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

Dropped in the North Sea off a ferry?

I thought the bursting into tears was because she didn’t know the HCA had made a witness statement and she was worried about what it meant for her I.e. it discredited her evidence. It did appear a genuinely shocked response like she had being caught in the act.

Hmmm. Although we see a lot of comment about how expensive this is for NHSF, half a million quid is actually more like a rounding error in their linens budget. Their whole annual spend is more than £1bn. They may have to push the numbers around somewhat, but I think the public oprobrium is much more significant than the cost.

Sad times for the BBC. They tried to avoid the case altogether and now, even in what seem to be serious attempts at front page of the website news articles, they are making very basic factual errors (that serve neither side's interest), presumably because the case simply isn't familiar enough to anyone, and there is barely anything in the archive to help fill in the gaps.

What I should have said in that original is that my view is that a woman is whatever she wants to be, and if she changes her mind and wants to be something else tomorrow then that's fine too! I believe in liberation so the same goes for men too. As for bra's I gave up and went for the sort you pull over the head ages ago. Same goes for low cut tops and anything thin enough to be see through. Similarly, nothing with fiddly fastenings, and I have a permanent excuse note thanks to rheumatoid arthritis, so every cloud has a silver lining. I know a lot of women made that decision during Covid lockdown but I've never bought into suffering to be beautiful.

Ah, lockdown. That lovely period when having to change out of your pyjamas for daytime felt like a quirky little custom from history.

I always think of 17 out of the 18 witnesses in Jo Phoenix’s ET who were academics and the judge describing that their evidence lacked rigour. That was a damning statement to make and must have been a shock to them.

In evaluating what happened when KS burst into tears, it is important to remember that the witness she claimed could substantiate Upton's account had actually flatly denied his account. KS was lying.

I’m currently elevating my ankle 24/7 after an operation three weeks ago, with another three weeks to go. I sleep in scrubs (great for the menopause).

I haven’t got dressed since yesterday morning, and before that it was probably three days in my pjs.

How frustrating. You spend years thinking 'oh to have a reason to sit and do nothing and be pampered.' Then you have to do it and find it's no fun at all. I'd have made a lousy Regency heroine. Hope you have a good outcome and a not too fast recovery because in my experience they tend to be followed by an 'oops, that wasn't such a good idea.'

Upton slipped up when answering the J's questions in Feb this year (J stopped him and reminded him not to tell the court about his own private legal advice) - and said words to the effect that he had only recently been told or realised that the hearing was actually going ahead. I think a problem for all of them is that they really hadn't expected a public hearing, or perhaps, any hearing to actually take place, and their lies and omissions had already been cemented into the paperwork by the time reality struck.

Upton had gone off sick with 'daily panic attacks' back in April/May 2024 when he had first been told that the proceedings had been sent to the tribunal and that SP would be returning to work. He had known since the previous Christmas Day that he was making serious allegations and fabricating a series of events that could bring himself, his bosses, and his profession into disrepute. He is the one person who has known all along how baseless and dishonest his claims were, and he has kept going and going forward regardless. He is an absolute reckless, self-serving danger and far worse, IMO, than any trainee who tries to cover up a single wrongdoing.

The GMC never fails to startle us with its determinations on the gross misconduct of well-connected White male medics, so who knows whether he will be struck off as he deserves. But he deserves every second of suffering that this tribunal's findings will bring to him.

I have just finished the final submission document. It’s brilliant how it’s all legal-speak, then every so often you get some personality coming through.

para 676 (final page) “In the alternate universe in which R1 is managed with responsibility and integrity (and even ordinary kindness)…”, for example

I think they thought they were going to win. JR made some comment to NC after part 1 of the tribunal that the delay wouldn't be helpful to Sandie's case as JR appears to have been convinced that FWS would lose at the supreme court.

By the time fife realised they might lose I think they doubled down on their righteousness and didn't want to lose face by settling. I think being on the right side of history was more important than the money being spent.

Some more gems from the Final Submission. It hadn’t been clear to me from NC’s oral arguments (possibly because I was madly copying and pasting, but maybe she didn’t mention it), that she offered a reason for the very long delay in the investigation and disciplinary process between May and July 2024.

NC is clear here (and it is very tricky to cut and paste in my mobile devices, so apologies for screenshots), that NHSF were concerned that DU’s allegations of SP’s misconduct with respect to patient care, if true, had not been reported. That wasn’t just DU, though he would have been subject to “disciplinary and regulatory consequences” for failing to report it, but also a failure by his managers and others.

RA, the healthcare assistant, flatly denied his version of events with respect to the missing patient allegation, and the note about the resus incident was not discovered on his phone, and was likely deleted. This put NHSF’s decision to suspend SP solely because of the Christmas Eve incident under much greater scrutiny, as it was not proportionate without the patient safety allegations.

NHSF must have been questioning whether to continue with the process at this point, hence the delay.

Moreover, from DU’s perspective, and I hadn’t appreciated that he was off sick at the same time as the delay, which may have contributed to it, he must have realised he was in deep shit.

If he was unavailable for investigations because he was off sick, and he was madly trying to make it all make sense or, preferably, go away completely, that explains the delay as well.

DU in particular may still be subject to disciplinary and regulatory consequences.

There have to be questions raised about whether KS should also face similar consequences because of her eagerness to believe DU unconditionally without investigating SP’s version, broadcasting such belief and allegations to 19 others without respect to SP’s expectations of confidentiality, deciding that SP should be suspended, and failing to properly investigate DU’s allegations of misconduct by SP with respect to patient care.

This shows how brilliant NC and team are, and that NHSF and DC are royally fucked.

The more I read, the more furious I am at how Sandie has been treated.

There’s a very interesting edition of Word of Mouth on BBC R4 at the moment, about the (various different sorts of) language in the courtroom.

The speaker is a female barrister and she’s talking about criminal courts in England, but much of it is relevant to the current tribunal case.

Fife were flip flopping about like fish whose tank just exploded . There does seem to be an extraordinarily top heavy and convoluted management structure, with people preferring a chat in a corridor to a proper, minuted discussion and decisions rescinded, kicked sideways or simply not made. I marvel at the lack of any written log, unless I’ve missed it. Even after it became clear in February that Sandie had legal representation and questions were being asked about the process, no one bothered to ask her what happened for months. It was all about poor little Beth and how terribly terribly sad it all was for her. The only people who got any sort of grip was the woman in HR, who was ignored, and Lottie Myles, who seems to have been clearsighted, fair and timely, despite pressure from others. I would love to know what the Board were doing while this shitshow unfolded. Congratulating themselves on their invisibility maybe.

So when did Fife actually ask Sandie what happened on Christmas Eve? Did they ever get her side of the story?

I haven’t been keeping up with all the threads, so apologies if this has already been discussed - but is Dr Upton working right now, or has he been suspended/signed off till there’s a decision?

I would love to know why so many people who weren't in the changing room on Christmas Eve are absolutely certain that Wee Sandie wasn't afraid and that DrU was scared.

I'm sure that if you described an exchange of words between a 6'+ 20 something person with the physical advantages of male puberty and a 50 year petite female and asked people to hazard a guess as which might feel afraid no one would say the younger, bigger, stronger person so why are so many people determined that trans status turns people into fragile victims?

Whenever I've been involved in an HR issue, you always arrange for someone to meet the alleged miscreant and get their side of the story. Because, you never know, you might end up in front of a tribunal saying things like "we didn't have a policy but we asked Isla Bumba and she said it was legit".

On what evidence did you base your assessment of KS as an, at heart, decent and empathic person? Given how eagerly she readied the ducking stool?

Reading through NC's final submission keeps yielding new insight

549. Croft v Royal Mail [2003] EWCA Civ 1045, relied on next, does suggest that “past a certain point in transition” trans people would have the right to use toilets (and it must be agreed, if toilets then equally changing rooms) aligned with their gender identity, and that failing to honour that right could be an act of discrimination.

Contrary to the respondents’ ¶25, the passage cited does not identify what kind of discrimination might be involved;

and the “would” in the respondents’ paraphrase is in fact “could” in the original.

Naughty JR, naughty.

from TT 23rd July afternoon, part 2

NC A few Qu about Rahana, the only witness other than DU or SP who can shed light on refusal to comm over patient who left
NC - without being seen.
KS - I'm worried about including someone who doesn't want to be involved.... it's not fair on her.
JR - can we have a break
J - tell us when ready to continue
Court rises.

The mention of RA to Kate Searle came a slight moment before the snot ridden nearly unintelligible trying to say words through deeply distressed wah wah wah voice.

NC mentioned RA name and does continue for a very short while whilst KS presumably got upset as she realised the enormity of what she's done and then KS tried to say something about protecting RA that was completely drowned out by KS 's upset.

It honestly seemed like NC brought up RA, named in full, and KS had a short period to realise, oh my fucking God I'm absolutely screwed this is going to totally bite me on the arse, especially as she wasn't supposed to have gone anywhere near RA as she was a witness just like KS was.

Court resumes

From TT

J - KS ready?
KS - yes
J - if need a break say
NC - the mendion of health care assist seemed to upset you a great deal why
KS - i spoke to her about being a witness, didn't herself or her name to be involved in this case.
NC - upset because wanted to protect
NC - upset due to anxiety
KS - said dind't want any part because as a mixed race person, that SP views about her race would impact working together going forward
NC - youre asking us to believe your concern over how SP would treat her, caused that outburst?
KS - I'm kind, don't
KS - want to cause harm through this case
NC - do you agree she was an important witness
KS - agree
NC - only person who can shed light on DU's allegations about patient who left.
KS - I agree.
NC - ref bundle 484 look at qu 2 and answer, then I'll ask qu.
NC - AG asked this witness a commendably open question, answer was flat contradiction of DU said... JR interrupts. withdraws

Now I must go back to checking my cctv for where the cats ball disappeared to in the living room on a random day in July in the afternoon. Whilst I can't find which sofa it rolled under I do catch myself on video saying "she must know she's absolutely fucked" can't think what I was referring to.

For some of us it still is 😁