Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton, following Employment Tribunal judgment - thread #61

[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 #60 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 60: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5461133-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-60 16 December 2025 to 8 January 2026

Do we know the time of the deadline to submit an appeal? Midday? 5pm? Midnight? Asking for a friend (well, my dog, who needs to know when he might get a walk)

Court deadlines are usually 4pm.

Fifer :

"Ah mind this one time ah did mah maths homewark on the Moffat & Williamson school bus. Seat shooglin aboot like yer da at a weddin disco, pencil goin through the paper cos ah've only got ma teenage mutant ninja turtles schalebag tae lean on. Copied the answers aff a loddie that wisnae the best at the sums, ken, hauf were wrang, didnae care a shite, copied verbatim anyhoo. Scrawled the last answer doon, jist as we swerved up the drive ae the auld Auchmuty past the Jannie's cottage. Wis far fae ma finest hour, academically, ken."

"Still better than thon judgement tho, by a hill, a field and ten dreels"

"Sake min. Ah've stopped ma dug eatin better looking piles of fox shite than whatever that wis that Big Sond pit his name tae"

"Sake min. Ah've stopped ma dug eatin better looking piles of fox shite than whatever that wis that Big Sond pit his name tae"

Nice one!

@BezMills 😂😂😂

Thanks for the on point analysis Bez. Any chance of The Fifer becoming an ET Judge? He seems far more qualified than Kemp - who still seems to be copying his homework from a dodgy pal almost half a century on from becoming a solicitor.
Sad times.

Just wondering as we wait, where is the information about the appeal having been submitted likely to come from? Margaret Gribbon?

Is the wording of the appeal likely to be made public? Quite curious about whether it will mention the latest fiasco.

It's interesting that there's no obvious route for getting honest answers to a complaint about a tribunal ruling. You'd think that there was some bit of law somewhere that said "If a ruling contains provably false information, then claimants have the right to know how the error happened and to receive such-and-such form of redress."

Perhaps the inclusion of false information is considered such a bizarre and unlikely error that nobody thought to make a provision to deal with it. Or perhaps they simply want to hide the truth.

Using made up information and claiming that as law and the reason for a judgement is corruption. Everyone has an interest in that, not just those immediately involved.

Interesting decision re: suspected use of AI following a recent tax tribunal...

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tax/hmrc-policy/tribunal-slams-careless-ai-use-by-advisers?cm-uuid=5530cb81-d6ae-4fbc-98f1-7055d5dd9994&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AWUKMON190126&utm_content=AWUKMON190126+CID_3d0f74a5faa34c99468e27a44d4460c8&utm_source=internal_cm&utm_term=Tribunal%20slams%20careless%20AI%20use%20by%20advisers

I saw that this morning too @nicepotoftea and then got distracted from posting it on here by tax returns 😂, although IIRC HMRC aren't averse to using AI themselves Tribunal directs HMRC to reveal AI use in R&D tax credit rejections

It's gone 4...

I was wondering if the deadline has been extended due to the corrections?

I’m not sure there will be an announcement re appeal. Kelly v Leonardo was to be appealed and no fanfare there…..

The vast majority of the judiciary come from very privileged backgrounds so the point I made about class prejudice is very pertinent.
75% of senior judges attended Oxbridge universities, far exceeding their representation in the general population.

The trans movement itself is a top-down elitist movement overwhelmingly supported by academics who should know better and it is women and girls at the opposite end of the social stratum who suffer most of the negative consequences of this men's sexual rights' movement.

Agreed. Sandie has already announced her intention to appeal, so I'm not expecting any announcement from her or her team that she has applied. I don't know what people thought they would see today.

Sandie and the Darlington Nurses were in the gallery of the House of Lords today (mentioned by Baroness Stedman-Scott in this extract from Hansard):

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-01-19/debates/B5DDC815-46C1-4D0B-912F-4F22491C03E6/EqualityAndHumanRightsCommissionCodeOfPractice

75% of senior judges attended Oxbridge universities, far exceeding their representation in the general population.

I think it's better to get a wider cross section of the population to attend the best universities. I don't want my judiciary to be truly representative of the population. I especially want my senior judiciary to be drawn from the the intellectual crème-de-la-crème, unrivaled in academic rigour and competence in interpreting the law.

Otherwise we'll end up with more Kemp-like disasters.

The crème-de-la-crème as you put it, are simply elitists looking after their own kind like Dr Upton. Kemp is simply doing his political masters' bidding and he will be their fall-guy.

When you only recruit people who have been through the same "educational process" into any sector you end up with a very homogeneous-thinking / blinkered group disconnected from the reality of the lives of the people they are supposed to be protecting, as we have amply seen over the past 10-15 years.

It doesn't matter if some of them are women or if some of them come from state schools as minority groups overwhelmingly adopt the mindset and mannerisms of the group they are so keen to assimilate with rare exceptions.

On the contrary, there are none so fervent as the newly converted / upwardly mobile wannabes.

When you only recruit people who have been through the same "educational process" into any sector

It might be worth thinking then what kind of educational process is appropriate to becoming a High Court judge and how it would look different to the difficult, selective, rigorous legal training offered by Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

you end up with a very homogeneous-thinking / blinkered group disconnected from the reality of the lives of the people they are supposed to be protecting

I think we may be talking at cross purposes then. Politicians may have as their purpose the protection of people. The Judiciary isn't there to protect people at all. It's only there to interpret the law. To be frank, once judges see their role as protecting people, they're likely to go off on one, like Kemp has. Remember, he said wanted to make a real difference to employment law, in a media interview. If that's the case he should stand for parliament. Not be a judge.

Also, note, Kemp took his law degree at Aberdeen. Not an Oxbridge graduate.

The hansard excerpts linked above refer to the Newsom case. Miranda Newsom, who, assuming that the Supreme Court had settled the matter, challenged a biological male in the female-only changing room at a council-run leisure centre in Southwark and received a torrent of abuse from the man, yet it was she who was punished and barred from the gym?

There is a petition on Changeorg to get SOuthwark council to fix their policies so that women have single sex changing rooms if anyone fancies googling and signing it.

Kemp is just another wannabe doing what he is told in the hope of personal advancement.

The five Supreme Court Justices in FWS, a decision of which we approve, were: Lord Reed, President Lord Hodge, Deputy President Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Rose, Lady Simler. They graduated from Edinburgh, Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge and Cambridge, respectively. Hodge did graduate research in law at Oxford. I don't think their judgment is open to criticism, personally, and I don't see class bias in it.

Kemp is a lackey doing what he is told in the hope of personal advancement.

If he went to Oxbridge, his judgement would be a damning indictment of the class system in the Judiciary. Because he didn't, he's a lackey for those who did. It's lose lose, isn't it?

Honestly - I don't think the class bias you're looking for in this topic is very visible at the top ranks of the Judiciary.

Honestly - I don't think the class bias you're looking for in this topic is very visible at the top ranks of the Judiciary.

I think you could plausibly argue it's a lot more visible in the Civil Service, say.

Did you watch any of the Post Office enquiry evidence? Some civil servants gave oral evidence, including some very senior ones, most of whom were very un-plummy.

It's not a scientific survey by any means, but it isn't often we get to watch that cadre and hear their voices; I was surprised.