Nurse banned from practice six months following racist assault on taxi driver

The Daily Express reports on the disbarring of a nurse who was convicted of religiously aggravated common assault last year after verbally abusing and assaulting a taxi driver in Nottingham.

Elaine Roots, 57, was picked up by a driver on 10 June 2015 after a night out in Nottingham.

Roots, who was a mental health nurse at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust before her retirement, got into an “unprovoked argument with the taxi driver about the treatment of women in Islam”.

Roots went on to make abusive comments about Islam before grabbing the driver by the collar and pulling him towards her, ripping the buttons off his shirt in the process.

Roots then assaulted the driver by repeatedly punching him around in the head, neck and upper body. When taken in by police for questioning, Roots continued to be abusive when referring to the taxi driver, telling officers “he’s a f***ing Muslim isn’t he.”

She pleaded guilty to charges of religiously aggravated common assault at Nottingham Magistrates Court on June 25 last year and was given a community order placing her under curfew for 10 weeks and ordered to pay compensation of £60 as well as costs of £265.

A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel has now found that Roots’ fitness to practise as a nurse is currently impaired and she was banned for six months.

Panel chairman Clive Powell said: “The panel considered that you accepted the charge served upon you from the outset of the criminal investigation and wanted to apologise to the victim as soon as possible.

“However, the panel considered that since the incident, you have not directly addressed the impact your conduct had on the victim or on the wider impact on people who are subject to racial abuse.

“The incident was unprovoked, racially charged and violent and you continued to be racially offensive in the police station after the incident.”

Roots is now retired and was formerly employed by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Umar Mahmood, chairman of the Nottingham Licensed Taxi Owners and Drivers Association, said: “We provide a very valuable service to the public, and in return we deserve respect for that service.

“No customer has the right to ask a question which you don’t feel like answering. You would rather not have the conversation which leads to such incidents.

“It’s happened to me once or twice. People ask you irrelevant questions, like what you think of ISIL. I just ask them if we can not have the conversation.

“Nobody has the right to attack the religion you belong to. All faiths should be respected.”