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

I’m sure Rachel McKinnon said the same thing, word for word.
So Upton isn’t even original in his bullshit.
For a Judge to buy it, though…Christ.

When I was listening to that exchange it was clear to me that Upton wasn't in the business of giving factual evidence but was promoting an ideology. I would have hoped that an experienced judge would have been able to understand that too. For some reason he decided not to, although he had no problem viewing Sandie Peggie's evidence as being ideologically driven.

He knows he bloody well isn’t.

No trans identified man really does.

I agree.

It was Veronica Ivy being interviewed by Trevor Noah:

All of this. But also it makes me afraid that the wide exposure (and high profile nature) of the case is the unprecedented part. I can't help wondering how many other cases may have been determined using AI-generated law. Other cases may not matter as much to the world at large, but they concern the livelihoods of the individuals who bring those cases. It's terrifying that people may go through injustice at work, only to be visited by further injustice when they turn to the employment tribunal for a decision.

I’ve not seen that interview before and I could only get through 1min 22 seconds before turning it off as it made me feel stabby.

JM really puzzles me.
I understand that he has a ‘trans kid’, hence he must defend this bullshit to his dying breath.

But, is there possibly any point at which he’d say ‘ok…it’s over. We lost’?

Sally Hines is another one of those adults who inexplicably just won’t let it lie.
Does she have a ‘trans kid’, or is TRA bullshit just her blood group now??

If it were me, i think (after the SC judgment), i might hold my hands up and say ‘ok, it’s over’.
I dunno.🤷🏻‍♀️

Not just that SP's evidence was ideologically driven, but her words to DrU in the CR were 'proselyting', which is grounds for dismissal:

1017 The claimant’s comments in our view were broadly similar to cases where proselytizing which led to dismissal was held to be lawful and not discrimination because of religion or belief in Chondol v Liverpool City Council [2009] UKEAT 0298/08, Grace v Places for Children [2013] UKEAT 0217/13 and Wasteney v East London NHS Foundation Trust [2016] ICR 643 the first and third of which the Court of Appeal approved in Kuteh v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2019] EWCA Civ 818 as were all three again by the Court of Appeal in Higgs. What the claimant was doing in our view was seeking to impose her view on the second respondent that the second respondent should not be in the changing room.

A biological male insisting on using the women's changing room is however not at all 'seeking to impose his view' on the claimant, in the judge's view.

I had to read
cases where proselytizing which led to dismissal was held to be lawful and not discrimination
a few times but I believe the judge meant that the dismissals were lawful, not the proselytising. Should have been edited for clarity!

I haven't read this thread for a while, and things have got um..... interesting at times.

I'd like to put on record that there have been occasions when posters - myself included, I wrote a number of 'To be fair to Big Sond' posts - tried to see things from the judge's point of view, from the strictly legal point of view, from a neutral point of view, etc.

Eventually even the most even-handed of us, even Librans and Aquarians, had to give up trying to explain away or excuse the avalanche of evidence that something was seriously wrong with the whole judgement.

As ever, I have been behind on these threads and spent yesterday catching up from thread 59. What really sickens me at this point is not just Kemp’s misogyny, but the embedded cultural values that mean he isn’t an outlier. Thanks to Arabella and others explaining the political capture in Scotland I can see how wrong I was to even consider that these bigots would see Upton through the same lens as ordinary women. They just can’t. They don’t see it, they don’t hear it and they certainly don’t feel it.

Of course Kemp was going to believe the posh man over the common woman. Of course he found the answer and then searched for evidence to support it. Because Sandie was a wrong’un. Even now he probably thinks if it wasn’t for the pesky kids women he’d have got away with it. Just like Greg Wallace saying that women of a certain age were the problem, he can’t see that it’s him and his ilk permitting Upton and others to trample over women’s boundaries that is the real issue.

It's eye-opening, isn't it? I think for most of us following the case, it was so obvious that Sandie Peggie was right, both morally and legally, we thought she was bound to win. The only way the case could go against her would be if the tribunal judge(s) were so blinded by misogyny that they would wilfully misinterpret the law to find in favour of the defendants. And that couldn't happen, right...?

Yes. I hadn't heard Upton's argument before but his timing and tone and delivery in court reminded me of so many of the trans arguments that are repeated over social media time and time again. So I googled phrases from Upton's spiel and quickly found that he was repeating established trans ideology mantras.

So could it be argued that Dr Upton was proselytising in court rather than answering questions?

Remember that he supported women briefly at one point and got slapped down hard.

I think we thought that judges were better.

Kemp's conclusion just doesn't make sense. He is of the generation that would have been a teenager in the seventies and eighties, so God only knows where he gets the concept of a 'female hair style'. His idea that a woman's perception of a man should change depending on his clothes and hair style is nuts - and that's before you take into account the fact that people wearing scrubs have limited options when it comes to presentation. This was all covered in the SC judgement.

Even from the point of view of trans people, his suggestions are nonsense. He seems to be suggesting ongoing regular staff consultation to decide which facilities they can use.

New theory - the real judge Kemp is kidnapped somewhere and this man just turned up one day pretending to be a judge. This also explains the use of AI.

And I think the tone during the responses during the Tribunal were also quite something to behold. Dr Upton had a sneering, arrogant, self-righteous way of responding to even the most basic questions. Every word had to be argued over as he sought to try and change the meaning of those.

That Naomi Cunningham had to call him out for trying to dominate her says everything. Jane Russell's, "Oh!" when he was challenged on this was quite something. All of that seems to have been passed over in the judgement and, instead, we get that he's reliable? Really? What about the bullying, sneering, argumentative, attitude that was on display throughout? And let's not talk about the doctoring (no pun intended) of the phone notes and records? Or the lack of evidence over the (non-existent) patient care incident? At best, he was a 'challenging' respondent, and at worst, completely unreliable in his evidence. (Well, at worst, totally dishonest and absolutely not to be trusted but I'll try and sound as professional as the Judge could have). It feels as if all of that was simply ignored whether through bias or some pre-determined outcome / fudge / judicial incompetence / failure.

If he genuinely believed he was a woman, he’d have had no need to tell his manager he was using the women’s CR. It’s ludicrous of Lemp to find this credible!

Is it not possible that SP's team's decision to pay for stenographic services might be of some benefit in the future..?

Dr U identifies as a woman.
S Kemp identifies as a judge.
Maybe they're both wrong.
(Sorry, just feeling very uncharitable this morning).

We don't have to support our children in everything they do.

If they are a bully, if they beat someone up, if they are consistently rude to their grandparents, if they steal, if they do drugs... We are allowed to disagree, to disapprove and to try to dissuade them.

I think that, like the doctors who lead the BMA, he sincerely believes that the definition of woman that we would use is not significant, because he doesn't think that women need rights.

It's old fashioned MRA philosophy.

Yes, I thought she would obviously win on single-sex spaces, and that NHS Fife's treatment of her was the only debate. It turned out the other way round.

Are you two talking about the same JM? I took the first reference to be to the fox killer, and I don't remember him ever supporting women.

Veronica and Rachel are one and the same man