Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #58

[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), 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 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.

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 2025 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
Thread 57: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5457132-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-57 9 December 2025 to 11 December 2025

Not enough of a legal bod to help with one, but the answer to 2 is related to the poster who was doing the copy and paste of the Tribunal Tweets from the hearing, and used to add in interjections from an entity known as The Fifer. In the accent of the area, Sandy sounds more like Sondy apparently, and so The Fifer nicknamed the judge "Big Sond", and Sandie Peggie "Wee Sondie", and the former seems to have stuck.

Thank you,
selffellatingouroborosofhate, I really appreciate that

wayback machine 9th Dec archive of Peggie-v-Fife-Health-Board-and-another.pdf

Thw judge I knew went a bit bonkers and it started to become obvious. The process to remove him would have caused more publicity on top of what there had been, and the chief honcho said frankly to me that they would rather not use that route. It would have raised doubts about other decisions, and I note that The Times piece casts doubt on Kemp’s other cases. So my guy went silently, I think by a mixture of threats and blandishments, always preferred by the Establishment over a scandal.

The Judge’s name is Alexander Kemp. Sandy (sounds like the ‘Xand’ part) is a short/pet name for an Alexander. Into Fife pronunciation, ‘Sand (y)’ becomes ‘Sond’. He is a bigwig, ergo ‘Big Sond’.

That is my reasoning, anyhoo.

Sandie’s on the front page of many of the Scottish newspapers today

Have they found him? Are they doorstepping him? (asking out of concern)

“For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard.”

– William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4.

This judge has hoist everyone with his irresistibly appealable petard of a judgment.

We’ll all enjoy the Tribunal Tweets and have a laugh at photos of Upton lurching around, but the proceedings will cost NHS/taxpayers/Claimant supporters a fortune. This next round is not even NHS Fife’s fault.

I doubt that Employment Tribunals were ever intended to be an embarrassing, bank breaking, advocate-led pantomime, taking years to complete.

I was just about to say the same. From AI (😳)

Why “Sond” instead of “Sandy”:

• Vowel shift: Scots accents can round or alter the “a” in “Sandy” toward an “o” sound, producing “Sondy.”

• Consonant clipping: Everyday speech often drops the final vowel, turning “Sondy” into “Sond.”

• Local habit: Scottish nicknames commonly morph names (e.g., “Eck” for Alexander, “Shug” for Hugh, “Tam” for Thomas). “Sond” fits this pattern as a local shorthand for Sandy.

Noting also the Scottish love of differentiating names by augmentation and diminution, e.g. Wee Sandie vs Big Sond -- applicable to: Sandie Peggie/Alexander Kemp.

I think that refers to Sandie Peggie.

Yes, he gets away scot free (😲).....regardless of the obvious manipulations, malice and failure to hand over all of his phone history etc

I know, it’s a travesty. Nasty fucker.

@GallantKumquat in my befuddled morning state I just read your ‘local shorthand for Sandy’ as ‘local shortbread for Sandy’ 🥴

I'll get me coat…

Sorry, yes, I’m obsessively thinking of the Big Man’s predicament this morning so wasn’t being clear. A friend was in a science regulatory body and when a big story broke about something she’d approved, she was caught by the Press bringing in the milk in her PJs next morning. So I’ve been wondering when they’d track Sandy down for a comment

Great post. I think this is what people don't understand about those voting Trump or Reform. If what you see is unaccountable tyranny from a sneering class intent on imposing Emperor's new clothes on an unconsenting public, with real harms to decent people like Peggie, anything looks better. Literally anything is worth a try.

The slip rule allows a court to correct a minor error or omission in a judgment without referring to the parties. If a judgment said Christmas was on 52th Dec instead of 25th it could be corrected under the slip rule.

You are not supposed to use it for incorrectly cited case law so the correction of the Forstater judgment quotation was not appropriate.

This the slip rule for ET but it’s similar for all courts.

Presumably Sandie could take legal action against Dr U separately about the allegedly completely made up patient safety allegations? He tried to end her career after all.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/11

Slip rule

I’m slightly curious how it’s all going for the ‘friend’ of Sandie who was happy to turn up in the last few days with some WhatsApp messages (that she was laughing at with her emojis) while revealing details of patient information on the same WhatsApp group. I’m hoping she’s being investigated by her employer or the NMC? Does that need a formal complaint to be made about her to NMC?

Also, the fragrant Beth and his insistence he would treat a patient who had specifically requested single sex care only? What’s happening from a regulatory perspective?

Not to mention the others at NHS Fife who have all conducted themselves in ways that could easily see themselves (if they didn’t work for such a disfunctional organisation) facing conduct investigations. In the case of Bumba, I’d argue capability investigation.

The Once for Scotland NHS policies around conduct highlight examples of misconduct and there’s arguably a number of participants in this case who should be facing an internal investigation. One of these relates to equality and diversity policies and failure to uphold and I can’t help but think that NONE of them allowed Sandie any sex based rights. I include within that Bumba whose job is to ensure those rights are protected. In and ideal world, almost all of them would be facing internal investigations over their part in this (Jamie Doyle and his suspension without investigation is another), the instances of bullying and harassment by the consultants, failure to uphold professional standards by the Doctor (his allegations of patient safety that he did hee haw about until it suited him to ‘mention’ them), the consultants who did nothing about the same patient safety allegations which would apparently leave patients at risk if this patient safety incident actually happened (even if it turns out there’s no record of it), etc, Only one witness from Fife seemed to understand that the consultants who did nothing about these allegations should be taken to task for this themselves. (Apologies, forget her name but she seemed the only vaguely credible witness they had).

I feel sorry for those in NHS Fife working hard, doing their job, and yet have a culture where they can ostracise wrong thinkers for having such outdated ideas like, you know, wanting a female only space to change in like the law entitles them to!

A dirty male doctor who lied about a lady nurse’s work and presented false documents to try to get her sacked, because she wouldn’t take off her clothes for him.

Which of those two people gets credence from Judge Kemp? You’ll never guess.

In addition, all the witnesses who were either technically illiterate or selective in their searches of emails were more credible than Sandie?

Sadly I feel that I am one of those mother’s who has done this.

Am now trying to reset the kindness conversation but it is trying to undo years of unconscious social conditioning. There are tiny infinitesimal changes in the DCs thinking re trans so I’m cautiously hopeful but we all still need to learn to be less kind martyred.

Re the BBC: The factual reporting is welcomed. It is, however, astounding that the BBC leadership allowed the #bekind distortion to stretch to breaking point in the first place and leave the institution open to justified criticism.

I am wondering if there were ever any consequences for the two nurses who spoke at lunch despite having been specifically warned that they must not?

The one that I heard a lot as a child in Fife was 'Ondra' for Andrew. Round my way the Alexanders were all Alex or Sandy, though I now know a Xander. (Fife dialect and accent can vary dramatically - maybe not as much as it used to, prior to mass media and improved transport links.)

After reading some comments on Reddit (they are hopeful that Naomi made the quoting error) I searched through the submissions for the quotes.

I couldn't find anything the same, so ( unless I missed one, which is eminently possible) it seems unlikely that it was a cut and paste of a mis-quote from submissions.

JR : Used 'hierarchy' three times (my bold) but not in the same quote -

48. To the extent that the FWS judgment means (contrary to what the Supreme Court justices
said at §248) that the judgment has created a hierarchy of rights within the EqA, it is
submitted that there are two key problems with this approach (identified by Robin Allen
KC in the DLA Briefings July 2025 article):
48.1. First, a practical problem: it is not practicable to give effect to this hierarchy;
48.2. Second, a principled problem: that hierarchy would not survive contact with the European Convention on Human Rights (in relation to which see the ECtHR
jurisprudence set out above).

Naomi didn't use hierarchy in her general or supplemental submissions and I was unable to find Ashers/ enshrined anywhere either.

I feel a culinary creation coming on: Sandie's Shortbread.

It can be up there with Tunnock's.