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

Totally. Even trans reddit sees it, so the squirrels must do.

I think she might.... she received scores of cards via Sex Matters/FWS. A fundraiser was started for Upton to give him some support through his terrible ordeal; from memory it raised around £3k, and many of the donation were £1, left purely so the giver could leave a message telling him what they thought of him (I think that's why it closed). An equivalent was set up for Sandie and raised about ten times as much. She donated it all to charity.

Very nicely put. I was forgetting the class aspect of this, aside from the misogyny.

An emotional and heartwarming statement from someone who does not see herself as a natural campaigner. Well, my goodness, she is now! Among the many people Sandie named as being supportive, I was pleased to see that she stressed the support she has had from within the NHS. That rather gives the lie to the fact that no-one else is bothered about men invading women's spaces.

I also punched the air and then had a gulp at the sight of Sandie and her family standing strong with their arms around eachother.

What an amazing woman. We owe her so much.

The leap from calling LLMs “AI” has spread to nearly every other type of machine learning and even algorithms as well. Everyone and his dog is announcing their products use “AI,” despite real AI still being very much on the research drawing board.

Even my rice cooker brand - which has been using fuzzy logic for over 15 years - now calls it “AI.” It’s still fuzzy logic. The way people have been fooled into thinking LLMs have ushered in a new age of computing is absolutely crazy.

(I should insert here that I really like machine learning and think it has bags of potential - but telling people whole swathes of jobs will be replaced with LLM slop has been really irresponsible!)

Thank you!

I don't think they can be addressed. Unless they try and dress them up as "clerical errors", or whatever other fluff they're actually allowed to change.

I'm surprised today's change got through.

I’m not going to be able to watch the press conference today. Could someone please clarify how the legal team will now work? Is Naomi Cunningham or Charlotte Elves stepping out of it for the hearing (assuming it is heard by the EAT) or will all three be there?

JR was junior counsel on the Allison Baily case with BC opposing.

I think she made a bit of a tit of herself in that one too.

The class aspect is written in ten feet high neon letters, imo.

The Lanyards get nice things for nice people. Their desires are about living their real, true, precious inner selves, with the big words and the deep and righteous thoughts. They know the Right Side of HIstory, because they're the ones that write it.

The 'bum wipers' must learn to do as they're told and stay in their place Their desires are common and a bit simple and naff, and prudish and unprogressive. They read the wrong papers, make jokes that are crass, and are not very impressive victims.

On that note, I just read this on Reddit earlier:

'Since when did alleged victims of harassment and sexual misconduct hold press conferences full of tabloid journalists after losing their case?
If I were a legitimate victim of half the stuff she’s accused Upton of doing, I’d be hiding at home having a very long and thoughtful cry, not workshopping headlines with the editor of the Mail!'

It's past time these disgusting sentiments were revealed as the base misogynist, rapey, victim blaming nonsense they actually are. 'Progressive' my arse.

Your husband line there made me remember a female relative of mine.

Even her husband had never seen her undressed.

He saw her clothed or in a nightie.

She'd have had an absolute freak out if she'd discovered a man in the changing rooms.

I've just watched the press conference - I had a badly timed dr's appt at 3😕
and the only thing I'll add to all the words of affection and gratitude and praise for SP already expressed is this:
That is NOT a broken woman, not matter how hard they tried, no matter what they threw at her! She radiated courage and resilience and determination, and you could feel the solidarity and support around her. And more importantly, it is obvious that she feels it too.
I think she's in this for the long haul.

'They fucked with the wrong marine'

It was absolutely a class thing, amd a money thing, which in Fife's mind was related. They never considered that she'd fight back because they thought she couldn't afford it. Which she probably couldn't, but they never considered she might have support. And a lot of it.

The gerbils are delighted.

ETA of course they'd be even more delighted if I posted them on the correct thread!!

#WallOfBravery

Underestimating the rage of Scottish women may end up being a very costly mistake.

I for one would love an explanation of exactly how a clerical error can produce a quotation that doesn't appear anywhere else.

I can understand how a quotation could be accidentally attributed to the wrong source. I can understand how a few words may be accidentally omitted or misspelt or even somehow put in the wrong order.

I can't understand how you could accidentally present something as a quotation that isn't a quotation at all.

If I were a legitimate victim of half the stuff she’s accused Upton of doing, I’d be hiding at home having a very long and thoughtful cry, not workshopping headlines with the editor of the Mail!'

Uh huh. And after your long and thoughful cry, you put on your real "big girl"... boots ... and you go and fix things and do whatever you can to make things better for the next person to stand in your shoes. And frankly, if headilnes in the DM are part of the process, more power to SP's elbow.

You can see why they don't let us post on Reddit.

They weren't thinking of women at all, or we wouldn't be here, so no surprise they underestimated that!

Of course, some clerics make huge errors (Archnishop of Canterbury). I can't see how you take this judgment down in court without laughing

Someone on the previous thread (I think MdeG) referred to 250,000 transgender persons. From my v quick search I gathered total number of GRCs issued since introduction are around 20,000 and the 250k total figure was based on an erroneous response to the question in the last census by those with a first language other than English. I wonder what the number really is, and also division between mtf and ftm. Though from my perspective it wouldn't matter if Dr U was the only trans woman. Still wouldn't want him in my personal space.

I reckon they'll go with a 3-5-2 formation for most of the time, or 4-3-3 with Elves, Cooper and Cunningham in the attack, but maybe slip into a 4-2-3-1 with the boy Cooper up top...

There's so much about this that just telegraphs pettiness. It's as though Sandy Kemp - through a combination personal offense of a woman asserting her rights and irritation about having his precious time occupied by a case he considered unworthy of his estimable self simply - threw caution to the wind and in a moment of pique hopped onto the TRA pyre that immolated Davie at the BBC and the Potter at the NHS without a second thought. What is it about the cause that compels people to make such fools of themselves? The list is very long.

Ben Cooper's support wren is firing up its vocal chords and practicing a few arias whilst the Mumsnet groupies hunt out their I❤Ben Cooper T shirts.