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

For reference, I have attached a picture of Tony Blair and his contemporaries at St John's College Oxford in 1975

Aberdeen pre oil would have been very different! CofS granite.

Here is George Michael

Here is Princess Diana, and from the hairstyle (just like George Michael's) and clothes, one can only assume that everyone thinks she is a man.

Who is JM?

With their similar hair styles how can we possibly know which one is Gregory?

Jolyon Maugham of the (misnamed) Good Law Project.

I think it's very likely that Big Sond is simply what used to be called a Male Chauvinist Pig.

He probably thinks women shouldn't be allowed in the bar at the Golf Club (except to serve or clean of course).

I have just checked DH'S photo of the AU weightlifting squad from 1969. No long hair, but plenty of sideburns and one with hair over the ears. Photo of the longest hair attached. He had a moustache as well, so obviously n-b. I've blurred the image.

the UK could simply abolish the Scottish Government

We can only hope.

To me, Judge Kemp has introduced a new concept to law - it is Ok to lie to a tribunal as long as you really, really believe what you are saying is true.

I think it’s even worse than this, @SlackJawedDisbeliefXY (excellent post, btw). I think EJ Kemp has introduced the concept that it is OK to lie to a tribunal as long as you’re really, really convincing.

I thought trans women had been banned already from women's golf - there was that guy who claimed it was a vendetta against him as he was "the only person affected by the ban" (conveniently ignoring the non-people, i.e. women, who were affected and benefitted). But there are different leagues I suppose, and that is Canada after all.

You don't even have to be convincing. Just make sure that you tell lies that the judge is happy to hear.

I understood your point, but I disagree with the attempt to draw a clean line between “making” the judgment and “producing” the written judgment.

A judgment is a single process: identifying the relevant law, determining the facts, and applying one to the other.

If AI falsely generated legal authorities or reasoning that were incorporated into the tribunal’s reasons, then AI was involved in the judgment-making process itself, not merely its transcription or presentation.

Or in other words, if some of the AI generated results had been correct or different, the judgement may be different.

Given the way employment tribunals work there is a very clear line between making the judgement (i.e. deciding the outcome of the case) and producing the written judgement. The three members of the tribunal decide the outcome of the case together. After they have made their decision, the judge produces the written judgement, setting out the evidence, the tribunal's findings of fact and any decisions they have made on questions of law, and citing authorities in support of their decision.

My money is on Kemp being leaned on politically.

I can't get past the insanity of turning out a judgment that's just basically wrong - quotes invented entirely, others re written to remove inconvenient bits and spin them to say something they don't, major errors - how can you prove your judgment bottom line with that mess? It's not even trying to make 2+2 = 5 it's like trying to make 2 + a cabbage = gravity.

He would have known the judgment would be scrutinised end to end, publicly and not just by the lawyers involved, he knew legal professionals were following the case and analysing it, he couldn't have hoped for this not to be absolutely pilloried. If it was a response to political pressure then it's ended in disaster, and it was not done with the skill you'd expect from a man of his experience. I can only think the poor man's had some kind of breakdown. It would also suggest that it was not possible to make the judgment come out this way using real facts and law.

The really worrying thing is that this appalling mess has been created in law, everyone knows, and the establishment seem to have shrugged and continued the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, entirely unmoved. A judge can do this and it doesn't matter. The SC can release a judgment and it doesn't matter. At which point really that's the end of law, or anything else. Nothing has meaning, nothing holds accountability, nothing is enforceable, no agreed shared lines or codes... yippee kaiyay, here's the wild west.

In which case really, Sandie can tell men to get out of the changing room - law doesn't matter, the EqA is optional, it's all optional, she can say she's giving it deep and serious consideration for a few decades and do what she likes. We all can.

I think, given what public life in Scotland is like, it might have been unthinkable for Kemp to arrive at the conclusions that we all think are obvious. We had the FWS judgment right in the middle of the tribunal, and ScotGov seem absolutely determined to ignore the judgment. I don't think it's necessary for a public official in Scotland to be leaned on.

You're right though, it's the madness of producing this kind of judgment, under what he must have known would be close scrutiny, that I can't wrap my head around. Basic sexism and/or classism (or maybe just doctorism) could have fed into how credible he found the various witnesses, but I would still expect an experienced judge with, as far as I can tell, a good reputation to produce something that looks credible.

I've never heard of a judge self-sabotaging, and it would be unethical for one to do so, but this Bart Simpson book report of a judgment really makes me wonder. It should be career ending, but in Scotland, who knows...

And then state that the golf course is not just male. Because women can clean, cook, and serve an exclusively male membership, it becomes ‘mixed sex’ Aren’t we supposed to pretend that is rational now, a la the ‘logic’ of Alexander Kemp?

Quite the porker, as you say.

@OpheliaWitchoftheWoods Nothing has meaning, nothing holds accountability, nothing is enforceable, no agreed shared lines or codes... yippee kaiyay, here's the wild west.

Well it seems the law has diminishing relevance in this country. I just read a thread about a cat who was shot - potential 5 year imprisonment, but the police weren't interested. And so many shoplifters get given the green light by police forces who won't attend. Bikes get stolen, the victim finds it on gumtree and the police won't do anything, leaving the victim to get it back themselves.

Oh, but if you say something on twitter or facebook the police will come after you! Even if they can't actually find anything wrong with what you said. But as we know, only some people get arrested - others issue death or rape threats with no consequence.

I think he has a daughter who is a lawyer, and with whom he was jointly a director of a company earlier in her career.

The whole thing is baffling to me. I'm inclined to think it's some combination of being leaned on politically, having an innate preference for people of his own social class and, most likely of all: being completely out of his depth and making a grave error of judgement in his over-reliance on AI.

The lawyer daughter is an interesting thought. Did she help Dad put together the complicated judgement, I wonder?

I would say that judges are typically more lenient with people from their own social class than with working-class people. This judgement just highlights it more because Upton is a doctor while Sandie Peggie is a working-class nurse.

I hope not. Assuming she exists and is a lawyer, that would be highly improper.