Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #64

[nauticant]

TLDR version: Sandie Peggie vs Royal College of Nursing is currently being heard. The hearing started on Wednesday 23 September 2026 and is scheduled to end on Thursday 1 October 2026.

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 were of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claimed 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 after a prolonged process judgment was handed down on 8 December 2025. That judgment is being appealed and an appeal hearing is expected to take place in 2027.

Additional legal claims have been raised. Sandie Peggie is taking action against the Royal College of Nursing, against three senior managers who were witnesses in the employment tribunal - Dr Kate Searle, Dr Maggie Currer and Esther Davidson, against Carol Potter, the chief executive of NHS Fife, for victimisation, against NHS Fife for discrimination, and against its director of people and culture David Miller for harassment. In addition, Sandie Peggie is being investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council over fitness to practice.

The past proceedings were live tweeted by www.x.com/tribunaltweets. Tribunal Tweets are likely to be providing coverage in current and future proceedings. There's additional information on Tribunal Tweets' substack: www.tribunaltweets.substack.com/.

Links to previous threads #1 to #60 can be found in this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 61: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5472628-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-61 8 January 2026 to 3 August 2026

Thread 62: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5562302-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-following-employment-tribunal-judgment-thread-62 3 August 2026 to 24 September 2026

Thread 63: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5581909-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-63 24 September 2026 to 27 September 2026

Thank you for the new thread. You're doing sterling work.

@nauticant
Thank you for all your work and patience on these threads - limiting your reaction to today's shenanigans to a raised eyebrow is restraint indeed.

@justabaker wondered if the noise we hear is the search going on at RCN HQ for that email. It may also be from the search for evidence of an RCN event celebrating GC views, that NC sweetly assumed they would be able to find and bring to the tribunal next week if one ever existed.

just raced through the last thread. The thing is the only place where there is an actual of the minute report of proceedings is here, and relevant links to outside commentary, and relevant documents.

So people with a be kind or trans rights point of view have no place to go but here.

It is no wonder we all get cross (not least for the self righteous lecturing) because it is a matter of “ponsing” of other (insert GC) efforts.

The interupteron has engaged with phbridge47 so thinks they are legally competent or they are a solicitor.

I really really must resist responding it is so very pointless.

At the end of #63, BiologicallyNebulous mentioned a case where the RCN withdrew all support because a member had spoken to a solicitor.

In the evidence we heard on Friday, the RCN man said several times that if a member had obtained legal advice the RCN would not offer legal advice/support for any court case but would offer representation for internal disciplinary processes and meetings with the employer.

So clearly there is inconsistency in how policies are applied.

What happened to the last half of thread 63. I thought something big had come to light, nay it was a unicorn. FFS

Thank you Nauti

Yup. I'll not comment on the unicorn again, but I did wonder whether the fox hunter had graced us with his presence.

I now try not to interact with unicorns.

Back on topic: the union chap did seem a bit discombobulated.

I had a colleague who once needed representation from his teaching union. In the end, they were so useless (according to him) that he obtained his own solicitor.

When a friend needed representation from her major teaching union, the local rep went to great lengths to reassure her as to how well he got on with her employer's HR department, how long he'd worked with them, how he and the HR person dealing with her complaint understood each other's approach and were good friends...

Presumably this was meant to be encouraging in some way.

Needless to say the union were worse than useless, including giving seriously inaccurate advice. Their help was limited to the offer of handholding in initial meetings. They failed to engage their legal department for her, and she had to take out a loan to cover her own solicitor.

[Reader, she won. But it was ££s.]

I think if there were an email, the RCN would have dug it out by now, if only to use it in their defence, 'see we told you we sent her one.'
The fact that they haven't waved it under everyone's nose might mean there wasn't one. Or it could mean they're so incompetent they can't find it.

I would have thought their willingness to maintain that it was sent suggests they likely have some contemporaneous basis for saying so. We haven't seen all the evidence yet.

Thanks @nauticant doing a stellar job. If someone could refrain from telling the interruptrrons where we are hiding I would be very grateful.

Morning! Hopefully a calm day ahead.

Disclosure has been and gone for the claim. It's at the early stage of the claim, with another bite of the cherry (but with potential costs implications) once litigation has started. If they had the email, they've had ample opportunity to disclose it by now. Producing something this late is exceptionally bad form.

ETA: it should be in the bundle (TW for some! 🤣).

Timings are slightly different in ETs though, as you've a shorter pre-action period.

Yes but it might have been disclosed, we haven't heard / seen all the disclosure yet have we?

Good morning.

Couldn't for the life of me remember why the alarm clock was going off this morning!

Then I remembered!

Can't beat a bit of Naomi Cunningham first thing on a Monday morning.

Bring it on!

It was discussed on Friday, the union man would have produced it then if they had a copy of it, why would they wait?

Checking in, thanks Nauticant.

But it may already have been disclosed and be sitting in the bundle. A witness wouldn’t necessarily need to suddenly “produce” it when the issue was mentioned. We haven’t seen the full bundle or heard all the evidence, so I don’t think we can infer from the discussion so far that no form of documented evidence exists.

morning all

We haven’t seen the full bundle or heard all the evidence, so I don’t think we can infer from the discussion so far that no form of documented evidence exists.

It may not yet not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the email was never sent but I think on the balance of probabilities it's clear it wasn't sent.

I think all possibilities are open for the email (not sent, sent and not received, sent and junk email / accidentally ignored).

As PPs have pointed out, on such an important comms thread, you would have expected some follow up from RCN to check why there was no response.

It seems like we'll get to the bottom of that or at least establish the limits of what is known/verifiable and what conclusions can reasonably be drawn.

I'm 100% sure Stuart Fraser will clear it up this afternoon and be able to produce a list of the many many times they've celebrated gender critical/sex realist views at the RCN, their plans for a green white and purple background RCN badge AND point out where in the bundle the proof they actually sent SP the email, to her actual email address and not a number is.

100% sure.

😶

Thanks @nauticant. Good morning FWR! Very much looking forward to today's witnesses. The RCN had a jolly roadshow locally on Friday. It was called Know Your Worth.
Hollow laughs from staff following this Tribunal. Sweet F.A. it would seem, given the evidence we heard on Friday.
The Walton Centre job evaluation visit | Event | Royal College of Nursing

It appears the plastic policeman is back. We just don’t know.

Not just me who's reminded of Felix then!

If there was proof that the email had been sent in the bundle, NH would have brought it up when questioning SP rather than asking if she'd checked her spam folder.