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

Misconduct examples - just a quick scan.....

A judge didn't ensure secure storage of mail received (assuming they were out) of files at their home address

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151003000653/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/JCIO_press_statement_-_Elaine_Culley_JP_1115.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20151003000653/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/JCIO_press_statement-_Elaine_Culley_JP_1115.pdf

A spokesperson for the Office for Judicial Complaints said: "Mr Fitzroy Stevenson, a magistrate appointed to the Birmingham Bench, failed to comply with an order of the court following a hearing at Birmingham County Court. A conduct investigation by the local Advisory Committee found that Mr Stevenson has failed to demonstrate appropriate respect for the legal processes and recommended that he should be removed from the magistracy. As a result, the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice have removed Mr Stevenson from the magistracy."

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151003024712/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/Magistrate_Mr_Fitzroy_Stevenson_-OJC_Investigation_Statement-_3011.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20151003024712/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/Magistrate_Mr_Fitzroy_Stevenson-OJC_Investigation_Statement-_3011.pdf

A spokesperson for the Office for Judicial Complaints said: “An investigation into a complaint against Mr Ian Kirby JP, a magistrate appointed to the North Surrey Bench, found that he demonstrated an inability to take a dispassionate view of a case. The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice concluded that his actions fell below the standard expected of a magistrate and have removed him from the Magistracy.”

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151003001827/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/Magistrate_Mr_Ian_Kirby_-OJC_Investigation_Statement-_3413.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20151003001827/judicialconduct.judiciary.gov.uk/documents/Magistrate_Mr_Ian_Kirby-OJC_Investigation_Statement-_3413.pdf

Absolutely. But incompetence isn't misconduct. It's incompetence.

I wonder if it was a different judge altogether. Perhaps one with a vested interest…

I can imagine a scenario where Kemp went to Sutherland to compare notes as they had similar cases. She did a quick AI/google for quotes - got the fictitious answers and whacked it over. She then doubled checked and eliminated the nonsense ones before writing her judgement. Kemp just thought "Oh good I've got the wee lassie to do my job for me" and cut and pasted them in.

I saw Wings over Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 suggested it was Judge McCloud - a man who identifies as a female.

But too remote I think. Colleague seems closer.

I don’t think he really was, he was more saying without being named we couldn’t rule him out. And that itself was sufficient of an issue.

I agree colleague sounds more like another Scottish judge and in many ways that is more concerning as it is more likely to be someone else Peggie may come across - be it Sutherland or perhaps Walker herself given the quick response she was able to provide and dismissal of the complaint.

As the complaint about Kemp has been dismissed licketty split is that the end of it? Can the complainant take it further?

The article posted earlier suggested he wouldn’t ask for a review. I suspect at this point it might be better to leave it to the appeal, especially as they are including the corrections in that.

With that in mind I don't expect to hear much from Sandie Peggie and her legal team until the appeal hearing is in sight. They'd not want to give the impression to the Employment Appeal Tribunal that they're prosecuting the case in the court of public opinion.

I am certainly not saying that judges can "misconduct launder". I am not the world's greatest expert on judicial misconduct by a long chalk. However, I think whoever originated the made up quotes may be guilty of misconduct, regardless of whether they invented them themselves or got them from AI.

As a general point, people often want to accuse judges of misconduct when they aren't happy with their decision. Judges shouldn't face a misconduct charge just because of things that can be corrected by an appeal, e.g. getting the law wrong.

The errors in this judgment are bad and certainly call Kemp's competence into account. I expect the EAT to criticise these errors and his misuse of the slip rule in an effort to correct the judgment. I also think there is a very real possibility that the EAT will find that the tribunal was biased. On the evidence of this case, I wouldn't want him as the judge if I was presenting a case in the employment tribunal. But is he guilty of misconduct? I'm not going to say definitively he isn't, but I am not convinced. Certainly most of the things he's been criticised for on here are, in my view, questions of competence rather than misconduct. But I may be wrong.

By the way, I would also like the laughing emoji back. If it had been available, I would have used it in my response to @SexRealistic, but sadly a grin is the best Mumsnet offers.

Well if I was a judge in Scotland I would want the person named, because until then all of them are under suspicion

Happy to see that Jennifer Melle is no longer facing any disciplinary action.

Does anybody know if you can make formal complaints about Unions who fail to provide the support you have paid them for? I mean, should they not at least refund your dues? Nurses’ Unions have behaved disgracefully imo.

Kudos to Sandie - what a warrior!

How many people would be able to deal with the level of scrutiny and mudslinging she was subjected to certainly not Mr Upton.

Sack them both.

It's not a scale issue. It's a different set up.

'The problem with the prosecution system in Scotland is that there is prima facie reason to doubt it. It is led by a member of a political cabinet; the Lord Advocate is a post in the cabinet of the Scottish Government of the day and, as with the other members of the cabinet, it is appointed solely at the discretion of the First Minister.'

https://robinmcalpine.org/scotland-has-a-problem-with-its-prosecution-service/

More elite doesn't mean better just more privileged and more blinkered.

@MartySupremeisascream Y'know Michael Foran teaches at Oxford?
Meanwhile the shall we say, legally unreliable, Stephen Whittle, misled students at the plate-glass Manchester Metropolitan University for years. It's not the case that when recruiting for the judiciary excising those who have attended universities that you dislike would do anything whatever to improve the quality of candidates.

All the Unions need sued. I think Peggie is suing a Union. Upthread someone mentioned another Union case. Unison isn’t being sued and certainly should be.

Taking money from women and failing to defend them time and time again. That’s fraudulent adjacent behaviour in my book.

This constant harping about elitism is tiresome - and more than a little blinkered. I'm old now, but back in the mid 60s as a state school educated, working-class girl from Lancashire (father worked in a paper mill and mother was a school cook) I won a place at Oxford at a time when only 1 in 5 undergraduates were women. I loved my time there, met my husband and made lifelong friends from a variety of backgrounds. I've kept in touch with my old college (now mixed of course) and it puts so much effort into encouraging youngsters from ordinary comprehensives to apply and gives them a lot of support during their course.

Michael is great but he is the exception not the rule.
I don't dislike any university (you're projecting) - my comment was that most of the senior judges come from the same background and have gone through the same elite universities so their shared experiences and biases come into play when interpreting the law. I don't know why that appears to shock anyone.
We live in a very classist society - the monarchy is the first clue.

Leaving common sense aside, research by Bank of Italy economists Guglielmo Barone and Sauro Mocett demonstrated that the wealthiest families in Florence, Italy, in the 21st century are direct descendants of the wealthiest families in the city from the 15th century. Their study analyzed tax records from 1427 and 2011 and found very little change at the top after nearly 600 years.

Privilege means power usually remains in the hands of a small group of people.
There is some social mobility but we don't live in a true meritocracy.
The creme de la creme are the descendants of privileged people in the main and tribalism is universal - each group looks after the best interest of their own tribe - the elite are no different but they have far more power than the rest of us put together.

My original point was that this classism is very overt in the Sandie Peggie tribunal where the rights of a doctor overrode her rights almost completely and I honestly don't think she would be subjected to the outrageous character assassination had she been a doctor herself.

Do we know the timescales for the appeal process?

I think I read somewhere that Sandie is 'technically' still employed by NHSFife, which sounded to me as though she is on paid leave. I am wondering if she will be able to return to work at any point, or if it will be difficult to maintain her NMC registration if she is unable to do the minimum hours required over the years that the tribunal process could run to?

Whether or not the errors in the judgment were from another judge deliberately making up quotes to fit their bias or that judge using AI, both that other judge and Kemp have surely brought the profession into disrepute. I don't know what professional standards judges have to adhere to. Are they still technically solicitors or barristers so subject to the SRA/Bar standards board or whatever it's called?

There are now quite a few cases of lawyers being disciplined for using fake quotes from cases in pleadings. Surely it's WORSE for judges to do this? Judges are still officers of the court arent they?

On a separate note, does anyone know if the Darlington nurses might bring a claim against their union?