Sandie Peggie vows to fight on as legal team say they will appeal employment tribunal judgment
Sandie Peggie’s legal team confirmed she will appeal an employment tribunal ruling against NHS Fife as supporters condemned an error in the case as “unforgivable”
Sandie Peggie has said she “won’t be giving up this fight” and her legal team has announced they will appeal against the ruling in her employment tribunal.
Solicitor Margaret Gribbon described the judgment as “hugely problematic” and said work to overturn the ruling is already well under way.
Meanwhile, prominent women's rights campaigner Maya Forstater supported the move, and said employment judge Sandy Kemp must explain a significant error in the ruling.
Ms Peggie was suspended from her job in a Fife hospital after she complained about sharing a changing room with transgender doctor Beth Upton, a biological male who identifies as a woman.
Earlier this week, Ms Peggie won a claim for harassment against NHS Fife but other allegations of discrimination and victimisation were dismissed.
The more than 300-page judgment in Ms Peggie’s case against NHS Fife quoted a passage from an employment tribunal brought by Ms Forstater.
But this passage did not exist either in the original ruling or Ms Forstater’s appeal.
On Thursday the judgment in Ms Peggie's case against the health board was updated to remove wording purportedly from this earlier tribunal case.
The tax lawyer, who is now CEO of sex-based rights campaign group Sex Matters, said a clear explanation must now be given for the incorrect wording.
She said: “I know my judgment back to front. So when I read that, I thought, ‘I don't think that was in my judgment’.
“And then I searched, and I sent it to my lawyers, and this wasn't in the judgment.
“I didn't want to go out and make an accusation against a judge without checking it.
“It's now been removed with no explanation as to how it got in there in the first place.”
Ms Forstater said the correction is not enough to restore public trust in Judge Kemp’s ruling, adding that it requires a full explanation of how the error came about.
“The quote in my section wasn't found anywhere else.”
She added: “The judge is responsible. He signs it off and that was unforgivable.”
Ms Peggie’s claim against the health board centres on an altercation on Christmas Eve 2023 between the nurse and Dr Upton.
Words, which are disputed, were exchanged, Ms Peggie complained to the health board and was placed on special leave.
An employment tribunal, held in Dundee, took more than a month to hear evidence.
Judge Kemp handed down his ruling on Monday, partially upholding a complaint that the nurse was harassed by NHS Fife.
However, he dismissed her claims of direct and indirect discrimination, victimisation, sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief and threw out all claims against Dr Upton.
On Thursday afternoon, Ms Peggie read a statement to the press, thanking her supporters for their help during the course of the legal proceedings.
She said: “I am not a campaigner and had never heard of the phrase “gender critical” when I first raised complaints over two years ago about my employer’s decision to allow men into female only changing rooms.”
She said she “knew instinctively” that expecting women to “undress in front of men in private spaces” was wrong.
The senior A&E nurse added: “I certainly won’t be giving up this legal fight any time soon.”
Tribute to late father
In reference to a gender-critical book of essays called The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, she paid tribute to her late father, who died in January.
She said: “I know [he] will be looking down on me feeling proud that he, with mum, raised a daughter who did not and will not Weesht.”
Ms Gribbon said: “Fife Health Board (“FHB”) unlawfully harassed Sandie Peggie over a lengthy period of time in 2024 in respect of four separate matters.
“This would be inexcusable for any employer, but particularly so in a large public sector body like NHS Fife.
“Given the tribunal’s findings that FHB committed multiple breaches of the Equality Act and persistently failed to comply with an Order, my client is dismayed and troubled that senior politicians in Scotland saw fit to repeatedly express their full confidence in the Board.”
She described the tribunal’s findings as “hugely problematic”, saying it “places responsibility on female employees to raise complaints if they feel uncomfortable about sharing single sex spaces with men”.
“This ignores industrial realities,” she added.
The solicitor went on to note that Ms Peggie was suspended and put through a disciplinary investigation when she complained and was accused of a failure in patient care.
During the tribunal proceedings it emerged that Fife Health Board had gone through Ms Peggie’s social media accounts and spoken to colleagues in what Ms Gribbon described as an “archaeological dig to find material to discredit her”.
“Against that background, it is difficult to envisage what woman would contemplate raising a complaint of this nature,” she added.
‘Climate of fear’
“In many workplaces there is a climate of fear around this issue, exacerbated by the failure of many trade unions, like Sandie’s, to advocate for female members who seek to protect their hard-won rights to single sex spaces.
“The Judgment also places employers in the invidious position of having to make decisions about single sex workplace facilities based on the physical appearance of transgender employees, and by asking them intrusive questions.”
Ms Peggie’s legal team has been joined by KC Ben Cooper, who will lead the appeal submitted to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Ms Forstater said the situation would make women more reluctant to come forward but they should not be afraid to complain.
“Employers are both seeing that women are willing and able to take cases and that the JK Rowling Women's Fund exists to pay for it and so women cannot be assumed to be powerless and able to be ignored.
“The Supreme Court has made our rights clear, and women should be able to uphold them.”
Scottish Conservative equalities spokeswoman Tess White said: “Several aspects of this judgment are concerning – including the fact it contains a quote that appears to have been completely fabricated.
“The judgment placed the burden on women to stand up for their own sex-based rights and was ambiguous on the right of women to access single-sex spaces, despite the Supreme Court ruling being crystal clear on this.
“The law is unambiguous: biological women are entitled to single-sex spaces.
“A judgment that jarred with this and undermined women’s confidence in their legal rights being safeguarded at work was always likely to spark an appeal.”
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