How attacks on Sandie Peggie’s family are taking their toll
Outside the tribunal room in which the nurse is taking on NHS Fife and the transgender doctor Beth Upton, the case is being refought each day on social media
Sandie Peggie has been accused of being homophobic, which has been denied by her daughter, Nicole
Saturday August 02 2025, 5.00pm, The Sunday Times
The public gallery has become populated by a familiar roll-call of faces.
Every day at the Sandie Peggie tribunal, the seating area of the small room in the Dundee tribunal hearing centre is full of committed attendees. Those who are not early or quick enough are relegated to an overflow room to watch proceedings on the small screen.
One face has become more recognisable than most — certainly more than she ever expected to be.
Nicole Peggie, Sandie’s daughter, has been forced by circumstance to defend her mother in an employment tribunal that the nurse brought against her employer NHS Fife and the transgender doctor Beth Upton.
The case stems from an incident on Christmas Eve 2023, when
Peggie objected to sharing a women’s changing room at Victoria Hospital with Upton. This led to a heated exchange, after which Upton reported Peggie to senior management. As a result, Peggie was suspended for alleged gross misconduct.
Peggie’s claim cites the Equality Act 2010 and she is alleging sexual harassment and harassment related to her protected beliefs. The 51-year-old nurse was cleared of all misconduct allegations by an NHS Fife disciplinary hearing after an 18-month process, but only after her employment tribunal was already under way. The tribunal was also told of
other allegations against Peggie, including claims of homophobia and racism, which her legal team addressed.
The case is being closely watched, particularly in light of a recent
Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “woman” under the Equality Act.
In the past two weeks, the legal team for NHS Fife has targeted Peggie’s character. WhatsApp messages from private group chats have been read out, with the suggestion Peggie is racist, Islamophobic and homophobic. One of the most biting suggestions from
Jane Russell, the lawyer for NHS Fife and Upton, was that there is a rift between Peggie and her daughter because Nicole is gay.
The pushback was immediate.
Scotland’s employment tribunal system is open to the public and press but proceedings rarely make headlines. One of the extraordinary elements of the Peggie tribunal is how much it is being played out on social media as those close to participants seek to clarify and rebut the day’s proceedings.
So it has been with Nicole Peggie. Her social media timeline is a flood of support for her mother. On the day it was suggested Peggie was disappointed in her daughter, she posted a thorough rebuttal on X, stating: “I’m 25 years old, still live with my parents. They’ve never asked for dig money [rent].
“In summer 2023 I travelled South East Asia. Last year I visited a new country every month. This year I have been to USA twice. All thanks to my mum and dad. Very grateful to have them.”
She continued: “I am more than comfortable knowing I’ll be living with them for a long time. If they really hated me would I be willing to stay?”
Nicole has also repeatedly commented on Facebook in support of her mother. Her Instagram profile is reserved for travel pictures but, everywhere else, she is a vociferous backer. Her partner of four years has also taken to various websites to support the Peggie family.
In February, Nicole was questioned by the tribunal about her mother’s demeanour when she returned home on Christmas Eve after the changing room incident. When questions persisted about their bond, Nicole turned again to social media.
“Jeez do I need to go back under oath to clear this up,” she wrote. “My mum is my best friend, has and always will be. Her only concern is if I’m happy.”
But this speaks to the wider toll that events have taken on the Peggie family.
Peggie’s father died not long before the first stage of the tribunal. He had been ill while she was enduring the stress of being suspended from work and beginning the tribunal proceedings.
Susan Smith, one of the co-founders of the prominent gender-critical group For Women Scotland said: “At a time when her mother and the family should have been able to come together and grieve, they were all having to go and sit in this court in Dundee and have her character torn to shreds.
“Dragging her daughter’s relationship into it was deeply cynical.”
During the February hearings, Peggie was asked to account for anti-Catholic Facebook posts by her husband and answer questions about the fact she supports President Trump.
“And then trying to make her responsible for her husband’s Facebook posts, which were not relevant,” said Smith. “Not only were they not relevant, but also suggesting she had some sort of responsibility for or automatically had to think the same as her husband sounds like something from the 19th century. It’s so archaic. So sexist.”
Smith added: “If I were NHS Fife or somebody sitting there as a lawyer for NHS Fife, of their PR manager I would be saying, ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ because this didn’t add anything to their case.
“All it did was throw random dirt around about the relationship between a mother and a daughter.”
Smith, who attended the tribunal on several days, said Nicole Peggie was there “pretty much all the time” and clearly supported her mother.
After her suspension, Peggie approached Neale Hanvey, then an Alba MP, to
ask for support. As Peggie lives in Glenrothes, which is outside Hanvey’s former constituency, he referred her to the gender-critical group Sex Matters for help.
Hanvey was mentioned in the tribunal, where it was suggested that he had been instrumental in persuading Peggie to instigate legal proceedings.
As with others in the case, he used
social media as an outlet to rebut the comments both about his involvement and the suggestion of a rift between Peggie and her daughter.
“As the ‘married gay MP’ mentioned in today’s testimony,” he posted online. “I have never witnessed anything remotely homophobic from the Peggie family, quite the contrary. Warm genuine people, concerned about injustice and people I was honoured to provide all the help I could.”
Hanvey said that moment he met Peggie and her mother was forever etched in his mind. “They appeared in my office as frightened rabbits and the world seemed against them,” he said. “It was abundantly clear to me that Sandie had done nothing wrong and I resolved to do everything I could to help.
“It’s hard to overstate how impressive the courage of Sandie and the support of her family has been as they’ve been buffeted by the international attention and intrusion on their family life. The unavoidable trauma of events such as this changes people irrevocably, but despite the numerous betrayals the Peggie family have also found new friends and a true strength in their families bonds.
“Thank heavens they had each other and an international legion of supporters.”
One WhatsApp message shown to Peggie in the tribunal details her saying to colleagues in a group chat: “Going to be off a while. Rep told me to get a hobby.”
The “rep” in question was her Royal College of Nursing union representative — perhaps indicative of how little professional support she had around her at the time.
While she is now surrounded by support, insiders say the proceedings are taking a toll.
In the daily press photographs taken outside the tribunal, Peggie appears smiling and confident. On the last day of proceedings an honour guard formed outside the building, applauding supporters forming a corridor as Peggie exited the hearing and stepped into the Dundee sunshine.
In June, the nurse visited the Scottish parliament where she met and was pictured with MSPs and with Maya Forstater, the gender-critical activist and tax expert who successfully sued her former employer.
Public reports of the meetings were that Peggie was in a “confident and defiant” mood as she spent time meeting supporters. Privately, however, it is said the nurse is less bolshie about the legal proceedings.
Close supporters said there were times she had been observed quietly shaking while sitting in the hearing and the relentless criticisms of her family are taking a toll.
Joanna Cherry, former SNP MP and prominent gender-critical campaigner, while admitting Peggie’s messages left a little to be desired, said: “Sandie’s character is not on trial.”
She asked: “Who among us would like their personal WhatsApp messages pored over in a courtroom? That is doubtless why Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney and Liz Lloyd [Sturgeon’s former chief of staff] had
deleted all of theirs for the first part of the pandemic.
“Those like Sturgeon and her supporters would be the first to support the idea that when a woman complains of harassment, her character should not be on trial.”
The final day of the tribunal was thrown off track after one of the witnesses Peggie’s team had called in her defence, Sandra Ross, failed to appear.
Publicly, Naomi Cunningham, Peggie’s barrister, told the judge only that there had been “developments” overnight. The issue was discussed in an hour-long private session.
Ross had attended the tribunal the previous day and is a member of the group chat in which Peggie posted jokes mocking victims of the Pakistan flooding disaster. She was is understood to have been keen to testify, and her failure to appear remains unexplained.
Some close to the case say the sort of public pressure faced by Peggie has caused alarm to friends and supporters. Now there is nothing for either side to do except wait until a verdict, expected towards the end of the year.
Those involved with the case are left with frustrations about how it was heard and of the response of the court of public opinion.
“The lines that [NHS Fife] were running were really sexist, very regressive,” Susan Smith added. “Which is ironic in a case where they don’t know what a woman is. They know what a woman is when they want to put her in her place.”
agree.
