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

if that's correct it's shocking!

So,

please click the link for a breakdown of trans identifying men v man v women sexual offending.

A link? A link? Oh no, I'm not clicking on that it might be informative to the case and I can't have that!

If a transwoman knows that women don't want him in the changing room and he continues to use it, that is nasty.

That’s the impression I got.

Both MK and SP judgements either misuse or ignore statistics on male violence against women. Darlington had Jo Phoenix explaining the stats and, sadly, where no stats exist.

What we need is Prof Alice Sullivan to gather stats on male violence against women in SSS and break it down by both sex and gender.

Appeals are usually on the basis of a legal point. I do wonder if Ben Cooper may not be best placed to do SPs appeal, if that is allowed. No disrespect to NC but BC somehow makes it really clear for judges. NC can irk the judges, as in the Sara Morrison case.

NC is passionate and brilliant at cross examination but at times I have wondered if she has gone in too hard.

I am sure they can be suitably informed.

Toilets are more private than changing rooms. For so many reasons.

Would it be feminine of him to get his wife pregnant I wonder ….

No matter or how hard or soft Naomi went in - the judgment isn’t sensible and contradicts law, SC and common sense.

Big Sond saw Upton as a woman and credible. His own lawyer wouldn’t stand by the fact he said he was a biological woman.

Blaming Naomi for being too direct is exactly the point. Women can’t say true things out loud with out being judged and punished.

It was "Rose" in the Darlington case who was trying to get his partner pregnant, not DU. However heinous we find his behaviour, this sort of suggestion is both irrelevant and prurient.

If it goes to appeal, I wonder what claims would be appealed? The claims that was dismissed against NHS Fife? Or the claims that were dismissed against DU?

Finally returning to these threads and just saying I feel really disappointed in some of the decisions. However I am glad Sandie won against NHS Fife.

None of the witnesses for the defence including DrU were in any shape or form, credible so I'm really shocked the judge thought that. Shows how ingrained misogyny and sexism and men always knowing best is. I hate this ideology so much and it makes me really hate the people who run my country, for enabling it all (and continuing to do so).

That caught me too - your average person knows women are more at risk from biological men than a biological women. The interviewer knew it was nonsense.

It was Justin Webb, who has previously been ticked off by the BBC for referring to TW as male.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in fairness to the judge, in para 60 he is 'scene-setting', and is describing DrU's attempts at presenting himself as female, and lists the ways in which he has done that e.g.
has sought to have an appearance as a female; has worn clothing that is consistent with what is generally regarded as feminine in style; etc etc

so he is noting DrU's attempts to look like a woman, rather than saying that because he wears 'feminine' clothes etc DrU is a woman. The judge also states that he has a birth cert that says he is male.

Para 61 is more problematic, because it starts off with
The second respondent is not a person who is obviously male from external appearance.
which is a personal opinion, not a statement of objective fact.

Bizarrely, the judge then goes on to prove that it is not a statement of objective fact by admitting that
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.

And what to make of 62 coming after 60 and 61?
The second respondent is about six feet tall. The claimant is about five feet four inches tall.

I don't know if this Telegraph article has been posted already, frankly I'm too depressed to read the whole thread to check

https://archive.ph/i9b6Z

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/08/trans-women-not-a-risk-in-changing-rooms-says-nhs-tribunal/

This bit of the quote from Susan Smith

“We cannot understand the presumption that the application of law is conditional on whether or not a woman complains. Women should not be placed in this invidious position.”

It put me in mind of the subject of consent, particularly as it applies to sexual offences. It's up to women to say no, to complain, to make a fuss, or any violation is considered fine and dandy!?

Allow for, not mandate or require.

Question for our legal eagles.

If someone like Kemp or the Leonardo judge decides the case before them needs to be heard in a higher court - for reasons of complexity, need for a precedent, or both - is there a mechanism to refer it there? Or is their only option to make an absolute tit of themselves in the judgement and hope someone appeals?

(Not necesaarily suggesting it's the case here - if I were doing that I'd aim for well under 300 pages. But hypothetically, is there an option that allows them to retain their professional dignity?)

Interesting to me: at one point, Fife Council was making staff share toilets with pupils in new-build schools. (Most HTs dealt with it by quietly designating either a set of toilets or a disabled toilet for staff use - though the latter could also be used by disabled pupils - or trans pupils. Not very convenient for disabled people, given the smaller number of disabled toilets.)

NRFT and barely had time to look at the coverage but mentioning for people who are welll informed on this that I caught the BBC Radio 4 today programme earlier talking about the legal points of this tribunal case on the last ten mins just before 9am.

From the snippet I heard, I’m absolutely raging if this tribunal is saying that men in their workplace can come in the work toilets with women who work there. (And all the unsuspecting female visitors to that workplace obviously). This is absolutely unacceptable.

Ive had this at an old job and it was shaming and was still scary enough even though we’re were on the same payroll to make me avoid the intended female toilets. Why would it not be. What would we normally say about a man who makes a beeline for the women’s toilets when women are using it? Creep. And rightly so. This man wore sexualised skimpy women’s skirts and tops to work giving very clear signals about how he viewed women. His creep signals were clear.. No women wanted to be near that guy up close. Yet he was allowed to go in the work toilets with us. No cameras in there, no managers, and the increasingly few other women to witness or intervene if anything happened.

At least in that job, the other men didn't also come in with him, but if this is what the Peggie tribunal now says, what’s to stop all men legitimately coming into toilets built for their female colleagues to use without men present? Singly or in groups.

The men where I work now already complain enough about the stench in the men’s toilets- so why not come in and stench up the women’s which are nicer to use? Why not come in and gather private information about their female colleagues’ reproductive and medical situations? Why not come in and sexually harass and intimidate them? And why not deliberately or unintentionally bring up their past traumas to upset women at work? This tribunal decision doubles down on every terrified woman who has ever been followed into a toilet by a man before. How fucking dare they.

No. A judges job is to judge. Not to pass the buck. Also, questions of fact and witness credibility are wholly in the purview of the first instance judge. Appeal courts don’t hear evidence.

Quite extraordinary that (according tho Foran) the court refused to even look at evidence from the MoJ that trans identified men can pose more of a danger to women than actual women do.
The judge really buried his head in the sand on this one.

The Workplace Regs 1982 do that, and the Supreme Court ruling confirms that this is compatible with the EA2010, surely?

It’s Justin Webb, who has been the voice of sanity on Today throughout this sorry mess.

Ah thanks (and to pp) - I'd just jumped to that segment so didn't hear who it was.

Appeals from the EAT go to the Court of Appeal.

The President of the EAT in England and Wales was Mr Justice Choudhury who issued the important Forstater decision and is now Dame Jennifer Eady, both of whom are High Court Judges- the EAT and High Court are at the same Judicial level. Appeals from both go to the Court of Appeal. That’s the highest court of England and Wales. The Supreme Court is an add-on, that covers the whole of the UK and sits outside of the English court system.

I know that appeals don't hear evidence, which removes the issue of personal opinions about witnesses potentially clouding the judge's assessment of their credibility; but 'questions of fact' - isn't it possible for an appeal to examine whether or not the first judge used correct facts correctly in making her/his judgement?

I wouldn't go that far. The question of whether reproductive activity is compatible with living in an acquired gender is a sensible one to ask, and has been answered (it's yes - the case of the transman who was granted a GRC despite intending to get pregnant:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5428960-high-court-rules-that-a-trans-man )