Naomi Cunningham successfully represents Claimant in securing rejection of an anonymity order

Naomi Cunningham represented the Claimant, Sandy Peggie in a two-day ET hearing in Nov 2024, where she successfully opposed the application for a private hearing and anonymity order. The full trial starts on 3rd February 2025.

Sandie Peggie is a female nurse. Beth Upton is a doctor identifying as a woman, and has been given permission to use women’s facilities in the hospital. Peggie objected to Dr Upton’s presence in the changing room she uses and, having failed to get any support from management, on the third occasion she encountered Upton there she said she didn’t think they ought to be there, and it was making her feel uncomfortable. A complaint of bullying was made against Peggie, she was suspended and is now facing disciplinary charges.

At the anonymity hearing, Dr Upton said that they would be “outed” as trans if publicly identified with the case, and that it risked severe damage to their mental health. Naomi said that there was no question of “outing” because it is obvious to anyone who meets Upton that the doctor is male, had been open about their “trans” status at work and it was widely-known. The judge wasn’t willing to find that Upton was obviously male, but he wasn’t persuaded that there was a compelling enough need for anonymity to displace open justice.

Sex Matters, For Women Scotland, Tribunal Tweets and the media (Associated Newspapers Ltd, Reach plc, Times Newspapers Ltd and the BBC as a group) all intervened in support of open justice.

Naomi, instructed by Margaret Gribbon of McGrade & Co, represented the Claimant. Sex Matters was represented by Beth Grossman of Doughty Street Chambers.

The full hearing will now take place at Edinburgh Employment Tribunal over ten days, starting on 3rd February.

The story can be read here.

Find out more

Naomi Cunningham has specialised in discrimination law, mainly but not exclusively in the employment context, throughout her career. In recent years, Naomi has developed a particular interest in the interaction between the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act, gender reassignment discrimination, the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act, and the public sector equality duty. She gave evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee on reform of the GRA in February 2021, to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament in June 2022, and again to the Women and Equalities Select Committee at Westminster in January 2023.

To find out more about Naomi, contact Nick Levett +44 (0)20 7427 4908 or Mark Gardner +44 (0)20 7427 4909 for a confidential discussion.

News 3 Feb, 2025