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

I would have expected the BBC to be able to spell "judgment" correctly. Or has UK usage changed?

Both spellings are correct words, but the one without the ‘e’ is usually used for judicial rulings.

My understanding is that courts issue "judgments", never "judgements", and everyone else uses their judgement, not their judgment, iyswim.

Every day is a school day!

Everyone calm down, it's all fine and dandy:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/71c3252b-cc54-4f10-951e-9704cb3d55f9?shareToken=dfffd91ccb139fa7b478bcda742508a8

Gosh, every new report just makes it look worse, doesn’t it.

Ewan Kennedy's comment (he is the person that submitted the official complaint about Kemp):

A solicitor or advocate who did this could expect severe sanction; the accurate use of words is the essence of what we do, and in other walks of life this would be seen as fraud.

Yes, quite.

And yet we find that there are no consequences for Kemp's actions.

Faith in the judiciary has been seriously eroded by this. I don't think whoever handled the complaint appreciates this.

Without knowing who the ‘judicial colleague’ is, how can we have trust that Peggie’s appeal or, if necessary to rerun the ET, that won’t be held in front of that judge?

Good point.

The whole system looks to be corrupt as anything and that they'll make up the most obviously fake things then close ranks when called out on it.

Good on Ewan Kennedy but what a horrendously poor response. Just not acceptable in any way.

These judges clearly think they're above the law.

Didn't Kemp also make a correction on the Forstater case? Wonder why they omitted that one?

What on earth is this? 4 days to look into and settle a professional misconduct complaint?!

A relative of mine is approaching 11 months under investigation by their regulator after vexatious complaints by a colleague. Most of these were recently found “no case to answer” but the process is set to grind on for at least another month, but potentially another year.

Surely Walker’s complaint has not even entered the formal complaints process?

is this like when you complain to the school but because you don’t use a particular magic phrase, it’s not considered a “formal complaint”.

FFS these systems are rotten to the core

Yeah, "look into" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. "Look past", perhaps.

11 months? That is nothing. I know someone waiting for a regulator response to vexatious complaints submitted in 2022. Every few months or so they get an email saying ‘sorry for the delay, we will be in contact in the next six weeks’.

I agree, four working days mostly between Christmas and New Year hardly seems a full investigation. But also saying they reject the complaint because it is about a judgement but doing a cursory response anyway to get an excuse in…

Very good point

One could argue that this response to a valid concern raised was very much in line with Kemp's fictitious, false, lying, incompetent judgement that undermines women's rights. The whole 'we don't care and we're not even going to pretend that hard that we're bothered about the law, Nolan principles, accountability or democracy'. (or competence)

It's less a democracy with checks and balances and more 'we have always been at war with Eastasia' with the boot of the lanyard class on the neck of working class nurses like Peggie. Just appalling.

I have no doubt that Cunningham is on the case.

The surviving tiny Pollyanna-ish part of me wonders whether at least some TRSOHers look at this grotesque, mendacious, shameless corruption of due process, the judiciary and the law, and think "Gosh, maybe this has gone a bit too far and doesn't bode well in the wider context of a functioning society!"

And then I remember that these Righteous folx are pious frauds who positively revel in their duper's delight and would rather burn down the universe than admit any slight imperfection in their Bundle of Good Beliefs that make them A Good Person.

slightly off topic but is there a thread for jennifer melle, who has her disciplinary hearing today?

Cunningham?

Is she not involved in the appeal?

Ah sorry, was thinking judges rather than barristers. I am not sure if she is directly? Or am I confusing cases? I thought someone else was taking over?

No NC still on the team Ben Cooper KC has joined as he is a silk and an expert on appeals cases

The response is correct an appeal is the right way to deal with this.

Naomi and Ben, probably with Michael Foran, are going to take the judgment apart line by line, false quote by false quote.

Yes. That is not to say that a judicial misconduct investigation could not arise out of findings upon appeal, but to instigate a regulatory investigation at this stage is rather putting the cart before the horse.

Great report

I hope they keep the pressure up until we find out who the judicial colleague is.