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

do each side get told the outcome before its released / public / in the press?

They are sometimes given a few days notice

All the Scottish health boards contribute to the national risk scheme. So the “insurance” is paid by the nhs in Scotland, all sharing the risk. So Fife’s contribution only being 25k is as bit of a red herring

Didn't NC request the judgement for 5 days before it is released?.

She did, and I believe the judge granted it.

Dr U had a partial role in these events, he didn’t personally carry out the unfair investigation and the events that followed so it wouldn’t follow that he would have full liability if he was proven to lie. Any compensation he is liable for would be proportionate.

Given it’s he said, she said - I don’t think the judge would categorically rule that he lied anyway. Plus he had the sign off from management to be in the changing room, so all roads lead to NHSF being liable for their employee’s actions overall.

in any case, Dr U might be insured so may not need to pay anything from own pocket.

Is the amount that each health board contributes to the fund the type of thing that you can make a freedom of information request about? (or the Scottish equivalent)

It would be interesting to see how much Fife's contribution is once the case is over and compare that with previous years

Yes. There’s a journalist, I think from the Herald (Glasgow based newspaper), who’s well and truly on the case of finding out the full cost to the public purse! FOIs aplenty

Healthcare practioners usually have insurance, I wonder will Upton's now skyrocket or at least be likely to increase?

Either way, I'm just hoping Sandie holds her nerve and takes it far as she can. Even if Upton walks away with no personal financial impact, there is a benefit of the case being in the public eye. It puts pressure on Fith who are now quietly implementing the no men in women's loos/CR - are they considering damage limitation?

I've just listened to an episode of This Isn't Working with Helen Joyce as one of the interviewees, and I have a question for our legal and legal-adjacent thread members:

The other interviewee (HR background) said that the 1992 HSE regulations governing changing rooms for employees can be enforced through criminal and that both individual and corporate liability are a possibility. How would this work in this case? Would the HSE have to bring criminal proceedings against NHS Fife? Why is this not something that has been pursued to date? AFAIK, the HSE isn't a captured organisation - is it cost/benefit analysis not deeming it worth it, and I do wonder whether that may change from now on?

The criminal liability is policed by the HSE. However, like many public bodies they are underfunded. They will focus more on companies running unsafe practices on construction sites for example. Not having the right toilets is not high on their priority list and someone would have to
a) know it's a crime,
b) know to report it to the HSE
c) have it be so dangerous that the HSE would prosecute.

I would imagine these things come up more in employment tribunals than criminal reports.

My understanding is that NHS Fife is one of a number of public organisations that the EHRC approached this summer to comply with the law, with a threat of prosecution/fine which is why they have now complied.

IANAL so this is informed speculation.

Nhs fife still wont say who wrote or signed off on their slanderous statement

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/secretive-nhs-fife-refuse-reveal-36023036?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

That is interesting Hoardasurass. I guess the reputational damage for that person would be immense.

Yes, the HSE would have to prosecute. They have not done so in the past because of the common belief that the law meant trans individuals could use whichever facilities they preferred. Now that the law is clear, they are encouraging employers to comply. They are only likely to prosecute employers who continue to ignore the law after attempts to get them to comply.

I suspect that it was several members of the board (the way it read screamed multiple authors/editors to me) and as the board are still under pressure to quit and John swinney being pressured to sack them it would be an instant sacking of the entire board if 1 or more of them were found to be behind it I'm really not surprised that they wont own up to their parts in it.
Though the express wont let this drop, so it will come out eventually. We really do owe the TRAs who reported their editor to the police for a hate crime (referring to Upton as he/him) as i doubt that he'd have spent so much time and effort on all things trans in Scotland had they not🤣

Def agree it reads like a team effort.

Going back a little bit ...

It seems to me that the tribunal may rule that NHS Fife weren't unreasonable to investigate the complaint about SP, and suspend her while doing so, given the complaint they received from DrU.
However NHS Fife failed to follow process - investigation was tainted by:

• circulated email (from KS to all consultants),
• collusion by investigating/relevant staff (emails between KS, ED and GM),
• collusion of senior staff with DrU (e.g. KS taking his part, helping with complaint and interview),
• ignoring advice from HR, and their suspension reviewer (in fact over-riding her recommendations)
• not initially interviewing SP and/or other witnesses
• not acting in a timely fashion.

So they may rule that NHS Fife were at fault over this

And this is before they rule on why NHS Fife acted this way - against SP's gender critical views, or against her manner of expressing her gender critical views. Even if they find she was a screaming disrespectful banshee (unlikely!), the process was very flawed. IIRC not following process is a common reason why complainants win against employers.

So I assume some of SP's complaints may be found, and some not. Haven't been to check the actual list of complaints, but I think those above were in there.

HSE really should prosecute given the rate of sexual harassment in the workplace. Ensuring single sex spaces is a good way to reduce that.

On the Leonardo thread a woman shared a terrible experience of sexual harassment in women's (mixed sex by stealth) toilets whilst pregnant but that she'd simply left the job because she was already struggling with the pregnancy which was a difficult one. The HSE not prosecuting is creating the situation where that can keep happening and where women have to take on enormous personal punishment in order to pursue legal redress, like Sandie Peggie.

It's not good enough, and implies that they think sexual harassment and assault is less important than other H&S issues.

I agree, Crabby. It was perfectly reasonable for Fife to carry out an investigation. But not that investigation. Total failure of process.

And they are also at fault for creating the mixed changing room situation that led to the complaint in the first place.

No, they are at fault for not telling Upton from the off that he either used the Men's changing room, or they found him a cupboard/other mixed sex space.

Have been investigating how to share subscriptions on Substack. If anyone wants to message me with their email I will have a go. Foran on the judge’s reaction live on Knowing Ius on Sunday at 4.00, then uploaded

I have a couple of free Foran subscriptions left too, so if @thewaythatyoudoitruns out you are very welcome to mine 😀

(Also you can tell we’re between major events because I’m actually up-to-date on the SP threads as opposed to logging on at lunchtime and realising about 12 threads have filled up in one morning)

I think if someone reports their employer to the HSE for breaking the 1992 the HSE may have an obligation to do something as they are responsible for ensuring those rules are enforced. Otherwise they may find themselves in a situation of being jointly liable due to their omission. I suppose it depends how the regulations are written.

Assuming this is the case though, I don't know how you'd get them to do their job. Is there an ombudsman? The relevant Ministry/Minister? Another court case? Your Union ()?

I recently attended a very scary meeting with some representatives of the HSE discussing liability in an agricultural context. They said that their chief concern was the prevention of physical harm by advising. I got the impression that if someone got physically hurt the gloves very much came off. But they certainly aren't aggressive with employers who look as if they might be willing to listen (even after much messing, maybe)