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

I would be amazed if the SC ruled that workplaces were different. The reasoning they applied to changing rooms in the context of the EA had nothing to do with whether they were being provided by employers or as a service. They would consider their own precedent and, although it is not binding on them, it is hard to see how they could argue that workplace changing rooms were different from other changing rooms, even if they wanted to (which I doubt).

The SC does not have the ability to call in cases. They have to wait for a case to wend its way through the lower courts. At this stage, I'm sure they expect the appeal courts to get it right.

Thanks both!

However, this is not just a lower court misunderstanding the FWS judgment. That happens, and the SC would leave that to the appeal process. This is egregious distortion of their words to reach a conclusion inimical to their judgment. It is astonishing. I can’t believe there won’t be words about that behind closed doors. They will be apoplectic. No litigant will agree to go before Kemp ever again, so he’ll have to go. But that won’t help Sandie, who has to plod on doggedly. It might give the EAT pause for thought, though, should they consider trying anything similar

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/1155/contents

Here are the employment tribunal procedure rules and section 12 is ‘reconsideration of judgement’ which can be on application by the parties or on the Tribunal’s own initiative.

In practice though, I don’t think this is the sort of case where that would happen. It may happen, for example, if neither side drew the attention of the judge to an extremely important precedent setting case and he only realised afterwards.

if the Tribunal President, or indeed someone higher up in the hierarchy, is very concerned about this case, I think it could probably be fast tracked so the appeal is heard quickly, which would be the ‘easiest’ way to deal with it.

As I view it, there seems to be a gap between FWS and the WR 1992, if the gap is filled as we'd like it, things would make sense, but if filled as trans activists would like, then it would cause contradictions and problems. However, I do take the point by MyAmpleSheep that in situations like this you might have to go higher up the judicial ladder to find judges confident enough to make the decision and thus establish the law.

I've tried to search the threads so apologies if this has been covered but is it the case that there are suggestions the judgement has been written by AI? It wouldn't surprise me given how wrong it has got the law, especially the SC judgement.

Even Kemp has interpreted workplaces as only being able to theoretically open a women's single sex space to men with gender identities (if apparently they look a certain way or something?) until a woman complains.

Then he is clear that the man should be immediately removed, or the woman is being harassed, and there is three weeks to sort out what he is basically framing as reasonable adjustments, but must involve the non consenting woman having a single sex space. He seems to have invented a lot of gatekeeping hoops, but basically Kemp is agreeing that this applies to workplaces too.

I see that he's obviously been told 'no further corrections (ffs man stop digging)', but I'm honestly starting to wonder if he panicked, or the man's having a breakdown, or if he's ill, or what on earth happened. This has to be the highest public profile case of his career. It was months in courtrooms, it was in the national press, huge issues around use of public money, its one of the first big tests of a SC judgment and he would have known his judgment would be gone through with a toothcomb - and he sends out this awful mess. It is increasingly looking like much of it wasn't written by him, it wasn't thoroughly checked, where did the fictional quotes come from and who re wrote that paragraph from a judgment to mean something different? He couldn't have thought no one would notice.

What on earth was his office thinking letting this go?

You're not wrong. I've lost count of how many times I've read a variation of 'I don't like Sandy Peggie's other views therefore women shouldn't have these rights'.

@usedtobeaylis its one theory, the judgment contains several errors in quoting case law, some of which are significant and undermine that they are being relied on for a purpose they arguably don’t back up.

And a lot of the men, in particular are fucking horrible misogynists who wouldn’t hesitate to crow over the death of other people that they disapprove of.

Let’s have a look at all their private WhatsApp chats.

I was thinking about how an ideology based on forcing compliance and belief in untruths upon bystanders could be so successful.

Rhyming perhaps?
https://courtroomlogic.com/rhymes/

I proffer a suggestion.

It's a particular political viewpoint that rights are not universal but based on perceived virtue. If you are not the Right Sort, you're not entitled to rights or equality.

It's very early Victorian in its thinking; all very 'send them to the workhouse' and it's insane. The whole point of universal human rights at the end of WW2 was to prevent atrocities being carried out against the current 'not like me and my mates/not the Right Sort' group. And it's very stupid to invest in thinking like this, because while you might be the Right Sort now and get to do the bullying and have the privilege, you're only ever an election and a change in fashion away from becoming the Wrong Sort and being the oppressed and bullied yourself. And you've done away with the objective legal protections that would have saved you.

The most entertaining bit is that those who believe in this, and are very toffee nosed about lesser beings, will bore you to death with their fond belief that they are a paragon of social justice.

I’m worried about Scotland, and why decisions like Sandie’s are happening.

Until fairly recently, setting aside the more extreme TRA element, I had assumed that most people including the Scottish Government were doing the wrong thing, but at trying to do it for the right reasons. I thought the motivation was a genuine (if misguided) attempt to prevent discrimination against a group they viewed as vulnerable.

However despite clarification in FWS, and the UK Government’s intervention on the GRR Bill, Scottish public institutions are continuing to tie themselves in knots to ignore those. They’re advancing positions that look legally incoherent, practically unworkable, and frankly ridiculous and making themselves and Scottish institutions a laughing stock to the majority of the public.

I know many TRAs expected Sandie Peggie to win comprehensively after FWS.

But why? What’s really going on up here?

The usual explanation offered is “well-funded TERF groups”, and JKR, but that just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The opposing parties in these cases are not marginal campaigners, they are government departments, NHS boards, large corporations etc. They are the establishment, not the “TERFs”.
Yet the narrative is perpetuated that they are the David in a David v Goliath situation. I find it extremely strange and puzzling and am curious as to the reasons why.

Naomi’s tweeted about it this morning:

x.com/LoudBonnet/status/1999756804298072185

Naomi has commented on X here :

https://x.com/LoudBonnet/status/1999756804298072185

Twitter have been investigating Judge Kemp.

Here’s another of his cases:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/crime/scottish-civil-servant-to-pursue-whistleblowing-claim-at-employment-tribunal-3467683#

I haven’t read all of it, but it involves a picture of the claimant being tied to a chair.

Interestingly, the IT expert in this case was a Mr J Borwick.

Judgement here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61e6c6838fa8f5058a4b2e5e/4103399.2020_Fitzpatrickv_The_Scottish_Ministers_Final_Judgement.pdf

The judge will not have an ‘office’ (as in people) or staff. He will write the judgement, he will (probably) send it to the panel members for their comments and then that is it. He may (but in this case didn’t) send it draft embargoed to both sides a few days before publication.

The High Court upwards (but not, I don’t think, the immediate appellate tribunals) have judicial assistants/ law clerks. But not the first tier tribunals.

I must say I don’t see the -ize suffixes as evidence that AI was used. I’ve scolded LLMs for using American spellings, so when I’m logged in they consistently use -ise. I reckon the misquotes (Forstater, gay cake) strongly suggest Kemp and his team did indeed use LLMs, but in the case of the suffixes one of the team not setting their word processor to English-UK is just as likely. Surprising though that the whole document wasn't submitted to a final spellcheck.

Whatever the reason, it’s notable that when he quotes another judgement (Bellinger), he uses -ized - but the original judgement uses -ised. This suggests that he may have used a secondary source for the quote.

Yes that’s my view too. The Workplace Regulations are single sexed unless specifically deigned mixed sex spaces are provided. Focused on privacy and health & safety.

You can’t just badge single sex spaces mixed sex either - there are guidelines and building regs to follow.

Baron - you say it so clearly and it’s so obvious but many (me included) wouldn’t have picked up that subtlety about the second source due to wrong spelling from judgment.

Kemp found otherwise, and I agree with him, because sexual harassment has an intentionality component.

Don't think for a moment I favour mixed-sex provision! Objectively it is more disadvantageous to women than single-sex provision (and I disagree with Kemp's finding that they are not more disadvantaged than men thereby, but as it's a fact finding I guess we're stuck with it for now).

But imagine a universe where everyone is TWAW? Then women would not feel sexually harassed by the mere presence of a TW. So I think this could come down to protected belief, not sex discrimination.

Or could he have done a 'correct all spelling mistakes' with the American setting on?'

I am surprised that anyone my age and older would find the use of 'z' in anything they wrote to be acceptable. It was not a construct I was taught back in the 70s and still looks wrong to my eyes.

This rings a very strong bell for me. It may be wishful thinking, but I think I have seen an interview involving both Ben and Naomi, in which they pointed out this issue and said something about looking for a case in which to deal with it. Anyone else have the same wishful thinking hallucinatory memory?