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

Continuation thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584523-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-67

Sure, if Sandie had said on the stand something like "yes, Gillian sent loads of emails, but there was nothing that told me talking to her would be any different from talking to Stuart and look how that went, so I didn't respond" I think she'd be in a much better position.

I wonder how many emails just said "Hi Sandie can you ring me?" Or words to that effect? Despite knowing Sandie didn't want to talk on the phone.

good q

The court, of course, actually sees these emails, which we haven't. I don't recall that Nick said anything about them from his bundle-diving, though he may have noticed.

I also wonder how many of the emails were sent at the point her dad was in the last part of his life?

It does worry me that SP didn’t respond to GT as it’s allowed RCN to say look how much we tried to support her and she didn’t engage! It seems to me they really have to rely on the the poor advice from the 1st rep and his failure to recognise discrimination

@Boiledbeetle NC cited Hendricks vs The Metropolitan Police (2002) was heard at i think the Court of appeal. (Not Hendrix)

it was about being timed out in a discrimination case over sexual harassment involving 11 years of examples.

The court set precedent regarding a defence of a claim being timed out.

in effect as long as there was a continuing act of discrimination linked to each other then the final act of of discrimination is when the clock for three months starts ticking.

aloo one does not require proof of a written policy being in place

in SP claim the clock began when she knew in writing that her application for funding by the union was refused

hence the musing about the e mail that was or was not sent.

But I think they email MG to say to had been refused and MG said they hadn’t even applied yet so the refusal was a known factor.

Ah, I've found the info about the other thing Sandie found in her spambox (it was termed junkbox and I was searching for the wrong thing). In Nick Wallis's version

DH SF won't disagree with MG's file not of that convo on p410 and part of that file note is MG asking SF to put that decision in writing to you
SP yes
DH now your claim form has suggested no reasons were provided until 24 Feb 2025 by NP

… you were however by NC taken to the email chain on p408. We can see there is an email to you from SF on 20 Jan 2025 – he is forwarding an email from NP to SF from 17 Jan in which NP sets out his reasons for the RCN not providing legal support in this case

SP yes
DH now you say you found this email in Aug 2025 in your junkbox. Do you accept now that SF had taken steps to provide you with a written rationale for why your legal support had been refused.
SP yes

Yes to above but, I can only assume (but am not clear) there must have been another linked act of discrimination, after that e mail, as NC would not be arguing Hendricks otherwise.

Oh yes just dawned on me they continued to support her but fiddled around with her requests to e mail the FIFE board and did not consult or copy in wider membership.

Of course, poor SP was dealing with the illness, and death of her father at the time. What a horrible time for her to have this to deal with.

@fanOfBen but if it was for reasons that don’t hold up well to scrutiny, would it matter that SP only belatedly found it in her junk box? Unlike an organisation that is the RCN who cannot provide proof concerning their email with a mysterious number in the address. They said it went through changes which changed into an address, but have no evidence they sent the email to the correct email address.

Also, I find it really strange that DH said that as the SC decision hadn’t been made, the decision didn’t apply to men like DU hanging out in the women’s changing room. Yet, that was false, as it had been FW1? decided that men without their likkle certificates weren’t to be considered as women.

He is a KC, so I wonder what that was about. Why would he be saying false things? I understand he gives a false image of something every now and then by omission, but that was a downright falsehood.

Just catching up and needed to look up how to use adminicle in a sentence. I thought this example was particularly helpful. "The loss of this adscititious adminicle would make the sage's impeccable, but lugubrious bosom vibrate with the horrors of dilution and dereliction".

.

Or perhaps a more topical example. In this case a portion of that silken band was carefully sewn up, as an adminicle of evidence, in the writ recording the transaction.

Ps I was out after lunch so had to speed read.

god knows how NC keeps it all together even with a cold.

Adminicle is the noun, adminical is the adjective.

Yes, it's clear that Sandie was under enormous stress in multiple ways and if she didn't do everything right it's very understandable. Indeed surely it's more common than not for people in the middle of stressful situations where they are being mistreated to make mistakes of their own, but they do muddy the water. Maybe it won't matter here, we'll see.

I think the significance of Sandie finding that in her junk in August is two-fold: (a) it weakens her case directly because she thought they hadn't provided written reasons, but they did (b) it makes her claim that she didn't receive the original "yes we'll support you legally" mail less credible, because it makes it obvious she wasn't in the habit of checking her junk mail regularly. At this point I think the balance of probabilities is that RCN did send it, and Sandie did in some sense receive it, but didn't mentally process it. I wonder whether anyone ever asked RCN to provide proof that they actually sent it to the correct address, or whether the oddness of the number in the To box wasn't noticed until very late?

I agree about DH's apparent confusion over what the Inner House (was it?) had decided was very odd, I thought that too. That said, the idea that either SF or GT were concretely influenced by the specifics, as opposed to having a general sense that these were murky waters, is for the birds, so I doubt it's important.

I think the eunuch was helpful to show that the GI narrative is so entrenched that it isn't questioned. The eunuch was helpful in two ways (IMO):

1. GI narrative is accepted without question, to the extent that 'eunuch is one identity' (paraphrase) is allowed into an official RCN publication, giving it credibility.
2. Even when challenged at a tribunal, staff representing the RCN can't bring themselves to admit that they don't support the identity of eunuch because to do so would be to dilute their wholehearted allegiance to the GI narrative.

The pronouns could have been dismissed as inclusivity, be kind, etc. The eunuch is just batty and indefensible.

Worked since 1983. Tolerating sexual harassment, cheer up love etc etc.

This trans is the same. Mediocre men telling women to cheer up.

Tired of it.

I will dissent. I think the focus on eunuch is unhelpful. It's too far removed from the actual substance of the dispute (as a disinterested party like the judge is likely to see it) that it distracts. A first level ET judge just isn't going to get into that level of societal analysis - it's above their pay grade.

As I see it.

Catching on the coat tails of the thread to say thanks to @nauticant and all the c&pers enabling those of us who have to work (boo) to follow the drama (although I've only got to the end by scrolling by the boring bits, as everyone should try to).

Continuation thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584523-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-67

End of thread.