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

My students are very young. I used the bananarama principle reference today and they all looked blank.
Sad times!

Wow! I've just caught up having skim read the last two threads.

I've lost what is the other case she's putting forward? I know shes going after the union.

I sincerely hope Sandie is chilling and enjoying her holiday.

The English language is seriously lacking in a female equivalent of 'he's got balls of steel' because my God does Sandie have some balls, guts, determination, strength 💪, backbone,.....
She is absolutely going into the history books.

I'd be in tears if I was watching my career go down the pan - Kate Searle's had her name and conduct all over the press, there is probably a lot of ill feeling towards her at work and if she's not on a disciplinary at work she should be. ED consultants are pretty tough - this may be the first time she's had her actions questioned in circumstances that could have significant professional consequences.

Sandies not going back to work for Fife is she?
I hope she gets enough payments out of these court cases to make it worthwhile.

And are Fife going to continue paying Upton's legal fees if it goes to the next round, but with split positions?

If Fife said enough enough now, we were admit it, we were erroneous and vindictive...who pays if Upton says he's carrying on?

I think Fife could still have a case and continue without Upton, presumably arguing it is for The Greater Good of other trans staff. But not Upton without Fife.

It must be a terrible shock to whole heartedly believe you are a Good Person, gooder than all less enlightened mortals who won't be told and so deserve no kindness....only to realise that actually you have been played and were enthusiastily complicit in your own hoisting. In your pursuit of Being Good you have damaged others. Plus, in the real grown up world, no one sees you as a Protector Of The Most Vulnerable, they see you as someone who has gleefully donned blinkers to look cool, only to cause a massive pile up because your vision was impaired.

Isn't it up to Nurse Peggie to decide when it's over.

I wish I could deny this is an accurate portrayal.

Alas, I cannot!

She cried because she realised she had just completely fucked herself.

Ovaries of steel

I think it's safe to assume that NHS have made offers to settle all, but these have been declined

SP might decline offers cos not enough £ offered. And / or if offers were made on a "no admission of fault" basis and / or requiring undertaking from SP not to disclose settlement terms, and SP wasn't willing to agree to that

He was given the opportunity to email the original files that were just screenshots provided to the court. He declined. See my first post at the top of page 1 of this thread for the details.

Given his refusal to comply, the tribunal is allowed to make an irresistible inference (one of most favourite legal phrases, used in many employment law cases), that he is might be hiding something.

I don't think one can assume Fife made offers to settle.

.

(It seems my ovaries of steel image is being blocked by the image doofer! Hopefully it will appear at some point!)

Or vagina like a lion's jaw.

I agree with NC that the tears were because she realised she had been found out. Remember that she had been strongly implying that RA, the only witness to the alleged missing patient incident, supported Upton's version of events and the only reason she wasn't giving evidence to the tribunal was fear of racist abuse from SP and/or her supporters. It clearly came as a huge shock to her that SP and her team already knew RA's identity and also knew that, far from supporting Upton, RA's evidence flatly denied Upton's account. In that moment she knew that her "you can believe everything I say because I'm a doctor" schtick hat been blown away.

Except that we already know that handing over his phone will prove that he was lying. He will never hand it over to anyone who is competent in mobile phone forensics. He has to stick to the lie that the discrepant dates were caused by some kind of glitch.

I've been thinking for ages hes potentially hiding stuff on that phone. I wouldn't be too surprised if 'the phone' has been replaced, had an accident, landed in a bin etc

She was exposed as lying while on oath. After that bloody arrogant" of course I'm trustworthy. I'm a doctor" statement.
Tantrum tears.

I'm certain they would have made settlement offers, if only on economic grounds. This case is costing them a fortune already

It may well be that I am just a bit too naive (I've several times been surprised when politicians, etc, that I have believed to be sincere turned out to have been lying) and/or because I haven't watched any of the proceedings, but my initial reaction to KS's tears was to take her at face value when she expressed a concern for the witness whom she said could substantiate Upton's account.

I understood KS to be saying that this particular witness was reluctant to get involved because of fears around racism -- not racism from Peggie but just the horror of being thrown into the whole social media world in which the case was discussed, which would likely be way more vitriolic towards a black or minority ethnic person because that is the shitty world we live in.

I thought that KS was thinking something like "This person has been named and is therefore going to be sucked into awfulness" and that the tears were a straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back moment, in which the culmination of all the stresses of the trial reached the point of overwhelm.

Perhaps she even thought that it was ultimately her fault that this particular witness had been sucked in.

I dunno though. I used to think I was quite good at judging sincerity, but I think now that perhaps I am a bit too trusting.

Adding to that we know that on DU’s suggestion she had approached RA to see if she would be a witness, and presumably was given short shrift.

So in the face of DU having no witness to the incident he had referred to, she made up a story to explain the witness’s absence from the tribunal, not realising that her evidence was low value hearsay, (hence the doctors are always honest assertion before this)

But also, she did not realise that RA provided evidence to the investigation, notes of which, was in possession of the tribunal.

I think the emotional outburst was a combination of being exposed as a liar and realising she had been played like a fiddle by DU.

i suspect he was in on this lie and put her up to it.

To say I had to chase my bra round the room to get it in the wash is only a slight exaggeration

I need some new ones but there seems to be nowhere selling reasonably priced women's underwear that doesn't bend over for creepy men.

Well a day that started early with me fishing trackie bottoms out of the washing basket for a wet dog walk has been completely derailed by reading NCs fabulous submissions , while my skanky joggers slowly dried on me. Thank you so much @MyrtleLion . @nauticant please please do add them to the top of thread stuff. IANAL, but I did work in an adjacent profession, read thousands of legal and court documents , and produced my own , and I have to say those are exemplary. I can’t see how JR hadn’t burst into tears and said ok you win. Fife and the kind dr must know this is very very bad. Now to get on with JkRs latest, just need to pop out for some Tunnocks,

That's how I took it too. Worried that she had brought RA into the shitstorm / media frenzy that this case turned into

But I think it was KS who claimed to be unsure if she was male or female so I have doubts about her credibility !

Vaginadentata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata