A Catholic nurse who was forced to resign after refusing to remove her necklace with a small cross pendant was “directly discriminated against and harassed” by a London NHS Trust, according to an employment tribunal ruling.
Mary Onuoha, a theatre practitioner at Croydon University Hospital, Surrey, won a case for unfair dismissal, supported by the Christian Legal Centre.
In June 2020, Mrs Onuoha was forced out of her job following what she described as a two-year campaign waged against her by superiors and NHS bosses. She had worked at the Croydon hospital for 19 years. For most of them she wore the necklace without any complaints from colleagues or patients.
However, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust’s uniform policy prohibits the wearing of necklaces in clinical areas on the basis that they could be a health and safety risk. The tribunal found that she had been “singled out for an aggressive application” of the uniform policy and that this amounted to discrimination.
The ruling found that the wearing of jewellery that breached the trust’s uniform policy had been “rife” among staff. The ruling stated: “Noncompliance was very widely tolerated, hence the almost complete lack of documentation showing management action to enforce the policy against any individual other than the claimant.”
Ms Onuoha stated that the trust allowed other employees to wear religious garments including headscarves and turbans and pointed out that staff were often expected to wear a lanyard with items hanging off it.
In response to the ruling, the Croydon Trust stated that it had updated its uniform policy and apologised to the claimant. A spokesperson said: “It is important that NHS staff feel able to express their beliefs, and that our policies are applied in a consistent, compassionate and inclusive way.” The outcome of the case has wider implications, that employers cannot discriminate against employees for reasonable manifestations of faith in the workplace.
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