UPDATE 04/06/10
Nurse LOSES discrimination case.
Not surprised.
The British judicial system is bursting with Christian haters.
Time to get rid of the useless tosser that poses as the leader of the Church of England -to quote Peter Hitchens:
"Do we have to wait until the hate-filled mobs storm into Canterbury Cathedral and drag him from the pulpit before the Archbishop of Canterbury grasps that Christianity is in danger in this country? Nice, furry, mild and useless, Dr Rowan Williams chose this Easter week not to protect his Church, but to rebuke several bishops who had rightly warned of the swelling rage against the Church."
Of course we all know who the "hate filled mobs" are. He goes on to write:
"Does anyone really believe that she (Shirley Chaplin) would have been pestered by authority if she had worn a Muslim symbol on a chain round her neck? Does anyone believe that a Muslim preacher would have been put in the cells, and fined �1,000 - as happened to Shawn Holes in Glasgow - for callinghomosexuality a sin in a public place? Each of these cases lets others know that they had better be careful, and makes many faithful Christians fear that they may have to choose between their faith and their livelihood. "
That IS the choice currently offered up - isn't it?
By Jonathan Petre and Nick Constable
Last updated at 3:17 AM on 04th April 2010
Act of faith: Shirley Chaplin says that if she is forced to hide her cross it would feel as if she was denying her Christian convictions
Shirley Chaplin has worn a crucifix since the age of 16. And except for the time it was removed for a few hours when she had an operation, she has never taken it off in 38 years.
It is the core symbol of her faith and a treasured constant. It has helped comfort others and has frequently given succour to the 54-year-old nurse in her own moments of need.
There was the time when, petrified of flying, she gripped it while visibly shaking in her seat during her first trip on an aircraft. She clung to it again when she gave birth, praying that ‘if I had a handicapped child God would help me handle it’. And she drew solace from it when her mother was rushed to hospital after a car accident.
In an age of dwindling congregations, when women increasingly wear religious symbols as fashion accessories, Mrs Chaplin’s inch-long crucifix and chain is an essential part of her very being. So the notion of taking it off, much less losing it, is unthinkable and leaves her feeling horribly dislocated. Worse still, being forced to take it off, ‘would violate my faith’.
That, though, is precisely what did happen to Mrs Chaplin, a ward sister who has devoted her life to her patients. Or at least that is what the bosses at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital tried to do. They told her to hide or remove it because they classed it as jewellery, rather than an essential manifestation of her beliefs. She refused.
Last week, her claim that she has faced discrimination made headlines when it reached an employment tribunal in Exeter. The tribunal’s judgment is expected on Tuesday.
Although the crucifix appears benign enough, the hospital Trust insisted it breached health and safety rules because it could, theoretically, scratch patients.
Mrs Chaplin finds this frankly preposterous and instead sees herself as the victim of a politically correct persecution, her sense of injustice heightened by the knowledge that other hospital staff have been allowed to carry on wearing the Muslim hijab or headscarf. ‘I feel personally discriminated against, and I am very angry,’ she said in the first full interview she has given since her ordeal began.
‘I have worn my cross for 38 years and it has never harmed anybody. If I am forced to hide it, I feel I am denying my Christian convictions. I feel torn between my two vocations – my faith and my job.
'If I am forced to hide [my crucifix], I feel I am denying my Christian convictions. I feel torn between my two vocations - my faith and my job'
‘I have respect for Islam as a faith and I admire Muslims for sticking to their views, but they do not seem to face the same rigorous application of NHS rules. Not only are they allowed to wear headscarves in the wards but other, non-religious staff wear jewellery and have not been challenged.
‘I believe much of the discrimination against me has been handed down from on high, from central government. They have brought in all these diversity policies so as not to offend anyone. But they don’t mind offending me.’
It is easy to sympathise with Mrs Chaplin, to feel angry on her behalf – as many have. But might it also be natural that some will view her as an uncompromising religious zealot, someone who quietly relishes the commotion her case has caused – at the very least, someone who is perhaps just a little bit odd?
She assumes that some people will indeed think such things. But none of them resemble the truth.
Brought up in the Church of England, she speaks about her religion only if she is asked about it.
‘I don’t push my faith in people’s faces. I don’t go round quoting passages from the Bible,’ she says. ‘I am a very private person.’
Her cross and chain was a present from her family to mark her confirmation service at St Mary’s, her parents’ parish church in Bishops Lydeard, near Taunton, Somerset.
Cross of age: Shirley wearing her crucifix at the age of 23 in 1979 and on holiday in 1995
Beyond the crucifix in question, her neat bungalow, set in scrupulously-tended gardens overlooking rolling Devon countryside, is devoid of any religious symbols and icons. Instead it is adorned with photographs of her two grown-up sons and three young grandchildren, as well as books on antiques and coins, her husband Paul’s hobby.
He is a retired ambulance driver, who first met Shirley at a hospital party in 1980, and without whom she would have collapsed in an emotional heap. He was struck then, as countless future patients would be too, by her calm and thoughtful manner and brilliant smile.
At 5ft 2in, her slight figure and neat, auburn hair make it easy to imagine her as a nun, though it’s a calling she has never considered.
Over mugs of strong tea, she tells of the Christian values that have shaped her life: helping others, honesty, love for her family.
After leaving school in Taunton, she dabbled in jobs as an accounts clerk and selling TVs before enrolling as a nursing assistant at a special needs school. From the first day there, she knew she wanted to care for people.
In 1976, she became au pair to a family in Copenhagen and spent 15 months there before returning to begin nursing training in Exeter and a love affair with Paul.
Family life: Shirley wearing her crucifix with her young son in 1985
Their family life was singularly normal: school runs, weekend walks, gardening, dinner with friends. Summer holidays were often spent on the unspoiled beaches of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales – Mrs Chaplin’s fear of flying ruled out foreign trips. Until that first flight.
‘I can remember sitting, waiting for take-off, physically shaking and I gripped on to that cross,’ she says. ‘It was so frightening but it helped me to find a way through.’
Several times during the interview she apologises for not being able to articulate the depth of what her crucifix means to her.
‘I can never find the right words to describe it,’ she says. ‘It’s like it’s always there, for big and small problems alike.
‘I know that I do often hold it and fiddle with it. When I was preparing my case, I had to show that the cross wasn’t some kind of whim – that I’d always worn it on the wards.
‘I’d ask colleagues and they’d say, “Gosh, Shirl, it’s a long time ago.” But they did remember. The image they had of me was, typically, during a break on night duty, holding the cross up to my lips.’
That it is a source of tangible strength to her is beyond doubt; both the miniature Christ figure’s face and loincloth are worn smooth from nearly four decades of touching.
Some of the ‘evidence’ used to undermine her case clearly still rankles. The claim by senior staff that they saw her on the wards without her cross she finds upsetting and baffling.
‘Do they really think I would lie about that?’ she says. ‘The whole point about my cross is that it’s visible. Of course, it may slip below my neckline if I’m busy with patients. I’m not always going to be checking. I never realised certain people on the wards were observing me so closely. I have no doubt that the Trust has taken an anti-Christian position and wants to defend it, come what may.
‘Managers, I believe, take their lead from government through a maze of policy directives and then impose their own interpretation on top. It’s so hard to fight this.’
Mrs Chaplin is adamant that most patients are reassured by the sight of her crucifix. ‘People are not sure who to trust and a Christian nurse prepared to publicly show her faith says a lot,’ she says.
Her relationship with senior matron Julie Vale, her NHS nemesis, has been defined by their battle over the cross. But there were never any shouting matches, nor table-thumping, despite the ‘emotional pressure’ she felt to remove it.
Mrs Vale, who joined the Trust in 2008, first confronted Mrs Chaplin about her cross in June last year.
‘I was completely taken aback,’ she says. ‘I looked at other members of staff wearing jewellery – they hadn’t been challenged.’ After three further verbal warnings from Mrs Vale, Mrs Chaplin was approached by another senior matron, Alison Wootton, as she worked at a nurses’ station.
The NHS nurse was told the cross around her neck posed a 'risk' to patients
She was ordered once again to take off her cross and when she refused, explaining that she felt it was an essential sign of her faith, she was handed a letter summoning her to a hearing with Mrs Vale two weeks later.
That meeting took place in a cramped office across a table. There was no offer of coffee and the small talk was limited.
‘It was very intimidating,’ says Mrs Chaplin. ‘If you were called in to see the matron, you knew something was seriously wrong. Up until then, I had been verbally warned, but suddenly I was in a more formal meeting where I feared I could lose my job.
‘I was really distressed and I felt I was being bullied. I couldn’t give a coherent explanation of my faith and I was in tears by the end.
‘The main issue seemed to be whether or not my cross was visible. I tried to reinforce how strongly I felt and said something like: ‘Why don’t you just put me in a cupboard somewhere’.
‘I felt I’d done a highly professional job and in 30 years no one had ever grabbed me or had their arms scratched.
‘This was not about health and safety or uniforms. It was about me defending a visible symbol of my faith. The matron was very businesslike until I broke down in floods of tears. Then she offered me tissues and a drink.’
Mrs Chaplin and her supporters believe the impasse could have been resolved with a little common sense.
Instead, at a time when the NHS faced unprecedented pressure for savings and efficiencies, she was repeatedly hauled before senior executives at the hospital to hear why her cross and chain could not be tolerated.
In total, she attended ten formal meetings convened either by Mrs Vale or her hospital Trust’s senior human resources manager Adrian Tyrrell After the first, Mrs Chaplin received a written warning from Julie Vale threatening disciplinary action.
Shirley wears her crucifix as she leaves the tribunal with Reverend John Eustice (left) and barrister Paul Diamond
She was now suffering from the typical symptoms of stress – breaking down in tears, sleepless nights – and her doctor ordered her off work for two weeks. She returned in early August to be told again by managers that disciplinary action was looming. Again distressed, she was sent home on special leave, returning nine days later.
Further meetings followed in August and in September, at which she was accompanied first by a Royal College of Nursing representative – who told her the union could not support her case as it had agreed the uniform policy – and later by the vicar from her Free Church of England church in Exeter, the Rev John Eustice.
At one point, Mrs Chaplin asked whether she could pin her cross to her uniform to test whether it was the cross or chain which was the problem.
‘I believed there was discrimination against me as a Christian per se, so I specifically sought clarification of whether they wanted to remove Christian symbols from sight,’ she says.
‘But I was told I could not because it could still injure a patient.’
Her bosses argued that the chain in particular was a health and safety risk because confused or violent patients could grab and yank it, potentially throttling her or injuring themselves.
Mr Eustice scoured jewellery shops in the city for a solution and found a chain with a magnetic clasp which separated under the slightest pressure.
But while this may have solved the grabbing issue, managers then argued the cross and chain could scratch and possibly infect vulner-able patients if Mrs Chaplin was engaged in close-up clinical care.
She was told that even if the chain had a magnetic clasp she would have to wear it beneath a high-necked T-shirt, something she felt amounted to ‘hiding my faith’.
Her managers also argued that the cross was not a mandatory requirement of the Christian faith and therefore she was not eligible – under policy 5.1.11 – for an exemption from the hospital’s uniform policy.
The exemption states that: ‘Any member of staff who wishes to wear particular types of clothes or jewellery for religious or cultural reasons must raise this with their line manager, who will not unreasonably withhold permission.’
When Mrs Chaplin complained that two female Muslim doctors were allowed to wear their hijabs, she was told this had been agreed within the uniform policy.
She says: ‘Muslim staff are allowed to wear a hijab, but this raises more profound health and safety issues than a crucifix, both in the danger to the individual grabbing the material and in the cloth harbouring infection.
‘To my mind, it seems everything’s OK but the cross. I think there is a lot of hostility to Christianity behind what the Trust has done. ‘The Trust said that the two Muslim doctors had compromised on their faith by agreeing to keep their arms bare in clinical situations. ‘I just wonder what they would have done if those doctors had insisted on covering their arms.
‘I was also told that the headscarf was seen as a mandatory requirement of the Muslim culture and therefore could be exempted.
‘I viewed this as clear discrimination against Christians. The Trust was setting itself up as an expert on religious manifestation of all faiths.’
At some of the meetings, the Trust tried to offer what it regarded as solutions.
One of these involved clip-on ear-rings with a cross symbol. Mrs Chaplin rejected this because she felt it was disrespectful. She also shuddered at the prospect of accidentally losing an earring in a patient’s bed, creating the risk of bed sores and infection.
Other ‘compromises’ were mooted, such as wrapping the cross and chain around her lanyard or ID card and keeping it beneath her uniform or tucked down by her side.
Neither met her determination to wear a clearly visible symbol of her faith.
She adds: ‘Every decision they make seems inconsistent. For example, they allow staff medi-alerts, which warn of various health conditions, to be visibly hung round the neck on a chain.
‘I don’t see how you can say that my cross has to be banned for health and safety reasons when a nurse wearing a medi-alert can just carry on.’
She added: ‘It’s now so difficult to stand up and be a Christian. It is almost becoming an underground religion because people are so frightened to display their faith. The whole landscape seems to have shifted over the past few years.
‘I’m amazed at the situation I’m in after 30 years of nursing. It’s as though, suddenly, it doesn’t count. Nothing I have done has changed. I’ve worn my cross all that time.
‘The idea that necklaces are banned in practice is just ridiculous. Staff wear them all the time, though perhaps not at the moment while my case is high-profile. The policy is being enforced much more vigorously than it has in the past.
‘Besides, as I keep trying to explain to the Trust, my cross isn’t a necklace. It’s a personal manifestation of faith. I don’t particularly like jewellery. I don’t even wear make-up.
‘If I honestly thought I was going to do harm to my patients by wearing it, I would look for a different job.’
Eventually, in September, Mrs Chaplin was again summoned and realised that if she did not accept re-deployment to a non-clinical role she would be sacked. She accepted under protest.
Further meetings were held in October and January 2010. By the second of these, she had started work as an admissions/discharge co-ordinator but was still fighting to get her old job back.
With the support of the Christian Legal Centre, and represented by the leading human rights lawyer Paul Diamond, she launched her employment tribunal case, with the backing of former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey and a handful of other bishops, – though not the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who criticised the bishops supporting her.
On the opening day of the case last Monday, the Trust’s human resources director Lynn Lane said in a statement: ‘We are very disappointed that this matter could not have been resolved before now.
‘For the Trust this has always been about compliance with our agreed uniform policy and the safety of staff and patients.’
Mrs Chaplin says: ‘In an ideal world I’d like the tribunal to say I can go back on to my ward, wearing my cross and caring for my patients as I have always done.
‘If I lose, then it will be a sad day for all Christians and freedom generally. I feel so frustrated that it has come to this, when there is so much else the NHS needs to address, such as the problems with failing Trusts.
‘I know my Church congregation is praying for me and the countless emails I get from Christians around the world give me the strength to see this through.
‘So this Easter Sunday I’ll be giving thanks for all that support and praying for Christians who face the same reaction to the manifestation of their faith as I have.
‘I don’t use the word crucified lightly. But, in one sense, I have been crucified by the system.’
As she has for 38 years, she touches the crucifix – in search of strength and hope. And on this weekend, especially, prays they will not be denied.
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