Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #59

[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.

Following handing down of the judgment on 8 December 2025, on 11 December 2025, it was announced by Sandie Peggie and her legal team that they would be pursuing an appeal.

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
Thread 58: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5458443-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-58 11 December 2025 to 12 December 2025

Bet SK is wishing he could get taksey backsies right now!😂

I assumed that if the judgement was withdrawn, it would go to another judge. I don't know if I'm surprised there isn't a precedent for this sort of thing, or relieved that it hasn't been needed so far (or has it, and we just didn't know?).

I've felt like we entered an alternate dimension a long while ago, but agree it would be even more insane if the appeal were denied after all this!

Well yes. I have no desire to read another 90’page Kemp essay this week mind you to
give it a forensic analysis!

Yes probably best sticking with his latest epistle!!

I was reading Alex Massie's article in The Times and this quote struck me:
'According to Kemp, the doctor has '“changed essentially all the non-physiological attributes of sex”. He wears lipstick, he has long hair and he has adopted “a pitch and tone of voice consistent with that for a female” and if that don’t make him a woman, what could?'

I'm sure that sharper women than me have made this point before, but maybe that for a lot of these men (Kemp etc) being female is essentially about presentation and not biology. We're just these null bodies who only gain meaning by having feminine haircuts, wearing make-up, putting on a skirt and talking in a higher register.

Because if they truly saw us as more than that, saw our bodies as what they are, fundamentally different from theirs, capable of gestating, birthing and feeding babies, they wouldn't think of the Dr Uptons of this world as being in any way women.

Very likely I'm behind the curve on this, but I've been thinking a lot about female invisibility these past few weeks.

Is it possible for none lawyers to access these decisions? I would definitely be interested in reading this one.

From the previous thread, the posters asserting racism:

It is not relevant.

Tell me how, if you honestly believe SP is racist, it justifies her employer obliging her to undress in front of a man?

I've just realised that if an appeal to the EAT is permitted, anyone who is adversely affected by the hallucinations included in Kemp's judgment will have good grounds to intervene and will be able to give the judgment a thorough kicking that will help discredit it even further.

Yes - employment tribunal decisions are available online :)

here you go :)

www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/ms-d-fitzpatrick-v-the-scottish-ministers-4103399-slash-2020

Well exactly. It clearly doesn’t.

I don’t see how another judge could deal with it without seeing all the witnesses give evidence and forming their own view of credibility. It would be entirely wrong to save Kemp’s evaluation of witness reliability and bin the rest of his judgment for being the product of opiate-induced mania, or whatever it is. However the most sensible option, proceeding to appeal at a properly objective EAT, may be too much to wish for. Unlike HildegardP I’m not convinced that I haven’t entered an alternative dimension, I have never encountered such widespread and complete lunacy as has engulfed most of the world in the last few years, and I remember The Twist.

Yeah, it's highly unlikely that a repeat hearing would land in the lap of any of the same panel members. I suspect all alternative panels would have to be dead before that happened but now we're in the alternate universe, who knows?
The Judicial Office seems to think all the, er, further issues not covered by the misuse of the slip form yesterday are matters for appeal so on the process goes.

Here y'go, https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions bung in the claimant's name for easiest search.

Google employment tribunal results

Search for
EJ Kemp
Employment Judge Kemp
EJ A Kemp
Judge Alexander Kemp

etc

and Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I can see a range of results ~ 370-400.

www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions?keywords=EJ+Kemp&tribunal_decision_country%5B%5D=scotland&tribunal_decision_decision_date%5Bfrom%5D=2020&tribunal_decision_decision_date%5Bto%5D=2024

I think Kemp's judgment should be set aside and everything starting ab initio. Whether that would be from the initial claims in document form held by Kemp on the first day of the hearing or the opportunity to submit brand new claims with new papers.

But I think that that's just impossible from a practical point of view. Which means the appeal process is going to be beyond nightmarish. SP's team will be effectively fighting phantoms present in Kemp's judgment. In a legal context it's far easier to argue against a sound opposing position than to argue against mad stuff. With mad stuff you have to expand your arguments massively to counter tangents going in all directions and also things going in all directions that aren't even tangential.

May you live in interesting times

So in the Sara Morrison v BFF case - the tribunal blew up too. Still an outstanding ‘Professor’ to get removed from panels.

These cases have a different cadence. The subject polarises so many that it so suddenly and openly becomes deranged.

Kemp wanted to be trans 🏳️‍⚧️ inclusive. Tried facts, didn’t work, quoted law, didn’t work, slandered intervenors (Not All Gays v Not For Gays). Hallucinates a mess and presses send with no proof read.

It’s like Naomi releases truth pheromones and suddenly hordes of legions go jump off a cliff.

Astonishing to watch in person.

@NotanotherWeek
I have never encountered such widespread and complete lunacy as has engulfed most of the world in the last few years
Anyone else remember feeling rather superior as an adolescent when reading The Crucible at school, and thinking that your own society would never go so beltingly insane, and wondering in a slightly worried way what it must have felt like to live through it, and whether you'd have been sucked in or been standing on the edges wondering if it was time to saddle the horses and get the hell out of Dodge Salem?

I feel a damn sight less superior now than I did, but at least I know that I've hung on to my marbles during this entirely bonkers episode in human history.

Agree with everything. Courier suggests judgement stands as is - nothing is going to change.

Seems appeal it is. Binding though.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5392926/nhs-fife-trans-judgment-bogus-quote/

I saw The Crucible for the first time the other year when it was at the National Theatre. It was incredibly powerful for me and I thought it was the perfect moment for me to see it.

I'm currently reading How To Kill A Witch, about witch trials in Scotland in the 1600s. Scotland was much, much worse than Salem with thousands accused over many years.

Tactically speaking in a "normal" situation it would make sense for SP's legal team to seek to get the Certificate of Correction withdrawn so that they'd be able to piss all over the original and incorrect wording during an appeal. However, there's so much other stuff going on that a trick like that would just consume resources and potential advantages would be lost in the noise.

I read Malcolm Gaskill's 'Witchfinder' some years ago. Horrendous.

For some more light relief, this TwiX post and its replies are pure gold

https://x.com/euanmccolm/status/1999190299940213234?s=61

just cross-checked the Sandie Peggie judgement, again. three whole pages are just the instructions for a Breville.

Pah that’s nothing I just found a tiny comment I wrote for my school magazine at the prospect of joining the common market… it was used without attribution and without permission I might add!
Very strange given it was a looooong time ago.

I think I spotted some of my teen poetry about nuclear war in the middle section.

Was there also a manual on how to operate a mobile cinema screen in Belfast?

Annex A, just before the Protocols of Zion, but after the First Folio version of Othello. You can't miss it, we tabbed it especially.

Did you find a copy of Beethoven’s 10th symphony per chance?

Annex C, before the carrot cake recipe, obviously.

Hey! I hear you’re trying to write a judgment. Would you like help with that? [With a picture of Clippy]

I enjoyed the closing paragraph it really captured mood.. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

It was the 10 pages lifted out of Finnegan's Wake that I liked best....

I read a request to remove all the brown M&Ms in subsection 9.1.1.

Midway down page 241!
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup vegetable oil
1 egg...

And so many more!

Thanks for the link. I have skim read the preliminary report, it starts with quite a lot of references to legal cases, which as a non lawyer I obviously can't comment on- I do hope though, that given SK's history of ...accidentally using fake quotes, that there will be someone legally trained who does check them.

The rest of it, I have to say, is remarkably dismissive of the claimant's experiences, and IMO she clearly does seem to have the been the victim of a closing of the ranks and was not able to access the support to bring a legal case that she should have had. And SK is remarkably dismissive/ uninterested in the evidence she offers- particularly given how he basically believed everything TU came out with, even when there was zero supporting evidence.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be people going over his previous cases who are more qualified to comment. And I hope they will be checking everything very carefully.

@MyrtleLion my favourite comment is:
Hey! I hear you’re trying to write a judgment. Would you like help with that? [With a picture of Clippy]