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

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

Remember Scotland has a separate legal system.

"NEW: Sandie Peggie’s lawyers have now lodged a Notice of Appeal challenging not only the tribunal’s original December 8 judgment, but also the two subsequent “certificates of correction” issued on December 11 and December 23."
https://x.com/i/status/2013322157388869860

Excellent news.

Kemp's incompetence causing extra layers of complications of course

You're going around in circles.

I simply called out the obvious that class has a big part to play in how Sandie Peggie was treated first by her employer, then by NHS Fife's legal team during the tribunal and finally by the judgement itself which is ridiculous and will be appealed in due course.

You then suggest that because the Supreme Court judges, who all come from very privileged backgrounds, came to the right decision in the FWS case last year there is no class bias. I don't agree. It could very easily have gone the other way without input from people like Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel and others putting real-life situations in front of these judges.

The fact that Sandie Peggie and Maria Kelly lost the harassment part of their judgement while the Darlington nurses won theirs despite the Supreme Court ruling shows that judges are not just making decisions based on letter of the law. Other things are at play.

The SNP need the support of the gender-captured Greens to hold onto power and may imho have leaned on Kemp to buy time, just like Bridget Phillipson is buying time for Labour south of the border by delaying submission of the new EHRC guidelines on single-sex spaces to Parliament.

The Greens' support has surged since Polanksi was elected - many are young middle-class college-educated women who have been brain-washed into believing that people can change sex at will and that this is a form of self-actualisation when in reality it is being peddled by men with a cross-dressing fetish.

He's transcompetent!

Excellent news.

And neither side of incompetents want him in their changing rooms!!

I suppose the point is that if you can show that not only was the original judgement full of errors, but that the first tranche of 'corrections' themselves also had errors in them, then you are well and truly demonstrating what a shit-show the whole shambles is. But perhaps there's some clever legal reason too!

If ohly Kemp were more elite.

They could be appealing re the corrections on the basis that some of the corrections were not the type that is permitted under the correction rules.

Changing Not for Gays to Not all Gays is clearly an allowable correction. I'm not so sure about changing the quote from Maya's case and adding extra comments

The Herald’s piece on the appeal…..

https://archive.ph/BvJN1

i think it is tactical. The corrections were not lawful corrections, as per procedural rules.

The unlawful amendments prevent appealing against points that he has changed.

But they may argue that the judgement in its original form allow an appeal that follows a sequential logic to the appeal, where, trying to argue a case on post judgement amendments do not allow a logical process.

And that he may have come to a different conclusion if the amended sections were correctly cited in the first place, but there would be no way of knowing this.

A moving the goal posts argument i think, if that makes sense.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm4xd3y7yeo.amp

Yes 🙌🏼 it’s a total red herring to say ooopps corrected a few wee slips - when the errors go to the very heart of the case.

Kemp just kept handing them an appeal.

I remember when they issues the first correction & I thought why not do it once a properly. Each time the chaos got worse.

And now a judicial colleague was feeding him swill which he helpfully swallowed and regurgitated into the judgment.

Shocking. And for the President to defend…. More shocking

That's almost funny. "The legal team representing NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie have confirmed they will appeal an employment tribunal ruling, as well as two corrected versions of it."

https://archive.ph/rDLI8

You know what?

I'm genuinely pleased to hear this. Sandie has been so brave to take this on, presumably knowing that she would be painted in a poor light by many.

We who can, fight to protect those who can't.

Thank you Sandie, and her backer.

'Sandie Peggie legal team to appeal all three versions of tribunal ruling'

Ooh, <wince> that's gotta sting!

Sandie is going to do a great service for us all.

This will be legally binding on all employers.

More power to her elbow!

So who will hear the appeal, I mean will it be from the same bloodline as the primary case or what? You know where I'm going with this...

You then suggest that because the Supreme Court judges, who all come from very privileged backgrounds, came to the right decision in the FWS case last year there is no class bias.

No. I just suggest it's not evidence there is class bias. I think you were the one to mention that the fact that the senior judiciary are overwhelmingly Oxbridge educated is a problem. There may be evidence of bias in the senior judiciary, but I can't see it in any case relevant to this thread or this forum. I don't see evidence that the senior judiciary don't have their heads screwed on right straight on this issue.

I also think you're mixing up privileged background and privileged education. There's some overlap - less, more recently - but they're not the same thing.

@oscalo that is a very good point - could it be the judicial colleague who provided the “quotes”?

I honestly believe they are going to have to rehear the ET, hopefully with an EAT judgement that FWS means NHSF policy was unlawful.

I think I said previously that my late husband went to Aberdeen to do a Master of Arts in the late '60s.

He was a mature entrant - formerly an estate worker. At a Scottish Lit Society soiree, someone who heard his Aberdeenshire accent made a loud comment about DH being the authentic article. The precise wording escapes me right now, but according to DH the tone was definitely meant to be patronising.

There was definitely class bias there.

I have friends who found the same at St Andrews and I'm afraid that I found the same at Glasgow Uni in the late '70s.

We Scots laud ourselves on how egalitarian our education system is, but the truth is that our 'ancient' universities can be an uncomfortable place for members of the working class.

I've no idea whether Kemp is yet another private school boy, however, or a working class lad suffering from 'the cringe'.

No. Presumably they are aware of the identity of the judicial colleague (and the communications suggest they do) then that is not going to happen - it would simply provide Sandie with another bolted on appeal if anything went wrong!

It is clear that the Kemp decision is an absolute mess.

In terms of class bias in the judiciary, I can only speak for England rather than Scotland. It is a difficult topic, but I will make the following general observations:

1. Judges are generally recruited from the Bar (in recent years more solicitors have been appointed, but this is a relatively new phenomena).
2. The Bar has a historic issue of privilege and class.
3. Both the Bar and the judiciary have made real strides in recent years to better reflect the society they serve, and real progress is being made in that area. There is of course more to be done.
4. There are difficult questions about inequalities that begin earlier (i.e. in education) and how they feed into the law
5. Judges are taught about unconscious bias and how to recognise and challenge it.
6. I agree that the top of the judiciary should be filled with the brightest and the best. They often (although of course, not always) are Oxbridge educated.
7. We are all products of our own personal experiences, judges are no different. It is an imperfect system.

It really is.. I hope the appal docs are published at some point.

I assume BC has filed them? Absolute dream team.