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

[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 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

Yes you are correct @alsoFanOfNaomi

Sure all we need is for any rape victims to wear the badge to let everyone know, and transwomen to put on a really nice frock and a full face every day and not look too clocky. And any of the rape victims who fail re education and are still resistant and bigoted due to their trauma, which HR will need full details of to assess whether its been properly traumatic enough or whether they were just making a fuss to get their own way because we know what these women are like, can get a cupboard somewhere to change in til they learn better.

Easy! Thats an HR policy anyone can write without fear of being sued!

The issue is that’s these cases are all live. It’s not in Naomi’s clients best interest to do a live takedown of the Judges or panel.

Naomi needs to get the appeal correct legally.

It’s like with Professor Deborah Boyd - Sara Morrison’s case hasn’t been heard. There are only 5 full time panel judges here -and larger pool but still limited number of panel members. Case hasn’t had a decision so not right time to blow that up.

That’s my read anyway.

The reactions to this give me hope. There's a significant number of legal comments in the mainstream press (including the BBC) expressing concerns about the judgment. The consensus is that the SC judgment is being openly subverted and this judgment falls far short of accepted standards.

People are ceasing to be afraid of the trans bullies. Their overreach is challenged, nonsense transactivist language called out and the belief that sees the fragrant spinny skirt / long hair as "womanhood" ridiculed.

Add to that the universal horror at the Pathways experiments on children. Finally the manner in which extreme transactivism is embedded in our institutions and able to damage society is being identified and named.

Kemp may have done far more than he ever realised with all this.

I don’t think that is correct. This is about contemporary citation. The evidence was stated in the document in summary and the link provided the source for that evidence. What EJ has done is reject the evidence because the citation was a hyperlink ie he chose to ignore the report by Fair Women and did not include it as evidence because he ignored the citations which are reasonably presented as hyperlinks to make it easier for to check the sources. Believe me, as someone who reads a lot of academic research thia is a beautiful development which saves so much time and increases the inclination of the writer to be accurate in how they use source material to inform their research,

It would make it impossible to submit expert reports as evidence if every bit of citation had also to be reproduced in its entirety and also submitted as evidence.

For example, Kemp has quoted documents within his judgment without proper citation and has misrepresented the source. He would have been better using hyperlinks or fuller citations and just by doing that it would have made him less inclined to manipulate his quotes and selectively edit.

Citation is a long-standing means of supporting your claims/ argument and if the reader doubts you they go to it.l to check. It is entirely reasonable for the report to expect Kemp to follow the links of he wants to check what the report is stating.

Wow! I really want to hear what Naomi, Sandie etc have to say about this.

Yes. We've seen before how what looks like a big loss ends up being for the best.

Long and tedious process overturning years of embedded confusion, hampered further by ubiquitous sexism, but it will be done.

Though of course, single sex provision is not just about safety from physical assault, but also about privacy and dignity. Sandie complained that DR U's presence made her feel deeply uncomfortable, and I think we can all sympathise with that.

I'm just going by Kemp's remarks about abuse history and their implications.

To be fair i've not read the full judgement, and anyone who has has my full sympathy.

I similarly haven't read it (how can we justify the time, at that length?!) and was also wondering about the privacy and dignity aspects and how they were considered. Perhaps that is why it's not unreasonable of Nurse Peggie to have complained, however.

Actually I'm pissed off again at the length. I have read the judgments in everything else I've followed this closely. But now I know it's a load of dross and I can't even trust the references, I'm even less inclined to read the thing.

Time to finally subscribe to Foran's substack, I guess. (Doubtless his legal analysis is better than mine in any case...)

All you've really done there is set out the difference between the academic approach to citations and the way the courts do it. Judgements do not hyperlink to citations from other judgements. They quote them. Maybe the courts should do it differently, but they don't.

Regarding the Fair Play for Women report, it referred to an appendix that was not included in the bundle. It states what the 2018 statistics from the MoJ showed, but did not include those statistics, so this was, as far as the court was concerned, a statement without supporting evidence. It talks about unspecified new data but does not even specify what that data is, let alone include it. It is not clear that they have completely disregarded this report, but the tribunal would certainly have given it less weight than they would have if these things had been included.

Sadly, Arabella, that seems exactly where we are. It's light years beyond parody, is parody even possible now?

An FoI request cannot tell us what will be done about this, and if there were any communications within the Scottish judiciary, which is unlikely, they are almost certainly covered by one of the exemptions.

I would be surprised if anything happens in the short term other than an appeal by SP.

What's the best source of information as to what happens next?

Poor Naomi though, she's had two crappy judgements in quick succession - it does feel a bit coordinated if I put my tin foil hat on.

I've just heard that the press conference is to take place at 3pm today.

I still respectfully don't agree. Lawyers and judges have degrees, second degrees and sometimes third degrees. They learn how to cite by studying within an academic framing and the academic framing informing citation in legal contexts is the same way as in academic contexts.

Anyone quoting a judgment in any other document needs to cite its source and Kemp attempts that here but does so in an incomplete way and I don’t mean using hyperlinks. He names the document but doesn’t offer a full citation of the actual document he drew the quote from nor did he use brackets and ellipses to demonstrate cuts and edits which is the standard in any document using direct quotes from another document. It is a professional standard not merely an academic one.

(and if he had done to the expected professional standard he wouldn’t be getting the flak he is now).

Given that he didn’t click on hyperlinks which is an accepted professional standard for citation (and the courts do not want another 100 pages of information for citations - that’s not how evidence works. This is a report summarising key research and offering some analysis which is not to be treated in the same way as direct evidence. the citations in the traditional way would not link to the documents in any way and the reader, even in courts, will go to the source of that citation if they want to confirm the interpretation of it in the analysis and would use the libraries they have access to do that.

For example, when citing case law in court the lawyer will summarise the judgment and reproduce quotes But won’t include all the case in the bundle.

When an expert witness is questioned their credibility is established by various means and so the judge can take their expertise as a given and so many pages of source material dont have to be read through or submitted into the bundle. Otherwise it becomes impossible. If the panel want to see material thr expert relies on they will ask for it but the experts nature of the expert is trusted.

Here Kemp has manufactured a reason not to include the expertise of Fair Play and exclude it on entirely unsatisfactory grounds.

This seems similar to the recent case finding that a NB person does not have pc of GR despite describing themselves as trans.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/11/trans-doctor-changing-room-case-does-it-amount-to-a-bathroom-ban

Guardian article which isn't bad for the Guardian, but some problems eg "bathroom ban", reflecting the imported route of this whoe ideology; "trans exclusion" to mean "people using the spaces designated for their sex; being clear that the ET judgments aren't binding but then providing analysis as if they are; and, worst of all, not mentioning any of the clear errors in the judgment.

Like I say, not bad for the Guardian 🙄

Judge Kemp's statement that men aren't any more of a risk to women than other women is absolutely batshit insane. Men commit 98% of sex crimes.

It's like he told everyone grass is neon pink in a judgement. He's denying facts that are so obvious they're as plain as people having noses.

Everyone knows it to be true - there are news reports every day of women and girls being raped by men. What kind of cloud cuckoo land does he inhabit, and how useless is the law, that he can write this without full expectation of being fired as a result?

Exactly! The document referenced in the hyperlink is not part of the bundle so can change. It's not reliable. If it's in the bundle it can't be changed.

Has there been any comment on or reaction to the judgment from Fife/Fife's lawyers?

To say again, the judgement does not say that Kemp excluded the Fair Play for Women report, but failure to include the appendix to which it refers is not good. More significantly, the point SP's team were trying to make was that transgender men are a threat to women. The report stated that half the people in prison who identify as transgender have been sentenced for one or more sexual offences. It referred to statistics from the MoJ in support of that statement. It then stated that new data confirmed that the vast majority of these offenders are biological males but failed to give any source for this data. It stands in their report as an entirely unsupported statement. The tribunal rightly ignored that statement. If you want to lecture anyone about citations, lecture the writer of this report. The point that the judge was, correctly, making is that it is not the job of the court to go searching for evidence to support this statement.

I am not saying that every citation had to be included in full, but the failure of this report to even cite a source in support of a crucial statement undermined it. Without that citation, the report does not tell us anything useful about the prevalence of sexual violence amongst trans-identifying males.

This is not the place to argue about citation styles in judgements. I get that you think the courts do it wrong, but the way they do it is long standing practice. The apparently invented quotes are not cited correctly, which straight away throws doubt on their veracity - any quote from a judgement should include paragraph numbers. And I have already criticised the judge for editing quotations without using ellipses to show his cuts. I haven't been through the judgement looking at all citations, but I would expect any citation to include enough information to find the reference.

Until I landed on this board, I did not know this. There are very large societal blindspots on these issues.

One might expect a judge to be aware, but as far as I can see, his lawyerly history was in conveyancing.

The length is itself an issue, imo.

Deliberately obtuse.and obfuscatory, perhaps. Giving the illusion of weightiness.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

But these judgements shoud be clear and easy enough for, say, HR staff or
employers to read, understand, and apply. Otherwise half the point is lost.

Press conference at 3pm today