NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #56

[nauticant]

Judgment was handed down on 8 December 2025:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6936ce28a6fc97b81e57436a/S_Peggie_v_Fife_Health_Board__Dr_Upton.pdf

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
Thread 55: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5447019-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-55

Have just listened to the BBC news - a lengthy segment about this and for once I though it was balanced. In fact the Social Affairs editor Alison Holt commented that she'd been talking to legal experts and one commented that he was ploughing through it and finding it "confusing"

Not heard anything from the BBC so balanced - a real sea change

Maya reposted this - the judge has ignored the the rationale for sex as a protected characteristic.

Peggie: Systemic, asymmetric social inequality between women and men: this is the inescapable rationale for the recognition of sex as a protected characteristic in #humanrights instruments from UDHR to ECHR. The ET, imo, appears to have failed utterly to grasp this basic insight

I felt so angry at first but now more motivated to fight for our rights There is undoubtedly a hill to climb but there are many fantastic women who will challenge this..they might need our help gardening.

'ThreeWordHarpy 'But Sandie is a big racist meanie anyways”

In fairness, I don't think SP's racism was used against her as a witness:

763 More generally however for reasons addressed above we did not consider that her [Nicolls, re the racist jokes] evidence affected the assessment of credibility and reliability of the evidence of the claimant.

You do understand sarcasm, right?

Brave is not the adjective I would use

Also Jim Borwick I recall was the only one who managed to consistently use Dr. Upton's preferred pronouns! Struck me as a typical tech geek really, not biased in any way.

Just watching Black Belt Barrister. He thinks parts of the judgement are 'absurd'

No, but "man" isn't the word you'd use for a six foot dude with male pattern baldness if he's in a dress, so so what?

Quite. The point of separate changing rooms is that no one should be put at risk of the trauma of sexual assault/abuse/voyeurism etc., regardless of whether they have prior bad experiences or not.

@MarieDeGournay https://workforce.nhs.scot/supporting-documents/guide/bullying-and-harassment-policy-guide-for-employee-complainants/

To be honest, I haven’t read everything but I have seen enough snippets to feel like the right outcome was reached. Ultimately the judge knew the outcome would be appealed so they purposefully went for a middle ground outcome.

It’s cheeky how this 300 page decision was dropped right before Christmas. It’s unlikely any appeals will go in this side of the new year.

Ultimately SP was not the right face for these issues, regardless of the public support she was not above reproach and the judge did not find her to be entirely credible. So from there, the rest of her case falls down.

I also think it’s clear NC’s approach turned the judge off. He felt her questioning of DU wasn’t appropriate for example. She went for a robust approach that seems to have backfired slightly as it only increased DU’s credibility in the eyes of the judge.

I thought the NHS’s barrister was shit but she seems to have saved the day for them. It’s quite concerning that NC lost a similar case recently.

It's insane. Women shouldn't be denied their rights as default and have to beg for them from a hostile employer and then put to a poll on whether enough other women are willing to take the risk as well. I really hope she appeals this.

Maybe the men could complain about the discriminatory and prejudiced nature of men who claim to be ladies refusing to undress in front of the ordinary class of men. As if they didn't belong there. Giving rise to sad times.

Yes, I know you are correct here, but it does seem to be part of a pattern of the judge ignoring/glossing over the dirty tricks of NHS Fife. Right from the start with their failure to produce certain documents as requested, causing delays, an incredibly haphazard not to say slip shod attitude to producing emails as requested, in a timely way. The sloppy IT guy with his 6th best option of letting DU produce screenshots and meet on teams or however it was (can't remember exactly the sequence of events). But an incredibly highly qualified and experienced expert witness is criticised and his evidence given less credibility as a result. 🙄

I really expected the judge to take notice of these underhand shenanigans and that this would be reflected on, to some extent in the judgement, if only with some pithy censure of the respondents sloppy legal team.

It just underlines how difficult it is for women to get justice.

You could also say camp men are feminine too, but if they are gay there's a difference to this man who forced his way into a female changing room while he was trying to get his wife pregnant with his fully working penis. Gay men don't tend to need to be in female spaces and they certainly don't sleep with them on a regular basis.

But the thing is, the judge isn’t saying this guy wasn’t a valid expert. The judge took issue with specific comments made to advocate for the claimant, but nothing about his CV was an issue.

Thanks! I hadn't heard of him previously. I look forward to him saying more later!

For anyone else, the SP commentary starts at around 9 mins in:

I recall reading about women re-entering the dating scene after male murderers started using the ‘rough sex gone wrong’ defence leaving the equivalent of an advanced directive with a trusted friend or family member saying “in the event of my death, I am putting on record I will never consent to these [named] sex acts”, just in case.

Do female employees need to start pre-emptively, proactively withdrawing their consent to sharing women’s changing rooms, toilets or overnight accommodation with male colleagues with their HR depts? We shouldn't have to, but they can’t say we didn’t object if it is on record. If it’s logged before the situation arises it isn’t about the individual, it’s about the principle.

The idea that women should have to individually disclose past assault to justify their access to single sex facilities is beyond ludicrous.

And on a practical note, the vast majority of adult women could disclose a history of sexual actually if we chose to do so. Given that sexual assault covers everything from exhibitionism/flashing through lewd groping through to rape, can anyone here honestly say that they’ve never in their life been sexually assaulted. I have, several times, and have been “lucky” that it was on the milder end in each case. Police didn’t want to know.

I wish someone could send Big Sond a link to this thread.

Sorry if this is a daft question and has been asked and answered up thread
Given that the Sandie Peggie case referred to events BEFORE the SC clarified the definition of sex, it’s not entirely surprising that self ID won the day. But , does it mean that any cases brought regarding events subsequent to April 2025 will have more leverage ?

anyway the effect of this decision

I will now never ever call any man who says he’s a woman a trans woman. I had long given up using “preferred pronouns”. Using the term a man who says he’s a woman may be longer than trans woman, but more accurate.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse:
SP was proselytising! She was trying to convert DrU to biological realism!

1019. In our view the claimant was seeking to persuade a colleague that her view was right, and should be followed by the second respondent, contrary to the wishes and beliefs of the second respondent, and contrary to the permission given by the first respondent. She was in effect challenging its decision directly with the person affected and doing so not with the first respondent which had made the decision. Proselytizing can be defined as attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. It is a term normally used in the religious context, but is not confined to that context. In our view in essentials that is what the claimant sought to do.

Thanks NSP for the NHS policy re speaking to the person about unacceptable behaviour,

There seems to be a hell of a lot of flat-out disbelieving some witnesses, whilst calling others 'credible', without adducing any evidence to back these leanings.