Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #60

[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
Thread 59: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5459115-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-59 12 December 2025 to 17 December 2025

The time limit is for submitting Notice of Appeal. At this stage, all that is needed is sufficient to persuade the EAT that there is an arguable case. More grounds can be added later if needed. In any event, the point made by this paragraph is entirely unexceptional - that statistical evidence is important if it exists but, if not, the evidence of the claimant and others in a similar position can provide compelling evidence of disadvantage. No one would challenge that, even if the tribunal came up with the statement without reference to any precedents.

Given the known errors in this judgement, I would expect SP's legal team to check every single quote for accuracy.

I was just checking something from Final submissions in Sept and saw this lovely snippet from TT

NC Sorry to load tribunal with more written material
J Can't have too much
NC May be a hostage to fortune

I was thinking more of the principle that this particular judgement - which has been subject to more than the usual scrutiny.

@prh47bridge and legal eagles of mumsnet We know that the judgment was supplied to the parties at 11am on 8th and then uploaded to judiciary website around 1pm.

We also know the panel met for 4 days in Oct and then one final day in November, and I presume (but would appreciate confirmation) that the Judge drafted and finalised the final paper?

Random (or loaded) question: would lay panel members have seen the very final copy before it was sent to the parties? Would they have (also) been sent a copy at same time as it was released to the parties, by way of notifying them that a media storm was approaching?

I guess I am wondering whether the shitstorm could have taken them by surprise even though they were part of the decision making process?

Is there a standard procedure for these things, or do individual judges vary at all in the way they manage the distribution of the judgment?

An excellent question. But 1 minor factual correction - the parties received the judgement (version 1) at 10am, not 11am.

Fuck that's not minor its major, for my purposes thank you!

Morning! On your question above - do email Sandie’s legal team - the worst thing that happens is they ignore it. People here are over every detail.

A full judgment would have been circulated to panel before publishing. It goes out in all their names.

As for the exact timing of issuing - as it went with a summary press note not sure how exactly appraised of specificity of timing they would be.

Absolute sneaky rat activity sneaking this out a few working hours before Christmas. 🎄

Won’t stop justice but shows us who we are dealing with.

Jeez what a farce. Poor Sandie. Big Sond you are definitely not on Santa’s nice list this year.

A fuckton of corrections issued on Christmas Eve…it’s all gone a bit “Fife press statement late on Friday”, hasn’t it?

I was reading about 'meek compliance' which could be part of the appeal - it comes from some legal case meek v birmingham council I think and basically means judgements have to make sense to both parties, and this doesn't.

It's par for the Brave-n-Stunning course, isn't it?

Do a massive fuck-up-this'll-do because the Righteous ends justify the mendacious Means. Then be all surprised Pikachu face that those terrible Unbelieving sinners actually inspect your workings instead of falling to their knees in awed supplication. Then issue your "corrections" at a time when you hope people are looking elsewhere because you think everyone else is as bubble-brained-unable-to-think-things-through-high-on-Righteous-farts as you are and will have forgotten all about it by the time we get back to work,

If Sandie doesn't get like the biggest payout possible at the end of this shitstorm, that would be outrageous.

PS and some kind of honours medal / damehood

Yes, the judge would have written the judgement then sent it to the other members of the tribunal for comment. The panel members would have seen the final version before it was sent out and would have been aware of the date on which it would be released. However, as the judgement was unanimous, I suspect they thought it was fine. Kemp is the only legally qualified member of the tribunal, so the others would probably have assumed that the quotes from other judgements were correct. If they all agreed that Upton is wonderful and should be allowed in the women's changing room, that Sandie is a terrible person and that TWAW, they may not have realised how badly biased the judgement looks. So they may not have expected a media storm. Of course, the storm has focussed on Kemp. They may be aware of it, but they haven't come in for anything like as much personal criticism as he has.

Given that will be up to Kemp at the first stage, she will be lucky to get a whole pound. And that would probably be presented as ‘we would have given her £££, but because she is an unreliable bigoted lower class woman who has ruined my reputation by spotting some minor errors in my work, we will award her eight pence and she should be grateful we have given her that!’

With apologies - to the tune of 'Father Christmas is coming to Town'

You'd better watch out
You'll probably cry
Better not moan
I'm telling you why
Sondy Kemp is coming to court

He's making a judgement, not checking it twice
Already decided who's naughty and nice
Sondy Kemp is coming to court

Beth sees you when you're changing
He knows when you're undressed
But Sandie's always bad not good
So Beth's good for goodness sake

You'd better watch out
You'll probably cry
Better appeal
I'm telling you why
Sondy Kemp is coming to court

The 11 corrections have made it into the BBC, with an article that starts well. But then supports Kemp's assertion that these are minor clerical amendments by listing the 5 most trivial in the blandest way possible, and ignoring the deletion of an entire hallucinated quote: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7vk9nzjk5o

I love that, @mateysmum!

It doesn't matter how the BBC frames it. It's lucky the article doesn't have a byline though, as this is a pretty strong thing to assert: None of the changes affect the ruling in the case. And is almost definitely not true 😆

Yes, that may come back to haunt them.

It reads to me like it's been through multiple writers.

I wonder if the 'none of the changes' line was a clumsy attempt to make the point that the judgement as of today continues to stand, ie the findings of the tribunal still remain as they were initially. But it's badly written if so.

I noticed that too, very dishonest framing, if you don't read it carefully it reads as if the article has listed all of the corrections

Yet another wonderful Scottish word I've had to google. 😁I've learned so many new words thanks to this tribunal and others.

I heard someone say on a call the other day, "They made a total Isla Bumba of it.......". I wonder how long some of the names from this case will live long in the memory.

😆

I'm still left wondering why the judge felt it necessary to 'bash this one out as quickly as possible'
The number of significant corrections shows that insufficient care was taken in building the judgment. The volume of stuff that the judge generated in such a short time also suggests that there were other hands, AI or both involved