NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #55

[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 3 September to 1 October 2025
Thread 54: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5418690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-54 from 28 September 2025

I think they send the judgment to the representatives and they’ll tell Sandie.

On your marks....

please check PMs?

I just did, and now I feel unloved, unwanted and rejected😭😭😭
Only kidding😄

Osha cookiebun am up tae high doh!

It can't be today, tomorrow or Friday or this week at all, actually, as I have to meet people and make a presentation as part of of a job interview on Friday.

I'm not sorry and I know it's disappointing for everyone else, but I'm very busy and also poorly ick with a virus.

Surely there's going to be some warning that the announcement is imminent?
Like, if it was to be at 2 today... that would be a bit... sudden, wouldn't it?

God that GIF is irritating! I'm going to report my post and get HQ to delete it!

I don't think there would be a warning. The legal parties will have already had it and prepared their press releases/comments etc so it's just a matter of popping it up on the website.

<Hits refresh again>

I'll PM you now @MarieDeGournay

Oh OK. It's just us who are on tenterhooks then... That makes sense

<sniff> It's too late now, I know it will just be a sympathy PM <runs sobbing from room>
😄

My PC is on the fritz again, which generally signals an important announcement is about to be made that I will miss.

judgement here : https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Peggie-v-Fife-Health-Board-and-another.pdf

summary : succeeds in claim of harrassment against 1st respondent, does not succeed in other claims

A lot of people predicted this. Let's see what comes next. I'll be interested to see what NHS Fife has to say.

This goes to show why people should not use terminology like “slam dunk”. Employment tribunals are not straightforward

Agree, this is not unexpected.

Phew, pretty much as expected

So from the summary DU did not harass.

But Fife did.

Some.of the dismissed claims were claims in the alternate, so fell when she won the first claim.

God, 300+ pages. Hopefully someone can pull out any particularly notable remarks.

.

Congratulations to Sandie - vindicated re NHSF!

I'm not surprised the claim of initial harassment by Upton failed. But am very surprised that the victimisation claim was dismissed for both respondents.

The NHS mail servers retain everything for 2 years. They really need a forensic search of Searle and all's emails before the shenanigans are deleted forever.

Im not surprised only in the fact that I didn’t think this judge would want to be the one to say a “trans woman” in a female space was harassment in and of itself. In fact I think I can be quoted saying this very early on.

"1187. The claimant also argued that even if a single sex changing room was not required by law, the first respondent had chosen to confer that on its female staff and by allowing the second respondent to use it the effect was to withdraw that benefit from all the female staff who used the changing room. In our view there is a flaw in that argument. Not all female staff did consider it that way, as only the claimant complained, as we have described. The only evidence we heard from a witness on this directly was the claimant herself, and others who gave evidence contradicted her. In this regard the claimant is in our view seeking to speak for all female staff, but there is no evidence we regard as reliable entitling her to do so. "

Here we go again....