EXCLUSIVE: NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie mocked victims of Pakistan floods in series of racist posts

The Courier

7 days ago

Sandie Peggie, the nurse at the centre of the NHS Fife trans row tribunal, mocked victims of floods in Pakistan that killed 1,700 people in a series of racist posts.
The messages – shared in a Facebook group chat with colleagues titled 'Benidorm' – emerged in an evidence bundle seen by The Courier at the tribunal in Dundee.
Ms Peggie is suing NHS Fife and A&E medic Dr Beth Upton for discrimination, saying she was forced to share female facilities with the transgender doctor who was born male.
Central to the tribunal is the pair's changing room row on Christmas Eve 2023 and the nurse's subsequent suspension.
Between June and October 2022, monsoon floods devastated Pakistan, submerging one third of the South Asian nation, leaving millions homeless and injuring nearly 13,000.
The official death toll was 1,739.
On August 31 that year, Ms Peggie shared the following offensive messages in a group chat:
1 – Rumour has it that the floods in Pakistan were started by a suicide plumber.
2 – There's a new curry been brought out in aid of the Pakistani flood disaster victims. It's a chicken bury auntie, served with a nan dead and poppa gone.
3 – The BNP have donated 6,000 crocodiles to the Pakistani flood appeal.
4 – The Queen has sent a letter of condolence to the Pakistani president. She wanted to mention that Britain has plenty of spare p*kis if they want some back.
5 – I bet little Mohammed isn't having to walk 3 miles fetch water now! I think I'll ask for my 1 a month donation back.
6 – What do you call a Pakistani flood survivor…Mustaf a dinghy.
7 – What goes around comes around. Pakistanis have been flooding Britain for years.
8 – From space Pakistan looks like a giant bowl of coco pops.
9 – There is a new diet sweeping Pakistan. It's called swim fast.
10 – Charity single just released for the Pakistani flood disaster…Rain keeps falling on Ahmed.
Ms Peggie has faced multiple claims of racism – which she strongly disputes – during the tribunal.
At Monday's hearing, emergency nurse practitioner Lindsey Nicoll was asked about the 'jokes' shared by her colleague Ms Peggie.
Asked what she thought about them, Ms Nicoll said she viewed them as 'racist'.
Naomi Cunningham, Ms Peggie's barrister, said the Kirkcaldy nurse's jokes about Pakistan were 'thoroughly unpleasant'.
She also told the tribunal Ms Peggie regularly used racist slurs such as 'p*ki' and 'ch**ky*'.
The Benidorm group chat has been active since 2016 and has more than 2,600 pages worth of chat.
Ms Peggie's lawyer, Naomi Cunningham, asked whether it is fair to judge Ms Peggie's character from a single message in seven year chat.
Ms Nicoll said this was not the only message with racist content.
Ms Nicoll also made reference to an incident at an airport when Ms Peggie spoke about a group of women wearing burqas.
Ms Peggie is said to have asked how they got through security, and questioned 'what they were doing here'.
Last week, clinical services manager Charlotte Myles said that when she told Dr Upton's boss Dr Kate Searle that Ms Peggie's suspension was to be lifted, the A&E consultant claimed the nurse had called another doctor a 'p*ki'.
Ms Myles said Dr Searle confirmed to her this had not been reported at the time and no details recorded.
Ms Peggie's legal team suggested the claims were only brought up in part to justify her suspension.
Two days earlier, the nurse's boss Louise Curran claimed she had heard allegations the Kirkcaldy mum had made a racist remark to a junior doctor.
Ms Curran, when asked about ethnic minority groups, alleged there were rumours Ms Peggie had an 'intolerance to the types of food they would cook and smells related to that.'
The senior charge nurse, one of her two line managers, also said she understood Ms Peggie held strong religious views 'to do with football, and Catholics, and Protestants'.
But Ms Curran confessed she had heard all of this via 'hearsay' and 'second, third, or fourth-hand accounts'.
In February, Ms Peggie's husband Darren was quizzed over 'racist' messages he shared on Facebook when giving evidence to the tribunal.
He had previously forwarded on posts by others saying it is 'okay to be white' and calling for 'no more mosques' to be built.
The tribunal also heard Mr Peggie, called to the tribunal by his wife, shared a post which said that white people had disappeared from TV adverts because he thought it was 'funny'.
We revealed earlier that two colleagues of the nurse turned on her after she allegedly requested pictures of Dr Upton and branded the trans doctor a 'weirdo'.