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NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #57

1000 replies

nauticant · 09/12/2025 07:55

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 28 September 2025 to 21 November 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 19 November 2025 to 8 December 2025
Thread 56: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5456749-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-56 8 December 2025 to 9 December 2025

OP posts:
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64
Cars4Gov · 10/12/2025 22:19

NotanotherWeek · 10/12/2025 20:19

Sandy Kemp is in big trouble if Michael Foran says fabrication allegation is ‘extraordinarily serious’.

I really hope so! I love Mr Foran and was fortunate to meet him and he is wonderful and gracious in real life.

Alpacajigsaw · 10/12/2025 22:22

I saw an interesting comment in Maya’s EAT judgment that not all trans persons will have the PC of GR. I wonder how that is determined? As it is seemingly accepted that Dr U does have that PC in Sandie’s case, despite having done nothing physiological to change his so called attributes of sex

Rightsraptor · 10/12/2025 22:27

So it seems Kemp was justified in not clicking on the hyperlinks but it seems such a rookie error for NC & team to make. Surely there's an established protocol about what constitutes acceptable ways of presenting evidence?

usernameinserthere · 10/12/2025 22:28

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 22:16

No, the judge is referring to a report by Fair Play for Women. From the description, I think this is the report in question:

Transgender women criminality shows male pattern | Fair Play For Women

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Its surely within judical knowledge generally

ScrollingLeaves · 10/12/2025 22:31

usernameinserthere · 10/12/2025 22:28

Its surely within judical knowledge generally

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Why would they know?

Hedgehogsrightsarehumanrights · 10/12/2025 22:32

usernameinserthere · 10/12/2025 22:28

Its surely within judical knowledge generally

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I agree with it being within judicial knowledge that men are far more likely to assault women, than women, and given that Upton’s is a biological man it has to be considered an absurd conclusion, as commented on by the black belt barrister.

DrBlackbird · 10/12/2025 22:33

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 21:45

The comment about not clicking on hyperlinks relates to a report from Fair Play for Women that was in the supplementary bundle. The judge is quite right that it was not appropriate for him or the other tribunal members to click on those links. If NC wanted the linked documents to be in evidence, they should have been in the supplementary bundle.

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It may have been right to have not clicked on hyperlinks, but seems petty or churlish to (paraphrasing) make a explicit point that Dr U as biologically male is no more of a threat than anyone else.

ILoveLaLaLand · 10/12/2025 22:35

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ArabellaSaurus · 10/12/2025 22:37

NotanotherWeek · 10/12/2025 20:55

That’s going to be a bit of a minefield! Peter Daly has tweeted that the allegations are so serious as to require ‘an urgent judicial response to maintain public trust in the law’

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No shit!

Wait til everyone hears about the GRA!

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 22:44

Rightsraptor · 10/12/2025 22:27

So it seems Kemp was justified in not clicking on the hyperlinks but it seems such a rookie error for NC & team to make. Surely there's an established protocol about what constitutes acceptable ways of presenting evidence?

It is an error if they thought they needed the hyperlinked information in evidence. I suspect they thought they didn't need it.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 10/12/2025 22:48

OpheliaWitchoftheWoods · 10/12/2025 17:02

Quite.

You might sneer at her for being the wrong sort, but you must still separate her and the man immediately or you're guilty of harassment. All she has to do is register that complaint.

And yes, it's going to be very uncomfortable and embarrassing and difficult for her, the man involved who has been using the women's facilities, and all their colleagues. You couldn't really design a system more likely to cause distress, stress, bad feeling and to raise friction between employees. It would immediately fall foul of the Equality Act on those grounds: duties are anticipatory, (it is evidently obvious that not all women consent and need/want single sex spaces and will complain, particularly once the word gets out that girls, there's a system to escape now and it has to work), and the indirect discrimination of putting the woman and the man involved in this very difficult situation is not going to pass muster legally.

You would think an ET Judge would be across this as a part of his brief.

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You couldn't really design a system more likely to cause distress, stress, bad feeling and to raise friction between employees. It would immediately fall foul of the Equality Act on those grounds: duties are anticipatory, (it is evidently obvious that not all women consent and need/want single sex spaces and will complain, particularly once the word gets out that girls, there's a system to escape now and it has to work), and the indirect discrimination of putting the woman and the man involved in this very difficult situation is not going to pass muster legally.

Another ground: an NHS trust is subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and putting the burden on the women to ask for a male-free space immediately violates PSED, especially 1(c)'s requirement to foster good relationships between people who have a protected characteristic and those who don't have it. It sours the relationship between those with the PC of GR and those without it, and it sours the relationship between those with the PC of female sex and those with the PC of male sex.

Equality Act 2010

An Act to make provision to require Ministers of the Crown and others when making strategic decisions about the exercise of their functions to have regard to the desirability of reducing socio-economic inequalities; to reform and harmonise equality law...

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/11/chapter/1

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 22:48

DrBlackbird · 10/12/2025 22:33

It may have been right to have not clicked on hyperlinks, but seems petty or churlish to (paraphrasing) make a explicit point that Dr U as biologically male is no more of a threat than anyone else.

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My view is that the tribunal is clearly and unambiguously wrong on this point. I do not see how they can possibly conclude that a man in the women's changing room is no more of a threat to a woman than another woman. That is clearly not true. Men are, in general, bigger and stronger than women. Sexual violence is mostly perpetrated by men with most victims being women. Sexual violence by a woman with a female victim is very rare. And a man is far more likely to assault you than a woman.

They may be right that Upton is not a threat, but that is not the point. If Upton is allowed in the women's changing room, so are other men. They can't pick and choose on the basis of how feminine they look or behave, whatever this tribunal seems to think.

ILoveLaLaLand · 10/12/2025 22:54

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 22:48

My view is that the tribunal is clearly and unambiguously wrong on this point. I do not see how they can possibly conclude that a man in the women's changing room is no more of a threat to a woman than another woman. That is clearly not true. Men are, in general, bigger and stronger than women. Sexual violence is mostly perpetrated by men with most victims being women. Sexual violence by a woman with a female victim is very rare. And a man is far more likely to assault you than a woman.

They may be right that Upton is not a threat, but that is not the point. If Upton is allowed in the women's changing room, so are other men. They can't pick and choose on the basis of how feminine they look or behave, whatever this tribunal seems to think.

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Any man who invades a women only space is a threat to women.
His very presence there is unsettling and that is part of the thrill for these men.

usernameinserthere · 10/12/2025 23:04

ScrollingLeaves · 10/12/2025 22:31

Why would they know?

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Having read a massive amount of EJ judgments in the last week- men get sacked for touching women between the legs, harassing women, being intoxicated at work, punching other people etc etc. Women get sacked for having anxiety or having ideas above their station and constructively dismissed. The men attack others and engage in more harassing and risky behaviour.

Kemp knows men commit more crimes. Kemp knows men carry more risk.

MarieDeGournay · 10/12/2025 23:10

prh47bridge · 10/12/2025 22:48

My view is that the tribunal is clearly and unambiguously wrong on this point. I do not see how they can possibly conclude that a man in the women's changing room is no more of a threat to a woman than another woman. That is clearly not true. Men are, in general, bigger and stronger than women. Sexual violence is mostly perpetrated by men with most victims being women. Sexual violence by a woman with a female victim is very rare. And a man is far more likely to assault you than a woman.

They may be right that Upton is not a threat, but that is not the point. If Upton is allowed in the women's changing room, so are other men. They can't pick and choose on the basis of how feminine they look or behave, whatever this tribunal seems to think.

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I agree that whether or not an individual man is a threat is not the point.

Why aren't tribunals making decisions based on principle, not on subjective definitions of vague qualities like 'femininity'?

The SC ruling was, on the whole, clear and definite and was based on the principle that sex=biological sex, and single sex space=space reserved for members of one biological sex.

It does away with the need for employers to assess the levels of ladyness achieved by their TiM employees, to make case by case decisions, to somehow merge workplace regs, building regs, equality legislation, health and safety regs into a workable plan for toilet provision in their workpace...

Ditto venues open to the public.

The last two tribunal judgements have been full of complications and compromises and confusion, dancing on the head of a pin instead of straightforwardly applying the 'golden metwand' of the SC ruling.

Look, it's so bad it has driven me to a really elaborate mixture of metaphors!😁

TheAutumnCrow · 10/12/2025 23:15

Rightsraptor · 10/12/2025 21:41

But I'm wondering about the AI idea.

We know that Kemp didn't use a computer for his writing but wrote everything down on paper at the tribunal. I haven't read the judgment yet but didn't Kemp write in it something about not being empowered or minded to click on hyperlinks to access supporting evidence?

To my mind, this doesn't show a man who is skilled with computers and has a good grasp of IT. Would he even be capable of using AI?

He bloody well should be computer and tech literate at his age - he’s younger than me and I know this shit.

ProfessorBinturong · 10/12/2025 23:21

SirEctor · 10/12/2025 19:50

OK, did he just stop reading half way through paragraphs once he'd found a bit that sounded like what he wanted to hear?

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Exactly.

"The text could be read as X or as Y, here are the reasons why a Y reading doesn't work. Therefore the correct reading can only be X."

becomes

"The text could be read as X or as Y" so I'm.going to use Y.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 10/12/2025 23:25

Catiette · 10/12/2025 19:19

Now trying to follow 2 threads simultaneously, so I can stay up to date with this one and also catch up on the last - while also doing my tax return. Hm. A task only slightly harder than making sense of the judgement...

This paragraph again...

“I can accept, at any rate for present purposes, that the unconditional introduction of a transgender woman into the general population of a women’s prison carries a statistically greater risk of sexual assault upon non-transgender prisoners than would be the case if a non-transgender woman were introduced. But that statistical conclusion takes no account of the risk assessment which the policies require."

...feels huge. Doesn't it, like that awful Australian lift video, demonstrate why, to some people, our only possible reason not to want to share spaces with trans women must be prejudice, as there's no other "material" substance for it? It feels offensively disingenuous on Pink News, but to see it in a tribunal judgement... It's reality denial writ large. I'd first wondered if it was a kind of "the-facts-presented-in-court-don't-prove-this-so-my-hands-are-tied" kind of thing, then remembered that facts in this (any?) legal context can include certain "everyone-knows-this" type facts too (technical term!) - and the Blackbelt Barrister guy seems to confirm this?

It highlighted to me (as if I needed it) just how Orwellian - and dangerous for women and girls - this ideology is. Because the only explanation for that paragraph is surely ideological capture.

It's all driving me, semi-seriously, to see the Buffy revolution ("Girls can kick ass too!") as authentically dangerous, at least until everyone gets their head screwed back on right. I won't forgive this ideology for a lot, but making me see the (kind of) feminist (crop tops, Whedon, I know - it's complicated...) Buffy as disempowering girls is a new one. How have all our steps forward been turned so insidiously against us?!

It's all driving me, semi-seriously, to see the Buffy revolution ("Girls can kick ass too!") as authentically dangerous

People forget that Slayers are supernaturally strong because they are Slayers. Slayers are not supposed to be representative of what women can do. The other Buffyverse women and girls, like Willow, Cordelia, and the IT teacher who got killed, were normal strength. The roles of the Scooby Gang were research into the supernatural, gathering information about sightings so that the Slayer would be in the right place at the right time, and spell-casting. The Scooby women and girls were not fighters.

TheAutumnCrow · 10/12/2025 23:34

Perhaps Naomi C & team did include the print-out of the Fair Play For Women appendices in the bundle, but EJ Kemp didn’t see them - a bit like how he somehow didn’t see the full text of the Supreme Court ruling.

Right now, trust is gone.

Peregrina · 10/12/2025 23:37

The "reasonableness" bit is referring to a situation where a woman who identifies as a man is excluded from the female facilities despite being of the correct biological sex due to her masculine appearance.

By the same token was Kemp trying to argue that (in his opinion) because Upton passed as a woman he should have been allowed in the female facilities?
It's a matter of opinion whether Upton passes - long hair, make up, skirt - woman -
Naomi Cunningham - short hair, trousers, no obvious make up - man?

I think my five year old grandson could correctly make a decision as to who was male and who was female.

CarefulN0w · 10/12/2025 23:39

So the EJ doesn’t appear to have written all 300 + pages of the judgement all by himself. I wonder if he bothered to read it?

weegielass · 11/12/2025 06:27

could a FOI be made to find out what will be done about this / what communications there have been on this serious matter within the scottish judiciary? I'd be surprised if the media / Naomi don't ask such questions but IANAL

AreYouSureAskedNaomi · 11/12/2025 06:54

This is worse than I could ever have imagined.

Our instincts were right when we felt the judge looked out of his depth and hostile during the hearing

Now there are rumours of collusion with the Belfast judge to coordinate the timing of the judgments in order to overwhelm the claimants' legal teams

Subverting a supreme court ruling

Making up and doctoring quotes of case law. I wonder if he's done it before. No wonder Kemp was happy to wave away Upton's tampering of evidence.

This is extremely serious, not just for Sandie and for women's rights, but for everyone in the UK. It undermines people's faith in the legal system and adds to the sense of institutional crisis.

I wonder what Keir Starmer, himself a senior member of the legal profession, makes of all this.

Igneococcus · 11/12/2025 06:56

weegielass · 11/12/2025 06:27

could a FOI be made to find out what will be done about this / what communications there have been on this serious matter within the scottish judiciary? I'd be surprised if the media / Naomi don't ask such questions but IANAL

I also saw Joanna Cherry comment somewhere yesterday. I have no doubt she'll be considering the options. So many legal eyes are on this.

alsoFanOfNaomi · 11/12/2025 06:58

Not Belfast - that's Sara Morrison, yet to report. I don't think we've had anything but pure speculation about the Maria Kelly case and this one being coordinated, have we? Let's not go all conspiracy theory. The problems in the documents are enough!

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