Struck off, nursing tutor who mocked Sikh turban

A SENIOR nursing lecturer has been struck off after he mocked a Sikh colleague.

Maurice Slaven repeatedly racially harassed his co-worker over his turban, referring to it as a ‘hat’ and a ‘bandage’.

Slaven, a child nursing lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, also made insensitive comments about Sikhs using ‘swords’.

Following a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) tribunal, Slaven has been stripped of his nursing licence.

Cambridge-based Slaven qualified as a children’s nurse in Edinburgh in 1997.

He racially harassed ‘Colleague 1’, a senior nursing lecturer, between October 2016 and December 2018, the NMC tribunal heard. Slaven admitted the charge but claimed it had been ‘banter’.

When discussing a charity appeal for toys for Sikh children, Slaven said: ‘What Sikh toys? Do you mean daggers, knives and swords?’

A tribunal report said the NMC ‘considered the misconduct to be serious because Mr Slaven was in a position of trust teaching future nursing professionals’.