A paramedic has been suspended for nine months after saying to her colleagues ‘I don’t like Muslims’ and that another was ‘dressing like a suicide bomber’.
Deena Best was found guilty of misconduct for repeated discriminatory remarks to staff at London Ambulance Service when she was having a conversation with two colleagues, one of whom was a Muslim.
In their judgement, the panel stated that the Muslim paramedic said he had been talking with another colleague about fasting during Ramadan when Mrs Best interjected ‘out of the blue’.
The Tribunal gave the following statement:
(Mrs Best) then said something along the lines of: ‘I don’t differentiate between people, I don’t like Muslims’. (He) said he brushed the comment off and hoped it was a joke.
As the conversation continued, (the other colleague) asked if there were any mosques in the area, which is when (Mrs Best) said: ‘Mosques are bloody popping up everywhere’.
(He) said he tried to keep the conversation light and make a joke of it so replied: ‘We are taking over’.
He hoped that everyone would laugh and move on, however (Mrs Best) said something along the lines of: ‘You can’t say something like that. I can get you in trouble’. He did not consider that the Registrant was joking.”
Mrs Best was subsequently suspended from her job for 9 months and the panel found her guilty “of an inherent, derogatory stereotype based on race and/or religion ” and “expressed the unjust and prejudicial treatment of individuals, based on their membership or presumed membership of a race and/or religion”.
The panel heard that Mrs Best later remarked that she didn’t want to talk to her colleague anymore ‘as he is a Muslim’ and that he ‘looks like a bomber because of the way he dresses’.
She was also accused of saying to a colleague: “You should be careful running with your Paramedic bag as you could be mistaken for a bomber”, called him “Osama” and said he should shave his beard. “It was in the winter time when he had grown his beard, and it had grown quite long.”
He said that he recalled Mrs Best saying to him that he looked like Osama bin Laden due to the length of his beard.
During the disciplinary process Mrs Best had argued that the remarks were not intended to be malicious but light-hearted.
Mrs Best was suspended for 9 months and the panel found her guilty “of an inherent, derogatory stereotype based on race and/or religion ” and “expressed the unjust and prejudicial treatment of individuals, based on their membership or presumed membership of a race and/or religion”.
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