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

Yes and the misused slip rule
Someone behind the scenes should be looking at these allegations even if it’s not public
If Kemp isnt told this is wrong then whats to stop them all doing it?

Quite @KnottyAuty

Also I noted that the Dailymail was taking credit for your work saying something about their audit of NHS trusts over trans issues.

I’ll have a look out. All that work and some journo absorbs it as theirs. 👀🤨

Consulting a judicial colleague on points of law is fine. Consulting a judicial colleague on the facts of the case is wrong. Use of AI is wrong, regardless of whether Kemp used it himself or a judicial colleague did. I tend to agree that there should be some consequences for Kemp given the issues in this judgement but I'm not sure what those consequences would be, and I certainly wouldn't want to do anything at this stage that in any way gave the appearance of prejudging the outcome of the EAT.

It seems to me that some of these posts are getting into "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (literally, "who will guard the guards themselves?"). I believe that the only answer for the courts is that the courts guard themselves, but transparency and open justice are vital to ensuring that they are accountable. Appointing anyone else to oversee the courts would involve relying on other potentially flawed authorities, almost certainly giving politicians more chance to intervene and reducing accountability to us, the people.

Indeed - we spotted that appropriation.

Whaaat?!

I hope you're consulting m'learned friends, Knotty! 😁

Cheeky fuckers.

I dont mind media using research taken from here, but literally claiming it as their own is too much.

In Scotland we are well past that point unfortunately.

She pulled Judge Kemp as trial judge so decided to save costs instead….

Better to was 100k on champagne rather than Kemps brand of ‘justice’.

Shame on the Judicary.

I'm not talking about the legal decision. I agree with you that is absolutely the purpose of the higher couts. I'm talking about the abuse of process in misusing the slip rule, and the made up quotes. That shouldn't be allowed to pass without rigorous, transparent investigation even if you think his ultimate decision was correct. Yes, I know 'it was looked into and he didn't use AI', but the questionable content goes far beyond was it or wasn't it AI. And if Kemp didn't make up the quotes then the invisible judicial colleague did - one or both should be held accountable for work that was at best shoddy and potentially dishonest.

Could the judge be admonished in anyway with a parliamentary question?

it would be a terrible terrible precedent for politicians to weigh in on a judicial process.

They are weighing in/influencing judicial process with the Governmental delays issuing latest guidelines and implementing the FWS ruling.

I don’t think that’s the same. The guidance is only important because doofus organizations are hiding behind its non-issuance. The guidance barely features in any judicial process past present or future. It’s almost a McGuffin, at this stage. We know what the law says.

Weighing in on laws is what governments are supposed to do, and politicians are paid for. The government has a whole stable of expensive lawyers and barristers including the solicitor general and attorney general (both politicians) to be concerned with whether the government is obeying its own laws and to defend itself in court.

The bit they’re not supposed to touch is the process by which decisions about whether it or anyone else is obeying the laws are made.

I agree - the British system allows considerable latitude to judges saying and doing outrageous things, for instance Judge James Pickles' comments about rape: "Everybody knows that 'No' can mean 'Not yet, maybe later, or Yes if you try harder'."

Judge Pickles also had a public ding-dong with the Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, who he referred to as a dictator, and in reply was accused of being "a sort of anti-Judge who does all the things that a Judge ought not to do".

Or Judge Denning sending 6 innocent men back to prison to serve 16 years for a crime they didn't commit, on the basis that allowing their appeal would mean that the police had beaten a confession out of them [they had] and the conviction was wrong [it was], which would be such an 'appalling vista' that it was preferable to send them back to prison [he did].

He would have preferred a less time-consuming solution: executing them -
"We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten and the whole community would have been satisfied."

Kemp is not alone, but he's only in the ha'penny place compared with some controversial judges!

The logical conclusion is that more judges must be doing it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0e2rj3zj02o

Please tell me this guidance helps Sandie Peggie?

I assume that as the law hasn’t changed it won’t make any difference.

Also this EHRC guidance doesn’t affect employers.

But I think it helps indirectly. It should already be clear in law that employers must provide single sex spaces. This makes it clear that so must service providers. I would hope that clarity over one should help the other (if Dr Upton can’t strip off and watch women strip off in the ladies changing rooms for the local swimming pool why the blazes should he be allowed to do so at work?)

It's like a jigsaw puzzle, or a mosaic, isn't it? Or dominoes. Or chess. Or jenga. Or... you get the picture😆

The SC ruling referred to the EA2010, Justice Swift/GLP referred to workplace regs - what other pieces of the puzzle are missing to complete a picture where 'sex=biological sex' universally?

Common sense and logic would seem to dictate that if sex=biological sex in one area of legislation, it should mean the same thing across the board. But it looks like it needs to be done piece by piece.

What's the next move?

The GLP case should help re employers, a huge self own for them.

Perhaps the discourse will help the court’s understanding of what it means to balance rights - that this means adequate provision for people who identify as trans, not allowing them to use opposite sex provision.

But this was already made clear in the SCJ and you would hope that a court would be referring to that.

Agree Tea but clearly Kemp and his judicial friend think otherwise

I'm not sure what planet Kemp is living on, however... Planet Me, perhaps?

I put this on another thread yesterday - I don't think things are clear yet. The new guidance says:
2.51 This Code only relates to the application of the Equality Act 2010. It does not deal with the implications of the For Women Scotland judgment for the application of section 9 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to any other legislation.
Does this have implications for the H&S regulations and/or the workplace regs? Particularly given that in recent FayeRC EA case, the judge said
194.1 the Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland clarified the definitions of ‘men’ and ‘women’ in the Act and in the Workplace Regulations (as interpreted by Mr Justice Swift in R on the application of the Good Law Project) as referring to their biological sex. Both of those decisions are binding on this Tribunal. The result of this caselaw is that an employer who permits trans women to use the women’s toilets in effect no longer provides single sex facilities for women as defined Regulation 20(c) of the Workplace Regulations.

(my bold)