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

Yes, I clarified in the post above yours. Thanks i got a bit muddled up there

It's all good!

Well I am glad she is going but I would have liked to have seen her sacked for such inept management.

There's professional indemnity, but they normally only fund cases with a reasonable chance of success. And try to settle on behalf of respondents unless there is a professional principle at stake.

Potential to inflict damage or be damaged prob goes both ways. Fife is still holding out on providing names/roles of the wild werkend press release, I think? There will be all kinds of dirt.

To think though that the CEO is being forced into retirement, and even though it's well financed, it wasn't her choice - all because noone would stand up to a lying entitled very junior doctor.

I hope Sandie feels at least some satisfaction that she has outlasted the CEO.

I mentioned it on the other thread regarding her departure, whether her departure was voluntary or forced, whether her pay package is rich or stingy, whether she acknowledges 'mistakes were made' or not, whether you sympathize with her predicament or harbor only animosity, irrespective of all those things, it's a good sign, it connects organizational failure with leadership.

It's unfortunate that Fife was so incompetently run in this respect that one can't point explicitly to following best practices (e.g. Stonewall) as not being sufficient to shield one from being exposed to public scrutiny and ridicule - though that's is still an inference to be drawn - but it any case it's still an important development and differs from the era of consequence-free mal-administration we've been in up until recently.

I think Kelly v Leonardo has probably been the most obviously Stonewall of late?

Darlington was also not what I was expecting. RH and his very troubling father, and the Operating Department and it's very recent hiatory at the ET are quite substantial sub-plots to the central CR drama there.

Fife can definitely just go straight into production as a 12 episode Netflix drama though. Kate Searle Day alone was a very compelling pilot episode!

Good point. If SP successful and NHS respect the ruling, Dr Upton would need to arrange his own funding for an appeal

I’ve been trying to understand what makes all these cases so compelling. I think it’s the lies and obfuscation and I cant get over the fact if they are willing to accept the lie that transwomen are women they then have to accept a whole lot of other untruths.

Along comes an oath and duty to tell the trust and they squirm, weasel and outright lie.

I think it’s the fact that we all - including the respondents’ witnesses - know perfectly well that TW are not in fact W, it’s just that true believers have completely wedded themselves to the idea that it’s taboo to acknowledge it. They have been operating in a world where it’s worse to break the taboo than speak the obvious truth, so whenever any “trans inclusion” has been requested, it’s had to be accepted without even a smidgen of analysis - because analysis would involve breaking the taboo. Anyone who attempts a real impact-type conversation is made aware that they are out of bounds VERY quickly. (This was a fatal tactical error for trans acceptance - there couldn’t be a policy better designed to torpedo tolerance & goodwill.)

So on the stand - where it’s been agreed that pronouns will be selected according to how each side wants to make its case - they are going to pieces because the taboo is being relentlessly defanged right in front of them, under pressure, and under questions designed to highlight every logical absurdity they’ve been gamely ignoring for years.

Thats actually quite disgusting that wards don't have showers for staff.

But what would Dr Upton appeal? The Supreme Court Ruling?

According to a random employment solicitors' site called LincsLaw
"Either party to proceedings can submit an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal against the original Judgment. However, for the application to be successful in proceeding to the next stage, the appeal must be based on:

• a “question of law”; or
• that the Judgment was “perverse”."

Now, can any party to proceedings appeal, if there are more than two?

I think one of our lawyers confirmed much earlier that it is possible in principle for Upton to appeal without NHS Fife, if he loses and has grounds.

Also note that Sandie Peggie could win against NHS Fife but lose against Dr Upton. At that point NHS Fife could walk away with the matter decided and it would be up to SP whether to file an appeal in respect of the part of her case that she lost against DU. If she went ahead with such an appeal, who would fund DU fighting that appeal is an open question.

I think it would be GLP.

good point about the longer notice period but surely that can be waived?

Praise be Saint Jolyon - patron saint of lost causes

As I member of that union I very much doubt it. For a start apart from some telephone advice in the immediate aftermath of the CR incident the BMA have had no involvement with the case.

It's the emperor's new clothes story, in real life

In terms of appealing, you can't just appeal because you disagree with the decision. As a pp said it needs to be that it is arguable that the initial tribunal got the law wrong.

Good Law Project might be willing to fight the case, but only if sufficient funds can be raised to pay for it eg gofundme. Unless Dr Upton has a wealthy benefactor with deep pockets

Apparently the GLP do believe that the law says/the ECHR would rule that trans people must be allowed to use opposite sex services, so they would argue that any tribunal that found otherwise got the law wrong?

I can't get over Isla Bumba declaring that she doesn't know if she's a man or a woman. Her poor, poor husband!

But when you start on the "nebulous dog whistle" shite, that's the logical conclusion.

Someone told me the other night that I was in the queue for the gents (I meant to be in the queue for interval snacks). I was fully dressed, hadn't spoken, and somehow he knew I was a woman. The outrage! Sad times!

Exactly. I have some sympathy for Isla Bumba, probably trying to do the right thing and "be kind" (to men) at all costs

But Yes, a complete nonsense to claim she didn't know if she was male or female. And illustrated how ridiculous this all is