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'm actually serious. This case started a long long time ago, when the legal landscape was very different - long before FWS. NHSFife has a new chief executive (or there's one in waiting, if they haven't switched yet) and DU is no longer employed there. I think if a new hearing is set up they will simply want to cut SP a cheque as quickly as possible.

Then there will be the usual platitudes about lessons have been learned, policies have been changed, genuine uncertainty, a very difficult circumstance, do right by all staff, private employment matters, can't comment etc. etc.

Since some of the claims (I believe) are mutually exclusive SP can't in law win on all of them. So GLP and trans Reddit will claim a biased outcome, partial (or, for the GLP total) victory for their side, how DU was chased out of the country and therefore the entire Redisphere is unsafe, and so on.

And they’ll claim that a nurse with a 40 year unblemished career is a racist transphobe with a vendetta. Could sandie even go back to her job in that sort of environment? Kirkcaldy is handy for where she lives, and she’s now notorious and the nhs is women-phobic employer, well, the sort of woman who knows who is and isn’t a woman, anyway.

Bumba, Searlw etc will all remain in post. CEO gets her pension.

it’s not going to be competent never mind just.

They can re-use all the documentary evidence, witness statements, etc. They can also add new documentary evidence, witness statements, etc. if they wish. The witnesses will have to give evidence again as the new tribunal will need to see them in order to judge their credibility. If, say, KS is called and gives evidence that disagrees with what she said last time, Sandie's team will be able to highlight the discrepancy.

The case isn’t just about a cheque settlement there were very specific terms including apologies etc set out by SP’s team to bring an end to the case. I for one would want to read, see if possible IB, KS, management team etc in addition to DU questioned/requestioned on their original evidence now with the benefit of mine and their hindsight . Will get the yarn and knitting needles at the ready as they sharpen up the guillotine.

What terms SP demands aren't relevant. I don't think the tribunal has the power to require anyone to apologize. They can order policies to be changed, and changes in practice, I think, and award money. To the extent that policies and practice have already (so we are told) been changed, all it can do is make NHSFife write SP a cheque to make her square.

I for one would want to read, see if possible IB, KS, management team etc in addition to DU questioned/requestioned on their original evidence now with the benefit of mine and their hindsight . Will get the yarn and knitting needles at the ready as they sharpen up the guillotine.

And that's why I don't think they'll put themselves up for this. If they choose to offer no evidence then it will all be over very quickly.

As @MyAmpleSheep says, the tribunal cannot order NHS Fife or Upton to apologise. The terms set out by Sandie's team were for a settlement, where the amount of money they wanted would be less than they thought the tribunal would order if they won. So NHS Fife could decide to meet Sandie's terms and settle, or they could fight on and hope that the tribunal awards her less money. They might even be sufficiently captured/deluded (delete as preferred) to think they can still win.

I really think the fact that DU is no longer employed there will make a huge difference to NHSFife's thinking. They don't have to stand by him because he's not on staff any more and they can draw a line under it, and him.

They'll still be on the hook for whatever he is ordered to pay to SP, but that's small beer.

I have long thought that the very specific terms including apologies were an easy get-out for entities like the NHS to resolve these cases that were otherwise very risky in terms of disastrous PR combined with unpredictable consequences with the irony being that they were an escape route that the entities simply couldn't take advantage of. They could do many things but they couldn't repudiate gender ideology.

He'll end up being a GP as no employer will want to touch him with a barge pole.

But AIUI nobody can force SP to a settlement so long as she has funds to continue. So her terms are effectively non-negotiable and it just remains to see a. At what point NHS Fife capitulates, or b. At what point the SG tries to squash her, at which point presumably c. She goes to the Supreme Court?

The more likely possibility is c. she wins her case either on appeal at the EAT or after a new hearing, gets money (but no apology as one can't be commanded) and the case is over. Important to remember that a civil suit is really all about, and only about, money.

Access to the Supreme Court is very tightly controlled. It hears only 60-90 cases every year. The civil division of the Court of Appeal dealt with only 470 substantive cases in 2024. Your case has to be quite important not just to you but to the country to get there.

So it's easy to say she goes on to the Supreme Court, but not if the Court says "no you don't."

Who would want to be on his books as a patient?

I was thinking the same!

The handmaidens would. I think Dr Searle, as an example, is insane enough to want to be treated by him to show how deeply she believes.

First he would need a place on a suitable training scheme. Not so easy to compete for when you’ve torpedoed your own career.

Yes, GP isn't an easy no-employer get out when you're not trained as one. He'd need a training contract - and therefore an employer. Once fully qualified he'd need a partnership to agree to take him on (at least in the UK - not sure whether Australia still allows solo GP practices).

GPs aren't employed by the NHS in the same way as hospital doctors, but they are still employed.

Surely he could go and work for Helen Webberley!

I have a feeling his next career move is more likely to be research or education.

Aye, the 'educate yourself' type of education 🙄

Would I be correct to assume that if a new ET was ordered and NHS Fife( and Upton) didn't defend themselves, so Sandie won, then without recourse to an appeal, no legal precedent would be set. As there would be from an EAT.

Yes.

But if a clear argument is made by a different EJ that explains why he or she is following GLP, FWS etc. and finding for SP that’s still helpful.

I think it’s also possible (anyone?) for the EAT to lay down how the law should be interpreted and hand the case back to a new ET to rehear the facts. In Forstater the EAT decided the WORIADS issue and handed it back to the ET. Something similar could happen here. We might get the best of both worlds- a clear interpretation of the law from the EAT and a rehearing on the facts.

I’m so sick of people getting away with bad behaviour. They just move sideways and carry on - like Sandy Brindley and Mridul Wadhwa. They cause trouble, are shown to be wrong but suffer no consequences at all. The same will happen to Potter, Searle and Bumba

Yes, it is possible for the EAT to say that the tribunal got the law wrong, set out what the law should be then send it back to be reheard by a different ET.

Suspect his next career move would be in gender medicine tbh. I can't really see him appealing to a GP practice given the sensitivities around a one-on-one patient situation and the reputation he has created for himself. I would imagine the easiest place for him to find a home would be in a clinic where they all believe that biological sex is a nebulous concept. I imagine he'd be very popular with the patients in there who would see him as some sort of hero or martyr