HORTON: ACCUSED RACE HATE NURSES MADE SEX TAUNTS

Two nurses accused of staging a campaign of racist abuse against colleagues taunted a dementia patient about his sexuality as he lay naked on a hospital bathroom floor, a hearing was told.

Susan Horton and Sarah Cullum shouted at the man and asked him if he was gay as he cowered in the foetal position at St Mary’s Hospital in Kettering, it was said.

They forced ‘Patient B’, who was married, out of bed and into the bathroom after telling him ‘you smell of urine’, the Nursing and Midwifery Council heard.

They are said to have made repeated quips about the his sexuality, including joking that he ‘should have come out years ago’.

Healthcare assistant Gemma-Louise Bacon said she had watched as Horton and Cullum dragged the Patient from his bed and locked themselves in the bathroom with him.

He was ‘nervous and depressed’ and could often become ‘aggressive and hysterical’, she told the panel.

‘They forced him into the bathroom and it was clear he did not want to get up,’ she said.

‘They were saying words to the effect of “You need to go in the bath, you smell of urine”.

‘They were saying it with raised voices, sounding angry. They were intimidating and he was cowering in response to their comments.’

They continued to shout at Patient B while the door was locked for around half an hour within earshot of seven other patients on the Ian Bennet ward, she added.

‘When they opened the door, he was lying on the floor,’ said Ms Bacon.

‘They were asking him whether he was gay and questioning him about his sexuality with a teasing manner in their voices.

‘I assume he was naked because they were saying, “You’re naked, you need to get dressed”.’

But Sarah Christie-Brown, for Cullum, said the pair had been engaged in a ‘genuine and serious discussion’ about Patient B’s sexuality.

‘There was a genuine issue from Mrs Cullum’s perspective as to whether his failure to acknowledge his sexuality may have been tied into his mental illness,’ she said.

‘She accepts there were discussions about it, but they were serious and genuine discussions.

‘So when you refer to “He should have come out years ago”, in fact what was genuinely being discussed was whether he would have benefitted from coming out.’

Ms Bacon replied: ‘He was married and had a wife.

‘He is not gay.’

Ms Bacon also said the pair had made racist comments while inspecting a list of names of nurses due to undertake placements with them.

‘Mrs Horton was looking at a name that was unusual and said, “I’m not having her, she will be black”,’ she told the panel.

Cullum is said to have replied: ‘These will be OK, they’re all white.’

She is also alleged to have left another elderly patient, referred to only as Patient D, on the floor for two hours during a night shift until she became ‘cold to the touch’.

‘She told us to leave her there,’ said Ms Bacon.

‘She said: “She put herself there, she can get herself up”.’

Ms Bacon said she could not remember the exact date of the incidents, which are all said to have taken place ‘in or around June 2007’.

Cullum and Horton are facing a total of 77 charges – the majority of which relate to racism.

Among the charges, they are accused of doing monkey impressions while discussing a black colleague and referring to the woman as a ‘gorilla’ in front of other staff members.

The panel has heard how Horton clipped a gollywog to her uniform to mock black colleagues.

If found guilty of misconduct they could be kicked out of the profession.

The hearing continues.

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