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

The SNP won our council by-election yesterday...but turnout was only 22%. Reform came second; Labour third.

Folk round here are scunnered by all the parties. IMO, the NHS Fife debacle and the prison situation has lost the SNP many of its voters.

However, most SNP MSPs are failing to engage when challenged by their constituents. Until Swinney can publicly recognise that Isla Bryson and Katie Dolatowski are men, there's no hope for his party.

Don't know whether it will be addressed directly, but in some senses it isn't relevant. What matters is that the judgment included hallucinated quotes and quotes edited to give a misleading impression. Where those quotes came from doesn't really matter for the appeal as far as I can see.

I don't see any has mentioned the challenges of appealing a verdict of which there are three different versions. Do you have to file three different arguments? Given the chain of reasoning varies between all three (not enormously, but somewhat) how will that be managed? Who's paying for all the extra hours to make an appeal make sense against a moving target?

They do keep getting challenged by the other parties - Pam Gosal and Douglas Ross in particular, perhaps others. In all the clips I've seen, questions are not answered properly and just given the brush-off.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2301919456985367

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1502039927809657

From one of Pam Gosal's facebook posts in September (I'm not sure how to share a whole post on here, rather than just the video):

"Here we go again, we’re back in the Chamber calling on the SNP Government to properly implement the law.
It’s been 5 months since the monumental For Women Scotland judgment on the definition of the word ‘woman’ yet the SNP Government are dragging their heels.
In the SNP’s Scotland we have:
Nurses suspended for not wanting to change in front of biological males
Dangerous men in women’s prisons
Transgender offenders choosing the sex of the officers strip searching them
Schools told to let pupils use whichever facilities they ‘feel comfortable with’
Teachers branded transphobic for raising legitimate concerns about unisex toilets
Government lawyers arguing men can become pregnant
It is time for this nonsense to stop."

And from Douglas Ross yesterday:

"I submitted three urgent questions and requested an FMQ this week to challenge the SNP about their belief that male-bodied prisoners should be housed in female prisons.
All were rejected by the Presiding Officer which leads people to question why she is shielding ministers from scrutiny on this important issue."

https://www.facebook.com/reel/25582914974704949

I wonder if his "judicial colleague" is a cross-dresser?

Both spellings are UK English, the z form's a tad archaic but it's not "American", it's simply the persistence of one particular form that English speakers took to the Americas. I use them both without noticing which one I'm deploying but I'm dyslexic so let's all just be grateful that I spell them both right most of the time - it took a lot of effort. 😂

22%! Holy moly.

I'm unsurprised, though.

@BezMills What a lawyer avoids saying is exactly what his/her opponent should zero in on.

Pam Gosal is doing great work. She is persistent, too.

Thanks for writing this. My inner pedant is having a day off. 😁

The z form is still very current in UK maths/science publishing, where it gives a kind of international or transatlantic flavour.

Does anyone 'officially' know if (Maria) Kelly is appealing her verdict?

Probably not phrased that correctly, but I've heard it mentioned a couple of times, but not seen anything definitive.

This is true, but it's noteworthy that he'd consistently used the s form in previous judgments.

@ProfessorBinturong Could easily be like me or the journal authors @DustyWindowsills mentions & not pay much heed to which he uses because both are correct. Cut & paste from his "judicial colleague" is just as likely, I do hope that we finally learn who wrote what & to what exactly they referred.

ETA: a change of device could cause it too, most laptops load default US spellcheckers.

New device, possibly. Not paying attention would have led to a previous mix, not consistency.

Meanwhile the University of Strathclyde thinks some men can menstruate and go through menopause.
"The University of Strathclyde said: “The university is a socially progressive, people-oriented organisation, which values the diversity of its student and staff populations and seeks to create a culture where everyone is welcome and thrives within the institution.”

I miss the days when universities considered themselves to be truth-seeking organisations.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/4014efb6-5e28-485f-a4f5-0e6a71521a6d?shareToken=2a54a87b43790d01a30c389994c17187

'Socially progressive' = brains have dropped out really. How have so many, apparently intelligent, people gone along with this nonsense? It will never not baffle me.

Another issue with -ise/-ize is that, in addition to being legit in some English contexts (e.g. Oxford University Press has always used it), a range of apps will autocorrect in one direction or another, depending on their settings. Most notably Word. It's easy for people (especially if they are themselves 'bilingual' in the sense of tolerating both variants) to let apps just do their own thing in this respect, without noticing what changes have been made. So I don't infer anything at all from -ize in the judgement.*

*Or is is 'judgment'?I think that this variation for legal usages is one of the silliest things, so I'm deliberately not checking which is the 'right' one to use.

Or Judge K himself?
At least this would explain the otherwise incoherent ramblings to defend the indefensible

Wow has that got its own thread?!? It really should!

I didn't make a separate thread for it because I felt like it is part of the entire malaise that is afflicting Scotland where every institution seems to be staffed by Isla Bumbas.
I'm out of the house for the next hours you're welcome to use the sharetoken for a new thread if you want to.

Does the judicial colleague have to be another judge? Or can it be a solicitor or a KC?

If Kemp is biased, he might well have gone to someone who he knows is an ideologue.

Could it have been Robin Moira White, for instance?

https://www.foi.scot/statement-scottish-government-compliance-decision-2812025

Scotgov may be held in contempt of court if they dont sort it out.

A judge would not describe a solicitor or a barrister as a judicial colleague.

What happens if they are held in contempt of court? Does someone get fined or go to jail? Does the court have powers to send in commissioners or whatever to get the job done?

I'm thinking of NHS Fife refusing to disclose information fully during the hearing. Time and again. Without consequence. They could have been held in contempt of court but would that have made the missing emails turn up?

What would the impact of contempt of court be? Or is it just like saying "i am getting very cross now" ?

In general, the public humiliation of being found in contempt is viewed as enough punishment for public bodies. A fine is unlikely as that would only penalise the taxpayer. The court does have the power to send anyone held responsible for the contempt to prison for up to 2 years, but that is also unlikely.