Her evidence will be one of the most important as this employment tribunal progresses.
Today’s hearing involved her cross examination from Naomi Cunningham, the barrister acting on behalf of Ms Peggie.
An emotional Dr Searle was asked about significant matters in this case, including confidentiality breaches and “career-ending” accusations made against Ms Peggie.
Here are the key points you may have missed.
Emails not ‘knowingly withheld’
The hearing heard that Ms Cunningham described Dr Searle as “decisive” person as she argued that someone of the consultant’s stature could not have accidentally missed an email containing key information.
The barrister referenced an email involving Dr Searle where the internal investigation is discussed.
It is suggested that Dr Searle was either “surprisingly incompetent” or intentionally withheld the email.
Ms Cunningham asked: “Is it the case that you and your colleagues deliberately withheld the ‘foot and mouth disease’ email?”
Dr Searle said she “absolutely” did not withhold the documents intentionally.
Dr Upton’s account ‘flatly’ contradicted
An emotional Dr Searle objected to questioning regarding Rehana Ashraf, a healthcare worker who was present during a conversation between Dr Upton and Ms Peggie.
Ms Ashraf was present when Dr Upton asked Ms Peggie about a patient who had left the hospital unseen despite having serious mental health concerns. It was alleged that Ms Peggie refused to directly speak to Dr Upton and instead would only speak through Ms Ashraf.
Dr Kate Searle. (Image: Iain Masterton) Dr Searle raised concerns this constituted a serious patient safety concern and had asked Ms Ashraf about it while the investigation was underway.
Ms Ashraf is not a witness in this case as she had concerns about being involved over media backlash and racism fears.
We heard that Ms Ashraf was consulted as part of the internal investigation where she said she remembered a “conversation” taking place between Dr Upton and Ms Peggie.
Ms Cunningham asked whether the fact a “conversation” took place “flatly contradicts” Dr Upton’s patient safety concern.
Dr Searle disagreed.
Confidentiality ‘breached’ by Searle
A key feature of evidence in this case has been an email sent by Dr Searle to 19 consultants where she expressed support for Dr Upton and condemned the actions of Ms Peggie.
The medic told the tribunal she had not had any disciplinary action take against her as a result of this email.
It was put to Dr Searle by Ms Cunningham that she had “left confidentiality in ruin” by sending this email and by contacting Ms Ashraf about the patient safety concern during an active investigation.
Read more:
Dr Seale said that in “hindsight” her conversation with the healthcare worker was a “flagrant breach” of confidentiality.
‘Career-ending accusations’
Earlier this week, NHS Fife service manager Lottie Myles told the tribunal that Dr Searle had objected to the suspension of Ms Peggie being lifted.
At this point, Dr Searle raised patient safety concerns about Ms Peggie.
During her evidence, Ms Myles said she warned Dr Searle that failing to report these incidents earlier made her “culpable”.
Dr Searle said today that she did not recall this interaction and rejected that she pushed back on Ms Peggie’s return to work.
Ms Cunningham suggested that Dr Searle was more concerned about Ms Peggie’s refusal to “play along” with Dr Upton’s trans status, rather than with patient safety concerns.
She said these accusations were “career-ending” for Ms Peggie.
The nurse has since been cleared of all gross misconduct allegations.
‘Turning up the heat’ on accusations
Dr Searle was accused by Ms Peggie’s barrister of “turning up the temperature” and “increasing the emotional heat” in her official report of the incident.
In the Datix, a web-based system used by the NHS to report incidents, Dr Searle described Ms Peggie as acting in an aggressive manner towards Dr Upton on Christmas Eve.
However, Ms Cunningham said that this description was not used by Dr Upton in her email outlining the incident at 3:17am on Christmas morning.
Dr Searle agreed that it was not used but said the pair had agreed that Ms Peggie’s actions were aggressive during a “lengthy discussion” on December 29. That lead the consultant to log it as such on the Datix.
It was put to her by Ms Cunningham that Dr Searle reported the incident in this way over concerns it would not have been taken seriously enough otherwise.
Dr Searle rejected that, stating she still believes a “hate incident” occurred to this day.