NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #54

[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
Thread 53: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5404208-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-53 from 3 September

Hope you're doing ok @MyrtleLion - get well soon!

No. I am not affiliated with any political party either. I am just doing this because I know what happens when things go wrong (and right). The ‘right’ story is that I did help save a young woman’s life once, because she’d choked on her own vomit in a nightclub toilet and we saw her on the floor of her cubicle as soon as we stumbled through into the ladies. We got her breathing again before the ambulance took her away.

Our government (consultation for public toilets Doc T) was recommended an enclosed design for people with long term health conditions. When I analysed the report this was on the ‘evidence’ of 2 American toilet designers who said enclosed designs were preferred by transactivists in trendy New York nightclubs. These designers have never safety tested their designs and, to be fair, I expect they didn’t even know their quote would be used to justify enclosed designs in the uk like this. The company that were advising the government didn’t even mention most of the long term health conditions. No mention of: epilepsy, diabetes, asthma, miscarriage, heavy periods, heart conditions including cardiac arrest. It did discuss such things such as urinal heights for non binary users and sanitary bins in the men’s. Which is fine but it wasn’t their remit. The company won a Stonewall award.

It’s very frustrating when most of the replies to the toilet consultation (we are talking many thousands) mentioned the same Stonewall report. This meant most responses mentioned the safety of transgender people. When you look at the report, the worst thing was a man was pushed out of the ladies. Because of the massive campaign that Stonewall coordinated, there was only 2% of responses that showed support for ‘disabled’ toilets. Again, good on Stonewall for fighting their corner but it shouldn’t come at the detriment to the other protected characteristics which actually need safer single sex designs.

I can very much understand the EHRC using AI to filter the responses to their recent consultation. I hope they saw mine, which is sticking up for the health and safety of everyone. My view and that of a well known charity, was ignored last time in Document T.

Yep, our youngest was born unexpectedly in our bathroom, the paramedics arrived just in time to catch her!

So the Herald have done a cracking job and have got the breakdown of Jane Russel’s farce…. £160k and counting! And this is who the Judge indicated was negligent?!?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25542907.sandie-peggie-latest-herald-foi-challenge-reveals-new-detail/

It can now be revealed that Ms Russell and her legal team, based in London, have been paid £159,787.73 as of August 20, 2025.

Meanwhile, CLO fees to NHS Fife have reached £149,166, although the health board is only liable for the first £25,000.

We’ve had the submissions since then so I imagine it’s gone up even more.

someone up thread said the panel are meeting to deliberate, does that normally mean the outcome will swiftly follow?

I don't think it will be until December at the earliest. Once they've deliberated the judge has to write the judgement and that is not a quick process

I've read the Translucent submission, and I am just agog at the sheer arrogance and lack of logic it displays. I know we are all biased here, and I do try really hard to correct for that, but just really basic stuff like claiming the 1992 Regulations cover gender identity is absolutely jawdropping, let alone a jobbing barrister asserting confidently that five UKSC judges were wrong.

This isn't just any jobbing barrister, this is RMW with a GRC and an ironclad vested interest, which of course takes precedence over the sex-based rights of 51% of the population. 🙄

I tried to read these submissions, then suddenly remembered the oven needed an urgent scrub. Whatever the big man is being paid to read this stuff, it isn’t enough.

I thought RMW didn't have a GRC, I'm sure he mentioned it.

Cleaning the oven does sound more fun 😂

He said he didn't. He wanted to go down as the first to get a GRC via self-id*. If he's given up on that he might have got one.

• heroically doesn't quote Ben Cooper.

My mistake.Thanks for correcting it.

Our learned friend has claimed not to have a GRC as a matter of principle, in protest at the discriminatory and onerous nature of a system that doesn't allow self ID.

However, he's also claimed that his reason for 'not having altered' his voice is because of the need for a powerful voice in court; and yet he has an earlier blog post about having his voice surgery.

So I'm not certain we can rely on total veracity of all claims and explanations.

We know we can’t rely on what he says, he says he’s a woman but he isn’t.

There is that.

Supreme Court ruling on the EA:

"We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the EA 2010 should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group."

Would love to know the presumed purpose of the 1992 regs insisting that employers provide separate changing facilities for complex heterogeneous groups that defy objective definition. Seems like a bit of an imposition if anyone can use either facility.

the need for a powerful voice in court

What does that mean, bellowing at people?

NC seems to do pretty well with her quiet voice, doesn't she.

Yes, but NC isn't a man, and doesn't equate volume and quality in quite the same way.

The legislation introduced protections for gender identity specifically. Why would it have done that if it considered transwomen to be women?

gender identity specifically.

No - gender reassignment. So a person can't be sacked for coming into work dressed as the opposite sex, for example.

I really appreciate your post but I think the journalists should stop pedalling the myth Fife are only responsible for £25k. That's not how CNORIS works. It is a risk pooling arrangement. Fife pay £25k for each claim in the first year but all costs are pooled and recharged to every entity in the scheme the following year. Ultimately Fife and every other entity will pay a proportion of the Peggie/NHS Upton costs. Of course it is really designed to pool the risks of clinical negligence claims where there are devastating long term costs which we would all accept must be covered. Protecting the interests of a man who wants to undress in a woman's space - less so.

I get that. I don’t think the journos understand. But all the same a reader knows it’s the public purse however you slice it.

I’m more interested how anyone can actually spend £160k and counting on a barrister that is woefully underprepared and at the courts summation - negligent.

I find Jane Russell silly, irritating, and a complete sellout to women.

In terms of the work for her team though, we just don't know what's been going on behind the scenes. Her final submissions now sound like two separate arguments stitched together, representing R1 and R2's now quite divergent positions. I'd love to know more of the story from those two perspectives!

Oh I understand. Fife probably came very late to the party of involving CLO. Boards don't like spending money even on the highly subsidised legal service NHSS provides them with. When they eventually got Adam Watson involved it would be a shit show catch up. They saw Sandie had English Counsel and thought they had to match it. Reality is he could have done it himself and conceded much earlier. JR is poor but the negligence lies with her instructing solicitors.