Nurse claims discrimination over rule banning cross and chain

A nurse facing disciplinary action for wearing a cross necklace has accepted redeployment and instructed her lawyers to file a claim of discrimination.

Shirley Chaplin was asked to remove the cross by her employers at The Royal Devon and Exeter Trust, which deemed it a breach of uniform policy and a health risk to both the nurse and her patients.

Chaplin, 54, said she had worn the cross throughout her nursing career, according to The Press Association.

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She said: “This blatant piece of political correctness amounts to the marginalising of employees’ personal human rights, and a blanket secularising of the NHS.”

Barrister Andrea Minichiello Williams of the Christian Legal Centre said that Chaplin had accepted redeployment under duress.