Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #67

[nauticant]

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.

A second Employment Tribunal, Sandie Peggie vs Royal College of Nursing, has just been heard. The hearing started on Wednesday 23 September 2026 and ended on Thursday 1 October 2026. It is possible that a decision will be handed down before Christmas of this year.

Additional legal claims have been raised. Sandie Peggie is taking action against three senior managers who were witnesses in the first 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 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

Thread 66: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584074-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-66 30 September 2026 to 1 October 2026

DH is on cooking duties tonight, he has just gone to the supermarket and asked what I fancy for dinner. I replied definitely not rat. He was somewhat bemused.

It's not fair to force men to use a floor-mounted WC, with - it would appear - little likelihood of success.

🤣

Fair's fair - men's rights are human rights - let's hear it for the boys

On a culinary note - they eat guinea pigs in Peru. Restaurants have roasted guinea pigs on skewers outside to entice passing clientele.

Probably best not to bring sensitive pet-loving children on a gastronomic tour of Peru😬

How about a nice rat atouille for dinner?

No it was specifically put in for heterosexual sex. Equality! Homosexual sex was already illegal in toilets accessible to the public or part of the public. It didn’t stop men arguing adding this section was discriminatory towards men though!

Absolutely. In fact following a recent visit to the new V&A East museum, I felt (as a man) the need to contact them about their toilet provision.

Sadly, the only provision I found were individual rooms with a fixed to the floor wc. Being over 6

Apologies my whole message didn’t post.

Absolutely. In fact following a recent visit to the new V&A East museum, I felt (as a man) the need to contact them about their toilet provision.

Sadly, the only provision I found were individual rooms with a fixed to the floor wc. It’s possible I missed a men’s toilet so apologies if that is the case. But being over 6’ I would much prefer to use a urinal, in fact my wife is constantly amused that I would rather use a public urinal than even our home loo. Why don’t homes have smart urinals?

Also our trip was made at the peak of the heatwave and I also pointed out that it seemed ridiculous to have to flush after each use when waterless urinals are available.

As an aside, she really couldn’t understand my excitement of finding urinals on the the Japanese Shinkansen trains, what a revelation.

I thought of Keeptoiletssafe during a recent visit to a museum. The women's loos had 1 door-gap cubicle that appeared to be set up as a fully accessible one (I didn't check for a pull cord, but it was certainly much larger and more comprehensively equipped than the usual ambulant version). The only slight drawback was that the women's loos as a whole were up a flight of stairs.

Am I remembering correctly that there were separate doctors and nurses changing rooms? And so Dr Upton was not only using the incorrect one for his sex, but was also using the nurses changing room instead of the doctors changing room? I remember wondering why more wasn't made of the fact he wasn't using the doctors changing room.

No I think your memory is playing tricks @HelpMeINeedWine . It's not common in my experience to have hospital changing rooms split by professional group. It's male & female, women & men. You often don't coincide with the other professional groups because shift change will be at different times, so it tends to be doctors in at one time, nurses/midwives whoever in at another time.

I've sent the dog out to source some fresh rat for tonight's dinner. I am now worried that @Boiledbeetlemay be a trauma survivor given her username.
Sending thoughts and prayers for any previous boiling you may have suffered

I am remembering the same - Kate Searle and others backing DU were unaffected by his choice of changing room because they were using the female consultants changing room.

There was neither a "female consultants changing room" nor a "male consultants changing room" as each consultant had their own office that provided privacy for changing away from Upton.

How would a biological woman know whether the changing room labelled 'women' was a 'women and transwomen' changing room or a 'women who have always been women' changing room? If they are both labelled 'women', what would the distinction be? Furthermore, how would the transwoman know that they were allowed in the changing room A that was labelled 'women' but not the changing room B that was labelled 'women'?

I can't think of one woman who would prefer to change in front of other women, let alone in front of men. Why is it that some men are desperate to be able to change in front of women?

I was just about to say@Keeptoiletssafe I probably won't be the only one, but I think of you fondly every time I use the🚽.

I see I'm right!

Just the memory of the summer of '76 brings me out in hives.

!

There was an all-female-staff locker room, which was the main stage for events. This was used for changing by nurses, junior doctors, and presumably HCAs.

There was the official women's changing room, down several rarely-used corridors in the basement and never used by night staff.

There was a mixed-sex consultants' lounge, which had a small side room that some consultants changed in. Other consultants and the senior nurse who made the decision to allow Upton into the main locker room changed in their own private offices.

"tyats not what the law says, and the high court specifically contemplated the lawfulness of the opposite."

I've read it several times and I really don't think it says what you think it was saying. I think it was contemplating whether it would be discriminatory to men to exclude some groups of men from the changing room (biological males who do not identify as women) but still admit others (biological males who identify as women). It was saying that if the changing rooms were of comparable standard and there was therefore no detriment to the biological men who identify as men in using the changing rooms labelled men, then they couldn't argue that they were being discriminated against by being excluded from the changing room labelled 'women'. That was not saying that therefore there would be no detriment to biological women from having men who identify as women in the changing room. That is why it goes on to say that it would therefore be a mixed sex changing room even if it was labelled 'women'.

There was no contemplation on whether it would be legal under the Workplace Regulations 1992. It was a contemplative musing on whether, technically, a man could claim discrimination for being excluded if they were not a man who identified as a female, when a man who did claim to identify as a woman was admitted.

Only if my Prawn Cocktail can go in:

The Purist’s Prawn Cocktail (1960s Statutory Standard)

Prep time: 10 minutes | Cooking time: None | Serves: 4

There are those who seek to amend the classic statutory definition of a British Prawn Cocktail by smuggling avocados into the glass [Chel11b, Del08]. We reject this text-amendment entirely. The avocado is a later, trendy, continental intrusion trying to identify as a foundational British ingredient [Chel11b]. In this kitchen, we abide by the strict, un-amended 1960s framework popularised by Fanny Cradock: lettuce, prawns, and pink sauce [Chel11b]. No additions, no modern revisions, and absolutely no green mush.

Ingredients

• 400g cooked North Atlantic prawns (thoroughly defrosted, peeled, and chilled)
• 1 crisp iceberg lettuce (finely shredded)
• A pinch of cayenne pepper (for the closing argument)
• 4 lemon wedges (to serve)

For the Marie Rose Sauce:

• 150g mayonnaise
• 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• A few shakes of Worcestershire sauce
• A squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Method

1. Laying the Precedent: Shred the iceberg lettuce and divide it evenly across four distinct glass bowls. This forms your clear, unchanging foundation.
2. Drafting the Sauce: In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. Do not overcomplicate it. The sauce should be a nostalgic, unapologetic pastel pink.
3. Establishing the Material Facts: Gently toss the cold prawns into the Marie Rose sauce until every single one is uniformly coated.
4. Final Judgment: Spoon the dressed prawns directly over the bed of lettuce.
5. The Seal of Authenticity: Dust the top with a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper. Garnish the rim of each glass with a single lemon wedge, and serve immediately with absolute structural integrity.

For clarity, the 'accessible' cubicle was in a row of ordinary cubicles within the single sex-sex space. First time I've spotted that KTS-approved layout. There was also a separate, fully enclosed, actually accessible room that didn't involve going up steps.

I have a question re. individual toilet safety. I understand the risks of floor to ceiling doors. What I was wondering, is that in the hospital I use, there is a 24/7 shop that is unmanned. It works by assigning a pixel cluster to a person/group as they enter, then it tracks their movement through the store so it knows what they're purchasing. Is there any feasibility in having some sort of monitoring system that is pixel cluster based (so not image based) so that it could detect if there was no movement for a period of time, or if the level of the person dropped below a level (i.e. they fell on the floor) then alarmed?

I'm just thinking that if organisations will insist on using individual cubicles, there will need to be a way of making them safer.

💐

I love a prawn cocktail with chunky white bread. However, worcestershire sauce is the stuff of the enemy, so could we amend it somehow?

Bigly flowers! How?

<sucks in air through teeth>

That's not going to be cheap love. We'll have to take it to the SC. And that will probably make it the most expensive prawn cocktail in history.

Would you like a rat skewer starter instead?