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

Here's the decision bit.

So the judge does think that NHS Fife harassed by imposing men? That’s good.

Paragraph 61 immediately contradicted by paragraph 62:

61 The second respondent is not a person who is obviously male from
external appearance. Some people meeting the second respondent in a
work or social setting unaware of the sex assigned at birth for the second
respondent are likely to consider the second respondent to be of the
female sex. Other people meeting the second respondent in such
circumstances, or after more detailed interactions with the second
respondent, are likely to consider the second respondent as someone
assigned male by sex at birth.

62 The second respondent is about six feet tall. The claimant is about five
feet four inches tall.

So far- which is not far at all! - I'm getting the impression that they wanted to steer clear of the basic issue of DrU's sex.

'The second respondent believes that the second respondent has the sex and gender of a woman'.

I don't know yet if there's any questioning of veracity or even logic of that statement.

Having seen the second respondent give evidence, he isn’t remotely convincing as a woman.

They're already confused in their definitions....

'The claimant does not dispute that the second respondent is a person to
whom the provisions as to gender reassignment apply, such that the
second respondent has the protected characteristic of gender
reassignment. The Tribunal will use the terms “trans woman” being a
person assigned male by sex at birth who has the protected characteristic
of gender reassignment in the context of transition to female, and “trans
man” being a person assigned as male by sex at birth who has the
protected characteristic of gender reassignment in the context of transition
to male, or the generic “trans person”, although those terms do not appear
in the Act. It broadly follows the terminology used by the Supreme Court
in FWS.'

So admitting Dr Upton made the changing rooms mixed sex but as far as they know only one women objected to mixed sex changing rooms. Pffft

Next case is really, really going to have to spell it out for them. Women do not want to undress in front of men.

IANAL but I find the judgement disappointing. Haven't read the full thing yet but it doesn't seen to stop DU from entering the women's changing room going forward, it simply seems to say NHS Fife handled it all badly.

BBC is live reporting - seems to be placemarker page so far, as they scramble to read judgement: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cpd619q851vt

Daily Record straight in with news of win : www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/sandie-peggie-wins-trans-row-36368650

From the screen shot Boiledbeetle posted it looks like they are saying Fife should have kept him out the CR to keep him away from Sandie (but not because he shouldn’t be there)????

As I said the judge doesn’t want to be the one to rule that these men being in the women’s changing rooms is harassment in and of itself

If it's the unit that I saw when I as at the Vic A&E, he bloody well is obviously male. The judge only saw him after he was well made up.

Would have been helpful to have supplemented that para with fairly vital info that court appearance and hospital: scrubs and hair scraped back - probably give vvvv different clues as to sex of Upton.

I know for a fact that there are nurses working for Fife NHS who object to this nonsense: they're just too scared to speak up.

Sandie is deemed not credible in three areas 629-631 and sadly they said this in 642:

The conflict in their two positions was accordingly a stark one. Where there is dispute between the claimant and second respondent, which lies at the heart of the factual dispute in this case, we have preferred the evidence of the latter. That is as some aspects of the claimant’s evidence we did not regard as being as reliable as that of the second respondent.

We really need a decision on whether men can just identify their way out of being guilty of sexual harassment simply by declaring themselves to be women.

😁

Just got the Herald announcement!

Because the claimant was female and the other part male? Is this straight sexism again?

Yes - I think we are going to need more senior courts and tribunals to be braver in this than first instance ET.

I wonder if Sandie will appeal?

I think the finding that not booting Upton out the ladies when Sandie complained is pretty significant. Well done Sandie.

Tribunal says nurse was harassed by NHS Fife but dismisses all other claimspublished at 13:31
13:31BREAKING
The tribunal says nurse Sandie Peggie was harassed by NHS Fife but dismisses all other claims against the health board and Dr Beth Upton.

This is worrying:

f) Refusing to guarantee that men or R2 would not be permitted to
use the women’s changing room in its A&E department;

1121. The first respondent did refuse to guarantee that men or the second respondent would not be permitted to use the female changing room. The claimant believed that the first respondent should have given that guarantee. From our analysis of the law above there is no legal requirement under the Act that all trans women be excluded, or that the second respondent be excluded, from such a facility at work'

This made me chuckle.
I could clearly see Upton was a bloke from a tiny headshot online. In person it will be far, far more obvious.

Good Lord. I wondered why there hadn't been a quicker comment by Sex Matters of the legal team: they only received decision at 10am today?!

from Daily Record

In a statement, Peggie said: "I am beyond relieved and delighted that the Tribunal has found that my employer harassed me after I complained about having to share a female only changing room with a male colleague.
"The last two years have been agonising for me and my family. I will have much more to say in the coming days once I’ve been able to properly consider the lengthy judgment and discuss it with my legal team. For now, I am looking forward to spending a quiet few days with my family."

Margaret Gribbon, Peggie's solicitor, said: "The tribunal’s finding that Fife Health Board harassed Sandie Peggie is a huge win for a tenacious and courageous woman standing up for her sex-based rights.
"This has been an extraordinarily lengthy and complex legal case. After hearing evidence for over a month from some 21 witnesses and considering just under 3,000 pages of productions, the Tribunal has today delivered a 318 page judgment.
"Due to the length of the judgment and the fact the legal team only received it this morning at 10am, we will not be in a position to make substantive comments on it today and will do so later this week."

Were we watching the same trial?!

They’re generally slower on the uptake than us so this is the Reddit Trans UK thread as it stands, I imagine it will be posted on more as time goes on

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/9fL9swchdF