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 thought about becoming a judge, but I'm probably overqualified. I can read and I do know my arse from my elbow

I question the competence (and eyes, ears and brain) of anybody who sat through that and thought that Upton was the more credible witness.....

Exactly. And this is what the whole judgement is based on.

I've got a feeling that Naomi's aproach to questioning, so far, has tended to be highly ideological, focusing on the exposition of trans ideology and other emotive talking points, rather than on pure legal or procedural errors and consistency...which is maybe why some of the judges have become diverted by the emotive and personal elements of the cases, and have lost sight of the actual issues which are being disputed.

Going forward, and at any subsequent appeals - there needs to be a far more concise and detailed apparaisal of the law, legality and procedure.

Isla Bumba considered credible! Around 723.

😳

@BunfightBetty · Today 13:50
Infuriating that female staff were intimidated into staying silent, on pain of being called a bigot, ostracised and whatever negative consequences right up to dismissal.

Yes, women are punished if they speak up objecting to men in the womens changing room, and punished (by being told to undress in front of men) if they don't dare. What an awful time to be a woman.

The press summary is quite useful:

"The Tribunal noted that the Act did not provide a test to apply where there was a
conflict between different protected characteristics held by two employees in such
circumstances. It held that in order to make the Act workable a test was required to
enable an employer to make a decision on use of single sex spaces that was lawful.
The test the Tribunal concluded should be applied was one of objective justification,
derived from the Supreme Court decision in Bank Mellat v HM Treasury (No. 2)
[2014] AC 700.

It considered that a number of factors required to be weighed in the balance including
the options that were available to the employer, the extent to which the trans person
had changed physiological attributes of sex, how the trans person appeared to others,
the extent to which there were complaints from other staff, what the employer knew
or ought to have known, and what the options for use of facilities were. It held that
initially it had been lawful for the first respondent to grant permission as there had not
been an indication of complaint about it, but that once a complaint was made by Mrs
Peggie alternatives should have been addressed and the permission should have
been revoked on an interim basis. The permission became lawful when a solution was
later found, which meant that the claimant and second respondent were not at work
together and not therefore using the changing room at the same time, and as no other
staff made any complaint about the use of the changing room by the second
respondent."

IANAL but this seems all wrong and against the SC judgement

What!?!?!?! 🤯

What a lot of contortions to avoid saying Upton is a man

I feel extremely disappointed. I can’t bring myself to read it because it will make me cross. I know you can only appeal if they got the law wrong so I hope the comparator thing counts. I fucking hate this whole looks like a woman thing. I couldn’t care less what they look like. I don’t want men in the women’s changing room .

Ideological language - sex assigned at birth - used in para 61

Sarah Phillimore expressed reservations about this judge's understanding of the case when it began. I thought, never mind, FWS will have sorted it all out. But no, apparently the most clearly expressed judgment in legal history is a cloud of incomprehensible bx.

This just encourages captured organisations to keep on bullying and attempting to silence women in order to allow TIMs to appropriate our spaces and services.

Hopefully this will be appealed.

For fucks fucking sake

I'm genuinely aghast that anyone could haven't through that and that SP was less credible than Upton

he'sa man man man and he doesn't belong in women's anything, it really is that simple

This is astonishing.

As I feared, common sense did not prevail. At least NHS Fife is held accountable for harassment.
What a shame that Upton was deemed more believable. How someone so deluded can be trusted I do not know.

I’m not qualified in this area but surely there are some grounds for appeal? I’m sure Naomi would grab it with both hands if Sandie and her backer have the appetite.

Borwick's evidence (IT analyst for Sandie) considered to have some unreliability due to not being impartial (para 659)

The argument in para 659 looks pretty tenuous to me.

Mr Borwick we considered did meet the Kennedy criteria for a skilled witness as a person able to assist the Tribunal in its task; he had the necessary knowledge and experience; and we considered that there is a reliable body of knowledge or experience to underpin the evidence given.
The respondents challenged the reliability of his evidence and argued that it was not impartial, the final part of the Kennedy criteria. He accepted in hindsight that his comment that the second respondent was silent on the fact that the notes could be rearranged suggested that the second respondent was trying to mislead the Tribunal was irresponsible as it did not have a factual basis. We were concerned that that remark indicated that his impartiality was compromised, as it appeared to us that he was essentially advocating matters for the claimant. His comments in his report as to the fairness of the respondents producing evidence themselves, including not by the instruction of a forensic witness to do so independently, was he thought fair comment but again in our view goes beyond the proper province of a skilled witness and was not impartial. The fairness of matters is not a matter for such a witness, but the Tribunal.

Surely impartiality doesn't preclude forming an opinion, it should just mean not having a preexisting one? Otherwise how would a judge do an impartial job? It may not have been his job to include it in the report, but I don’t see that doing so is proof of partiality.

There is a humungous amount of references to other cases in the middle of the judgement, relevant to NHSF's action, but when it comes to DrU's actions, it seems to come down to how DrU looked and spoke when giving evidence.
That is just my impression, on what I've read so far. And I am really really trying to be objective.

Sarah Phillimore expressed reservations about this judge's understanding of the case when it began

Yes this was obvious from day one. As was a mild hostility towards NC and a certain deference towards DU.

I had hoped he would learn and become aware of the issues as the case went on but it wasn't the case, he always came across a little a bit at sea

It has misunderstood FWS.

It assumes that trans identifying men had the right tonuse women's single sex facilities and so taking that away from them is a breach of their equality rights. FFS

Sex Matters have tweeted - predictably unhappy with legal argument, no word as to llikely appeal

I'm getting confused. The BBC headline and reporting, which was the first news I saw ("Tribunal says nurse in trans changing room row was harassed by NHS Fife but dismisses other claims") present it as mostly a win for NHS Fife and Upton. But the Daily Record and Herald preset it as a win for Sandie: "Sandie Peggie wins trans row tribunal against NHS Fife in landmark ruling". Others say she "wins part..."

Maybe it's the BBC reporting that's out of step...

This ruling seems very similar to Kelly vs Leonardo in that the judges appear to have misunderstood the law. Shades of the notorious Judge Tayler in Maya's case too.

Heard this announced on LBC radio by Shelagh Fogarty. She is going to cover it sometime this afternoon.