Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #66

[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

Thread 64: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5583133-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-64 27 September 2026 to 29 September 2026

Thread 65: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5583663-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-65 29 September 2026 to 30 September 2026

Have Peggie's team given themselves the space to argue that the reason Peggie (a) didn't pick up the phone and (b) commissioned outside legal advice was that the RCN had already demonstrated an unwillingness to act for her (e.g. by SF positioning her case just in terms of her alleged discrimination against Upton, rather than in terms of her having been a victim of discrimination)?

If so, then the refusal of phone calls and the commissioning of outside legal advice can't function as a defence for RCN?

Maybe they'll update it, I keep an eye on it.

Quoting ProfLargofesse

I don’t think it can be seen as anything other than discriminatory to have done absolutely nothing to find out if the suspension could be challenged on any possible grounds. They accepted the principle of the suspension as if there was no question ie as if by mentioning men in women’s prisons as an illustration to get her point across she had, in effect, called DU a rapist. But they then did no research. Clearly that is an arguable take and one they could have helped SP challenge if they had been at all supportive in any real sense (other than, poor you, you’re suspended, what a shame).

The Union rep could have thought - she's right, men are being allowed to enter SSS reserved for the opposite sex. This is against the law. This must have massive implications for our 600,000 members, the vast majority of whom are female. We need to get right on this.

Instead he thought, she keeps mis-gendering 'her' on the phone, need to correct that in my report.

I hope so too because as it stands it's missing the best stuff from PM.

Musing further, I suppose, there has to be some judicial common sense in what we mean by the support that Sandie was entitled to expect. To give two extremes: if Sandie expected RCN to provide a hot air balloon to pick up Dr Upton and take him far away, that would uncontroversially be support she was not entitled to expect. If she expected RCN to answer her email, that would uncontroversially be support she was entitled to expect (though even then, "how soon" could be open to interpretation). Between the two there's a large grey area. However, it may not really be as important as I was thinking. Imagine a version A of RCN where actually the whole organisation is a sham - nobody works there, nobody ever answers the phone, nobody ever replies to an email. Or perhaps more interestingly, a version B of RCN where, when someone contacts them, they throw a die to decide whether to offer any support, and only if the die comes up 6 do they do so. If Sandie, unbeknownst to her, was dealing with RCN-A or RCN-B, RCN would have a defence amounting to "yes, she didn't get the support she was entitled to expect, but no, that's not because of her PC, it's just because we're crap". And that defence would work - she'd lose. Although even then, I suppose that to use that defence they would have to actually prove that that was their practice, and not just assert it, otherwise the tribunal might conclude "no union could possibly be this crap, it must have been because of the claimant's PC". Maybe that's why there's still hope here; RCN showed itself to be crap in dealing with SP and they have only asserted, not demonstrated, that they are just as crap with other members who do not share her PC?

A separate question that obviously arises, but is maybe off-topic, is: if your union is just crap, or is randomly crap, how do you win a case against them? I suppose you need a completely different kind of case? There must be some remedy in law against an organisation that takes your subscriptions and doesn't provide the service you thought you were buying. Contract law?

You, us and the red and blue tops too.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/sandie-peggie-case-nursing-union-37720624

Well, there was a special place in hell for women until the TiMs found out about it.

Glad to see the headline when I click through on that is actually [ETA not what the MN preview shows as I type, "Nursing boss refuses to condemn a child identifying as a 'eunuch'", but] "Sandie Peggie case: Nursing union boss refuses to say whether a child identifying as a 'eunuch' was 'abuse' in 'gender ideology' farce" - nobody was asking her to condemn the (hypothetical) child, ffs!

I wonder if the Devil will be held to account at a tribunal for allowing them in.

I've never understood why they give both. Would anybody be "she" as the subject of the sentence but "him" or "them" as the object of it?

Could anyone explain why an RCN witness or anyone for that matter wouldn't answer this question straightforwardly? With a NO.
NC: is it acceptable that a child who self ids as a Eunuch should be affirmed as a Eunuch?

Further to pronouns she and her: just wondered if it's both because of "neopronouns" - those things like ze/zir which most of us wouldn't have a clue how to decline or even what the available selection is.

it makes total sense from Sandie's point of view to only communicate through the written word.

Most of the shit occurred because x said y to z. Add in Beth's contemporaneous notes of conversations and no one actually listening to what she was saying, including the union, and I can see why Sandie wanted everything in writing.

Interestingly different perspectives. I think it is reasonable to think a very basic level of support expected from a union would mean not assuming from the off that you are guilty of what your employer is accusing you of.

How about:

No.
A eunuch is a castrated male human. Castrating boys should be confined to the past, as it is clearly a breach of a boy's human rights to be castrated. I cannot think of a situation where anyone could argue, in good faith, that it is a good idea to affirm to a boy that he has a eunuch identity when that is not his physical reality.

Also. We saw in evidence that when SP asked GT to send some questions to NHSFife around SSS and protected beliefs, GT rewrote them in such a way as to alter the clarity of what was being asked for quite significantly. Imagine what GTs notes of phone call convos would habe done. They would undoubtedly altered what SP had actually said.

Reading that, it makes me thankful for NC's often long winded questions, as she's managed to put into public view some of the most shocking aspects of gender ideology. At times it felt like she was actually making a speech. And then the papers quote her!

If that makes sense...

Well, yes, but maybe they never do question suspensions, but always let the disciplinary proceed, then argue at the disciplinary hearing? I don't think any of the RCN witnesses were explicitly asked that. It certainly did sound as though they were assuming SP was guilty, but I'm not sure it's really been proved that they were doing that, rather than, say, trying to anticipate what the employer's case against her would turn out to be.

I think SF was asked why he didn’t question the line more? His answer was that he was going to wait for i/x but NC pointed out the three month cutoff for LA advice wouod necessitate faster action. He replied something along the lines of the cutoff being extended because of something I cant remember and then agreeing that that could not have happened bcos SP had not been in direct contact since Xmas eve. Or something along those lines. Basically, pointing out that any delay in him doing wider research of finding out more detail with some urgency would be detrimental to SPs chances of getting sufficient support.

@CassOle Agree, it’s barbarism that no right thinking person would tolerate.

And if you replace eunuch and eunuch identity in your statement then that’s the argument for not transing kids.

‘A transitioned TW is a castrated male human. Castrating boys should be confined to the past, as it is clearly a breach of a boy's human rights to be castrated. I cannot think of a situation where anyone could argue, in good faith, that it is a good idea to affirm to a boy that he has a female identity when that is not his physical reality’

Oh yes, I remember - I think what it was, was that he was answering on the basis that the only thing SP could complain about was the suspension, in which case, the date would keep extending as long as the suspension went on. He'd completely overlooked the possibility that SP could complain about encountering BU in the changing room, which was a fixed event getting further away.

He was crap at his job, in this instance, and I think that was clearly demonstrated. Also clearly demonstrated is that RCN was, as an institution, biased against people with GC views. I'm still not really getting what evidence the tribunal needed to hear in order to see whether those things sit in a background that lets SP win, or lose. Maybe the arguments tomorrow will help. Mostly at this point I think I am glad I'm not a lawyer!

I have to say I’m still flabbergasted that PM (as representative of the RCN) didn’t even separate paedophilia out as child sex abuse when she responded to NC’s reference to the + (which includes adult babies, and furries as well) as these being a ‘choice’, and went on to say she was not judgmental. I suspect if you think you can just appeal to the RCN’s staff sense of decency after that, you’ll be whistling into the wind.

I know I am a bit of a broken record on it, but I am flabbergasted by that one.

I wouldn't have known about it – or Stock or Phoenix, or Cass – if we didn't have a Times subscription. That's why most of my friends know nothing about this stuff. They're all reading the Guardian. To be honest, I get more general news from the Guardian, but I kept up the Times subscription for this reason alone.

It’s the hope that kills you.

Most of the RCN witnesses are more likely to feel pissed off with NC and say "we were only being kind fgs."

Can I just say a big thanks to @Boiledbeetle for the support gerbils on the previous thread. I’ve spent the day waiting for my employers bundle (so far no sign of it) and I didn’t think AI gerbils were what I needed (but 💯 were). If my tribunal ever makes it to court (I have a date) I might invite you all 😘