Nurse at centre of trans changing room row used racial slurs, tribunal hears

The former nurse at the centre of a tribunal regarding a transgender doctor used a number of racial slurs, a tribunal has been told.

Sandie Peggie took NHS Fife to an employment tribunal after being suspended for confronting transgender doctor Beth Upton over her usage of the women’s changing room at the hospital.

During the hearing on Monday (28 July), Peggie was asked about leaked messages from a private group chat in which she called Dr Upton a “weirdo,” and a “freak,” and referred to her as “it”, as well as allegedly saying she wanted to post bacon through the letterbox of a mosque, and telling “offensive” jokes about the victims of floods in Pakistan in 2022.

Fellow nurse Lindsay Nicoll, who was part of the group chat, told the tribunal that the messages suggested Peggie was a racist and homophobic because of how she reacted to a close family member coming out as gay.

Peggie admitted that the jokes were “offensive” but defended them, saying they were “dark humour,” adding that she hoped the messages wouldn’t have been seen outside the group of “what I thought were very close friends”.

She went on to say she had “never heard my Chinese neighbours complain… about being called ch*nkeys”.

Peggie’s lawyer Naomi Cunningham said that while the messages were a “thoroughly unpleasant sequence of jokes”, it was “not wholly unfair to refer to [Dr Upton] as a weirdo”. Nicoll “thoroughly dislikes” Peggie and is “thoroughly hostile to her”, she claimed.

Asked about her thoughts on immigration, Peggie said: “There’s too much illegal immigration and on some occasions, I will say illegal immigrants shouldn’t be there. My reasons for that are because neither the government [nor] the people living in Britain know everyone who is arriving in the country illegally.”

But she had “no problem with immigrants coming across to work, only illegal immigrants”.

Sandie Peggie said using slurs was normal ‘growing up’

When confronted over a message in which she declared “no more mosques” should be built in the UK, Peggie said: “There’s a reason for how I feel. I don’t believe it’s all Muslim people but I have a fear of Sharia law and don’t believe women should be treated as they are in Sharia law”.

Responding, NHS Fife lawyer’s Jane Russell said that everyone in the UK “has the right to practice the religion they believe in”, adding: “You wouldn’t stop someone going into a church so there is no reason to say ‘no more mosques’ is there? It’s not Sharia law, that’s going to a place of worship.”

Asked about her regular use of the word “p*ki” while growing up, Peggie said it was a “normal word we used, like going to the shop, to the p*kis”, adding: “I had my first job in a shop called P*ki Ali’s and worked there for a year and had a good relationship with Ali. I socialised in a pub [that] was owned at the time by a p*ki called Jav, that was just how we described [them].

“Pakistani is the politically correct word but I grew up using p*ki and they were quite happy at the time.”

On whether her views had affected her role in nursing, she said: “I did have one colleague who was racially abused in the department and was called a p*ki b*tch. I thought she was Indian so I made the comment, ‘Why didn’t you tell them you’re Indian’, and she said, ‘Because I am a p*ki’.

“I asked if she took offence to people calling her that and she said: ‘No, we are p*kis but it’s offensive to be called a b*tch afterwards.”

Peggie was suspended in January 2024 and lodged a complaint, citing the 2010 Equality Act. Tuesday (29 July) was due to be the last day of the tribunal being held in Dundee. Oral submissions are expected to be heard at the beginning of September.