Sandie Peggie: Employment Tribunal, associated legal claims, and related matters - thread #68

[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

Thread 67: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5584523-sandie-peggie-employment-tribunal-associated-legal-claims-and-related-matters-thread-67 1 October 2026 to ????

It’s for providers to make their access arrangements clear and meet their legal obligations. These provisions impose no duties on trans people as service users.

Please don’t dress your advocacy up as concern for trans people. The overwhelming response from the trans community in the UK has been one of profound distress about the EHRC guidance and related changes.

To justify restrictions that trans people are telling you cause them harm, then insist you’re doing it in their interests, is to weaponise the language of care against an already profoundly marginalised group.

Paragraph 160 of the FWS SC judgment:

If the EA 2010 can only be read coherently to mean biological sex, the same result must follow. The question that must therefore be answered is whether there are provisions in the EA 2010 that indicate that the biological meaning of sex is plainly intended and/or that a “certificated sex” meaning renders these provisions incoherent or as giving rise to absurdity. An interpretation that produces unworkable, impractical, anomalous or illogical results is unlikely to have been intended by the legislature.

Your insistence that a sign saying women on a single-sex toilet doesn’t mean biological women is incoherent and gives rise to absurdity. It is clear in the judgment. You can fight and cry and whinge all you want, but women means biological women. Moreover, even though the judgment was on a particular point of law and refers to the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010, it has been relied on by the courts as applying to many other Acts of Parliament.

No doubt you will fight and cry and whinge that because I’m linking to the FWS website it’s not a proper source or it’s biased. But here is the list of all the areas that the SC judgment has been held to apply.

https://forwomen.scot/26/07/2026/it-only-applies-to-the-equality-act/

And to every poster, I suggest that the only reply we give Lacksie henceforth is this:

Paragraph 160 of the FWS Supreme Court judgment.

Nobody has the confidence of a non-legally trained person with 'legal' knowledge either from AI or dubious sources Stonewall / GLP etc arguing with a solicitor of many years' standing. It's an interesting study in arrogance, that's for sure.

Paragraph 160.

It is indeed on providers to make their access arrangements clear. Whilst the law does not require service users to comply with the provider's access arrangements, the service provider can legitimately refuse to provide any service to any individual who refuses to comply.

I understand that some in the trans community want a sign saying "women" to include trans-identifying men, but that is only clear if everyone agrees that is what it will always mean. However much you may want it, that isn't going to happen given the Workplace Regulations and the EHRC guidance. So the only way a sign saying "women" is clear is if it means biological women only. If it includes trans-identifying men, it needs to say so. If it does not, it is not clear and therefore does not meet the service provider's legal obligations.

Please read

The legacy of many of these cases is that hospital and other venues may add more individual unisex provision. In the case of toilets the design will be private and resistant to sound as per regulations.

I am hoping that people stop and really think today of all days about whether this is a good idea.

Toilet or changing room cubicles with door gaps are designed like that for health and safety. Communal changing rooms and washrooms, private to the sex they are for, reduces the risk of misuse and the passive supervision is really important if an occupant needs assistance.

Two important quotes:

The Health and Safety Executive states, for Document T : ‘A single-sex cubicle can be built with a gap at the bottom or the top of cubicle partitions and on the cubicle doors as per Type C and Type D of AD T guidance. These two types are clearly labelled as not self-contained and intended only for single sex environments.’

From the literature reference on a government-commissioned report as the evidence for fully enclosed toilets for people with long term health conditions: ‘A better solution, supported by many transactivists, and increasingly found in trendy nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender-segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls’.

The second quote is not even a regulated design in the U.K. (It’s an American source). The private firm didn’t even look at the effects of most long term health conditions including heart disease. This is relevant as up to 11% of cardiac arrests are on the toilet.

Spaces should be designed for health and safety first. This ideology always ends up with us all in private unisex compartments. This is not safety first, this is privacy needs having to overide health and safety for dignity and comfort in a mixed sex environment.

That’s why pictograms matter. The very design regulations of the toilets they depict are different.

People keep @ing and quoting said individual. Which is then responded to. All he has to do is to point out to the mods that he is replying to someone who is quoting him. Which isn't against the rules. He's not going to change his mind is he? The mods are happy as it's generating clicks.
He's wrong, we all know he's wrong. We've all explained why he's wrong in depth, at great length, and at all times of the day and night. He just enjoys restating his incorrect version of the law, and getting people into a right froth. Lurkers can see exactly what's going on.

As pp have said, I also think it's incredibly disrespectful to @nauticant who sets up these SP threads in such detail.

@nauticant
Seeing as there are no further developments due for some months/ into the New Year I would like to make a suggestion.

When this thread finishes, rest up a bit and perhaps only give us a new thread when there are developments around Sandie's case? We will know which is the proper thread to follow. What do you think?

And those with endless patience who want to continually explain the SC Judgement and Workplace Regs to one individual who week after week refuses to take cognisance of their posts, can start their own threads perhaps, and give nauticant a break?

It's nearly pantomime season after all, so quite apt for posts which, in effect, say: Oh no it isn't! Oh yes it is! Oh no it isn't! He's behind you!

Where’s the laugh button 😂

I understand this is your opinion. But you’re presenting your interpretation of the judgments as though it were an explicit ruling of the courts, without identifying where either court expressly ruled what you claim. You may infer these rules from what they said, but that is an interpretative argument, not a factual statement of what either court explicitly said. I disagree with the conclusions you’re drawing, and repeating them as settled law doesn’t establish them. I expect there will be further test cases clarifying these questions. We shall see.

I think we've got several. I like all of them.
😃😆😂

Judge: You are on trial for murder.

Defendant: I must be found not guilty. I was wearing red trousers at the time and the law doesn't explicitly state that those wearing red trousers can be found to have committed that offence.

The fact you are not a lawyer is apparent from your demands for regulations setting out various things. Much of UK law is not written down anywhere. It is common law. Lawyers know and understand how it works.

The courts have ruled that the Workplace Regulations refer to biological sex, along with a number of other Acts of Parliament and statutory instruments. The EHRC guidance is not law, but the courts are required to take it into account and treat it as an authoritative interpretation of the Equality Act. The guidance requires clear communication of the status of a facility.

You want to argue that service providers can label a facility "women" when it is actually, in law, a mixed-sex facility and that this meets the requirement to clearly communicate the status of the facility. If you think the courts would buy that argument, you will be sorely disappointed if they ever have to rule on the subject.

Again, your prediction of how a court would rule on that specific question is an interpretation, not as yet an established legal finding. Comments about my qualifications don’t change that fact. If the question is tested in court, I suppose we shall see.

Short cuts include buying a perfectly acceptable pre-made pie crust and buying a tinned of puréed ready to use pumpkin! No need for paper towels/kitchen roll or a food processor.

Spices include cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. A tsp each. Warning: eating pie can result in slumping in the sofa and entering a food induced coma.

Makes all very easy 😁

I'll go for the shortcuts as I've no youngsters about to carve a pumpkin for this year. Also less risk of poisoning someone given the state of my banana "fool proof" muffins earlier today!

I do quite fancy trying this. Thanks @DrBlackbird

So put your money where your mouth is and bring a test case then, what's stopping you? You are so convinced you are right it should be a slam dunk.

Until that happens public institutions, businesses, associations, etc., will apply the law as per the SCJ clarification, the EHRC Guidance and their own independent legal advice which is the complete opposite to your expert insight. Odd that so many legal brains differ in their intepretation and imposition of the law to you, I am sure they would be delighted for you to put them right.

Get the full legal clarification that your opinion is the absolute correct legal one and must be abided by.

It would be sensible to stop the progression of this series of threads while nothing of substance is going on but that would only work if people would say to themselves "that's it, it's time for a pause, I won't post any more no matter what others post themselves".

Clearly this won't happen. It's likely there would be posters, including those not posting in good faith, setting up a continuation thread themselves to continue with increasingly irrelevant posts.

Might as well have the main series of threads with some sustained stretches of desert rather than having strange off-topic extra threads breaking up the continuation.

Apologies nauticant.

Ha! I sincerely wish I could. Sadly I don't have that kind of money. If I could find someone like JKR to bankroll it maybe I would - but this side of the fence doesn't have that kind of financial backing unfortunately

Why haven't you approached GLP? If it is the slam dunk you think - they'd definitely be up for a bit of fundraising...

Just buy a tin of Libby's pumpkin and use the pie recipe that's printed on the tin.

ETA

My granny used to bake pumpkin pie quite often using tinned pumpkin. It's so easy that I used to bake it at uni.

Well they are already working on it, but sadly I don't really think they are necessarily the right outfit to do so. Anyway I see they have just been refused the right to participate in an appeal of the High Court judgement, but two trans people have? Possibly for the best.

Thanks @nauticant. I do hope that people heed your words. 💐

Mind you, one problem with my approach is that it doesn't deal with what's happening: to make these threads infuriating to read so that posters get sick of looking at them and walk away