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 clearly reading the wrong stuff then because I keep reading about the problems with AI. Deloittes in Oz had to give the Australian government a partial refund after a report they commissioned on labour market supports turned out to have made-up references in it. And I gather that the anxiety not to repeat (Amazon’s?) mistake when AI only shortlisted men, all AI recruitment tools now select based on US legislation (the 4/5 rule) because, of course, that applies everywhere doesn’t it? 🤦‍♀️

On a significantly smaller scale friends’ experience suggests that, if you ask AI ‘was [names minor celebrity] born in X?’ It will agree regardless of where X is or if X changes repeatedly.

Wings has done a piece on the complaint response:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-secondhand-amendment/

Is "holding" a document a legal concept? As far as I can see the judicial institute uses those documents so they should come under FOI. They should have nothing to hide.

My reading of this is that Judge Kemp has shown the investigator an email/emails from whence the dodgy text came. OK good. So he didn't really do his homework since he C+P absolute rowlocks into his judgement without double-checking anything. Just getting it in an email does not let him off the hook at all, in my opinion.

Then we still have the question - did the email correspondee (another judge apparently) just make it up (this would be very bad) or did they use dodgy AI search which produced an AI-hallucinated bunch of rowlocks (this would be very bad).

As PP have said, this does not make the issue go away. At the very least it goes from 'one judge making a complete arse of it' to 'two judges making a complete arse of it'.

To whom are these blundering judges accountable?

To Lord Pentland, Lord President of the Court of Session.

Here's some of his work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67289999

Including made up quotes to support your argument is not a simple ‘error’.

You'd think, but this is Scotland. No fuck-up is too large to be swept under the carpet. You'll notice how extraordinarily lumpy Scotland's landscape is.

Thank you. Small world, eh?

'The Court of Session has ruled trans women with a gender recognition certificate do count when ensuring females take up half the posts.

For Women Scotland had argued the guidance was wrong because it undermined the definitions set out in the Equality Act 2010.

But three judges have concluded that it is lawful.'

Including Heid Bummer Pentland. Who would have guessed.

Mind you, Pentland is a Tory.

However, I did wonder if I'd got that right and after some poking around it might be that responsibility and accountability goes up all the way through the tribunals system that is actually parallel to the mainstream courts system.

Didn’t explain myself well there :-) What I meant was that if Kemp was using GenAI to find reasons to rule against Sandi, it would’ve accommodated him and provide those reasons.

I’m not saying GenAI doesn’t get things wrong. It gets things wrong all the time because it is designed to agree with the user. Like the example of asking where X celebrity was born. Plus, it’ll initially be more TWAW because of its ‘inclusivity’ guardrails (though you could get it to reverse that position).

Mind you, Pentland is a Tory.

28 conservative MSPs voted against the GRR bill. Only three voted in favour and one of those has now left the Tories.

Plus, it’ll initially be more TWAW because of its ‘inclusivity’ guardrails (though you could get it to reverse that position).

It is also more TWAW because it reflect the material it is trained on.

I agree with this; what is really unfortunate is that discrimination on the basis of class doesn’t appear to be illegal.

Why doesn’t he have to name his source?

This whole sad sorry business does illustrate how a) gender cult-like beliefs are entrenched absolutely everywhere at the highest echelons of British society (was so so strategic to tie the the T with the LGB and with ‘being kind’) but also, b) if the law can - nearly - be made to say that men can become women, then it can be made to say anything a group of determined people want it to say. Frightening that our rights are resting on the knife edge of a few intelligent judges with integrity.

In Scotland there is the public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities: ’fairer Scotland duty’ in Part 1 of the Equality Act. Public bodies must actively consider how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage when making strategic decisions’

Apologies DrB I misunderstood you - and yes I agree!

In Scotland there is the public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities: ’fairer Scotland duty’ in Part 1 of the Equality Act. Public bodies must actively consider how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage when making strategic decisions’

@MeltedSunshine presumably not if the disadvantaged party is a lower class female criticising a member of the most marginalised group ever?

You honestly couldn’t make it up, could you?

So Judge K asks Judge X for input into a high-profile case and Judge X says 'Sure thing Sandy - here, use this' and gives him some made-up stuff which Judge K then uses and gets into serious trouble.

Is Judge X sitting somewhere going 'heh heh heh, gotcha'😁

Too small in judicial circles in Scotland for anyone to have any faith in the system.

Judge X is either some trans ideologue -

or Judge X is the only other judge in Scotland who had just given judgment in a case on similar facts and grounds considering similar case law with the same Barrister. The hearing was after the Peggie case but judgment rushed out ahead of Peggie judgment.

For what purpose? One might speculate to influence another key judgment in that space. From someone with potential judicial bias. So a trans 🏳️‍⚧️ inclusive anti feminist judge says biological men can hang out and about in mens toilets. And says hey Sandie here’s my homework do you want to copy some of it.

And Sandy Kemp the stooge did a copy and paste job while ignoring any of his judicial obligations you know like having integrity.

Some diversity initiatives are trying to address it eg see the FT's staff recruitment monitoring form.

On the other hand, they monitor gender identity not sex.

Exactly.

Yes, which would mean Judge Susan Walker KC would be the President.

https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/who-are-the-judiciary/list-of-members-of-the-tribunals-judiciary/employment-tribunal-scotland-judges/