "negligent" without knowing how some people might read it.

Or them being sued by their own clients? That would be amusing to see.

Others need very very little other than a knowledge of simple law and a judge to say "cut the crap, this bit of the case is dead easy, read x, y and z"

Indeed, when whichever Consultant spent an hour or so waffling on about DSDs - the judge could have asked. "How is this relevant? Upton does not have a DSD."

We're seeing an incredibly atypical ET which, being the culmination of a decade or more of campaigning and an amazing SC judgment, which to be frank not many expected, is now the battleground between following the SC judgment or pretending it didn't happen. By a quirk of fate the parties fighting in the ET have, effectively, unlimited funds, and this is the inevitable outcome. This is a small legal forum taken to its most extreme.

I think the general feeling is to leave it to stand - it shows what the other side really think and doesn't result in a thread like Swiss cheese which can lead people to think worse has been said.

But the barrier to get justice is so high. I have a valid tribunal claim against a public sector employer and the odds are stacked against you regardless of evidence, due to their unlimited funds. Employment tribunals are not a very approachable process for the average person who’s been subjected to illegal treatment at work and who might have impacted health or low funds as a result.

Very true, but even so aspects of all sorts of cases, big and small, can surely be dealt with very quickly, in theory at least?

My work involves some Tribunal experience. My biggest bugbears are -

(1) They tend to be overly formal... in my view the best Tribunal I have ever sat though was conducted by a judge who - given the very laid back way he conducted the hearing - might as well have opened the hearing with "let's all sit around a table and have a nice old chat until we come to the correct decision!"

(2) They can be very unpredictable in terms of what they accept without question and what they require evidence of. To try to compare it to this case, it makes it hard to know whether or not NC could have just stated "we all know women tend to prefer not to get changed in front of strange men" and it be accepted as fact, or whether she would need to spend 2 hours cross examining an expert witness who can give evidence that women prefer not to get changed in front of strange men. I suspect a lot of wasted time results from barristers mking sure every i is dotted and t is crossed, when they could have got the same result in a fraction of the time (but it would have been negligent to assume that, just in case!)

This is one of the main conclusions of this case, isn't it @ChangingWeight ?

That, without the secret wealthy benefactor, this case would likely never have seen the light of day. Sandie would have been bullied, humiliated and probably hounded out of her job. Her colleagues would have looked on and learned to keep their heads down despite knowing management and Upton were breaking the law

No chance of justice without seriously deep pockets. That's a terrible state of affairs for any country.

You won't find any disagreement from me about what it's like for someone like you to go through that nightmare. If you do decide to continue then I can only hope you have a sympathetic panel.

The examination and cross-examination is necessary, isn't it, because you can't rely in your final written submission to something that isn't either in a witness statement or hasn't been said in court?

Anyone know when the final judgement is expected?

DU - she said it wasn't safe for me to be there, asked what my chromosomes were, said it was analagous to the recent case, I assumed Isla Bryson...
JR - hang on please explain exactly the prisons comment
DU - she said it's like the situation in the prisons.
JR -what did you think
DU - I assumed she meant Isla Bryson, that she was comparing me to a sexual predator, there was an argument over men and women's estates
JR - she said you were a man, asked about chromosomes and prisons, how did you feel?
DU - awful, really really upset. I've never been spoken
DU - to like that. It was awful to be compared to someone like that. Someone casting aspersions on my people.

How telling that Upton's more bothered by alleged hurty words from a wee nurse when he is deliberately choosing to be in what should be her safe space than he is about Graham/Bryson using 'trans' to get his own way, in the process peaking many, and what he did to his victims.

My people, my arse. Some of them cast their own aspersions.

Usually a conservative guess is 3 months from the end of the hearing. But these are an especially convoluted set of proceedings and there has been additional activity since the start of September when the hearing ended.

The judgment might not be handed down until early 2026.

Correct.

If this is your own witness, you can only rely on things they have said in witness statements or in court.

With the other side's witnesses, you are deemed to have accepted anything they have said in their witness statements or in court unless you challenge it in cross examination.

Whilst the process can be intimidating for litigants in person, they frequently win in employment tribunals, even when the employer is represented by a barrister.

As I said earlier, this case is by no means typical. Most cases that actually reach court are settled in a single hearing or, at most, two hearings (a preliminary hearing about case management and then the main hearing). Cases that go on this long are extremely rare.

It is, unfortunately, the case that some litigants will try to win by running the other side out of money. We saw this, for example, in Bates vs Post Office, where Post Office attempted to force costs up to a level the claimants could not afford. It didn't stop Bates & co winning, but it meant they had to settle for far less than they would have got had the case run its course. Like this case, Bates vs Post Office was dogged by disclosure failures by Post Office and Post Office witnesses whose evidence bore only the most distant relationship with the truth.

As I said earlier, this case is by no means typical. Most cases that actually reach court are settled in a single hearing or, at most, two hearings (a preliminary hearing about case management and then the main hearing). Cases that go on this long are extremely rare.

Well, if NHS Fife hadn't been messing about in the beginning and produced everything required at the first hearing, it would have been over in July and we would almost certainly have had a judgement by now.

Without serious financial backing this case would have been lost long ago. Probably couldn’t have been taken in the first place. That’s the reality of British law.

Will 'lessons be learnt', I wonder?

Probably not. It would take total overhaul of legal processes. The way it is just now, organisations can ‘time out’ any individual or smaller organisation and they have no chance. This case emphasises it.

Ps lessons always have to be learnt! Never ever give up hope :-)

Personally i am not so cynical as stated up thread most cases go on unknown ( i have been involved in a couple ) where both parties were not represented and it was a one day hearing with a decision there and then.

the reason this case has been so expensive and involved top draw lawyers is because of the legal issues at stake. So there is a lot of slugging it out so to speak because of the top down capture of pubic bodies.

I will say successive governments have ducked away from the issue due to capture when they could have resolved this all.

bunch of yellow belied custards if you ask me