Nurse subjected to 'witch hunt' at Stonyhurst College overturns NMC misconduct ruling in the High Court

Judge Alan Bates made the statement about Ribble Valley’s Stonyhurst College as he overturned a misconduct ruling relating to a former nurse at the school.

He said that Laura Yalda Hindle had been subjected to a “witch hunt” by four members of staff under her management, who wanted to “oust a boss they resented”.

The background

Laura Hindle was employed at Stonyhurst as healthcare manager from January 2016 until December 31, 2018, when her employment was terminated by mutual consent. In January 2024 a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) hearing suspended her from their register after a string of misconduct charges were found proved against her.

They were said to include:

- Referring to a pupil as a “little scrote” or words to that effect, and using "confrontational language and/or behaviour" towards another male student.

- Not arranging for medication to be returned to a local pharmacy

- Failing to add an entry into the controlled drugs register whilst on duty and at the end of the shift emailing colleagues asking them to do it for her.

- Shouting at a student when he attended the Health Centre for pastoral support and described the student to colleagues as "bad news" or words to that effect.

- On one or more occasions, shouted at anothet student who would often forget to collect his medication for ADHD, and displayed intimidating behaviour towards him; as well as shouting at three students in the presence of two colleagues.

- Asking two colleagues to "tell a white lie” or words to that effect to senior management if they were asked whether additional staffing was still required in response to a viral outbreak.

- Breached student confidentially by giving a student's father details of another student.

Mrs Hindle was referred to the NMC on April 30, 2018 by the Health Centre at Stonyhurst College. A collective grievance was raised by four nurses managed by Mrs Hindle and an investigation was conducted by an external company, which had been instructed by the College.

High Court

Mrs Hindle decided to fight the ruling, with help from the Royal College of Nursing. This week, Deputy Judge of the High Court Alan Bates upheld her appeal, cast doubt on the way the NMC operate, and blasted the school’s working environment.

He said the complainant nurses had raised a “blizzard” of allegations against Mrs Hindle and that the NMC’s decision to bring so many charges “inevitably placed a considerable burden on the Panel”. He said the reasoning of the Panel “was inadequate for sustaining the findings that were made against the Appellant”, adding that it “did not properly assess the general credibility and reliability of certain witnesses who provided written and oral evidence and were cross-examined, and whose evidence was crucial to determining the charges the Appellant had denied”.

“Witch hunt”

Both Mrs Hindle and a paramedic who worked at Stonyhurst asserted in their evidence that the complainant nurses had “fabricated” their versions of events as part of a concerted campaign to undermine the Appellant and drive her out from her job as their manager.

Judge Bates said: “It is clear from the evidence that the Complainant Nurses had a very negative view of the Appellant and were keen to criticise her to her line manager. The Deputy Head Pastoral recalled them repeatedly coming to him to make complaints about the Appellant, whilst declining to raise those complaints formally. He explained that his assessment of the situation at the time was that those nurses were “trying to undermine [the Appellant]” and that it was “a witch-hunt”.

He added: “The Deputy Head Pastoral was, in my assessment of the evidence, entirely right to describe their complaints as being essentially “tittle-tattle” and to characterise what was happening as a “witch-hunt”. They were insubordinate to her management and had made her job very difficult by simply ignoring her reasonable and proper instructions to them.

“The Complainant Nurses ultimately embarked, in April 2018, on a common plan of developing and jointly submitting an omnibus complaint, raising a vast litany of matters (many of them individually quite trivial in nature) going back to 2016. It was not an attempt to prompt Stonyhurst’s management to promote a better working environment or to bring about some positive behaviour change on the Appellant’s part. Rather, it was a ‘nuclear missile’ intended to have a decisive impact in making it impossible for the Appellant to continue in her job.”

He did not find any of the disputed conduct allegations proved, but in did agree with the NMC that there had been misconduct in relation to admissions by Mrs Hindle over not arranging for the medication to be returned to the local pharmacy as required to do so, and failing to add a relevant entry into the controlled drugs register whilst on duty.

Toxic

Judge Bates said: “These failures occurred whilst she was working in a toxic workplace environment and was likely to have been under great emotional strain. As the manager of the health centre, she was effectively the ‘captain of the nurses’ and did not have any nurse or medic supervising or guiding her.”

The judge said there were various apparent inconsistencies between the factual evidence given by the Complainant Nurses and facts that were objectively verifiable from other sources, and that the NMC panel took approaches that were “legally unsustainable”, including choosing to prefer a witnesses written evidence, even if the same account was not maintained orally or under cross-examination.

Time taken

He said the time taken for the tribunal had been “far too long”, and had lead to terminally ill children being unable to benefit from her care. After leaving Stonyhurst’s employment in December 2018, Mrs Hindle had found new employment at Derian House, but that came to an end by mutual agreement in October 2023, apparently because Derian House did not feel able to wait any longer for the outcome of the NMC proceedings she was facing.

By that time, the Appellant had been working at Derian House for around four-and-a-half years. Testimonials from her employer and colleagues confirm that Derian House had “no issues or concerns with her practice”. Her colleagues there described her as having “a friendly [and] caring personality that is demonstrated by her relationship when communicating and working with [children and young people]”. She was said to be “funny and cheerful with the young people (they appear to love her sense of humour and enjoy being around her) all whilst remaining professional”.

Outcome and costs

Judge Bates found that Mrs Hindle’s Fitness to Practice was not currently impaired and there was no need to place any conditions on her practise. He awarded costs of £7,453.

What do the NMC say?

An NMC spokesperson said: “While we're unable to discuss individual cases, we can confirm we're aware of the High Court judgment, and as an organisation which is aiming to learn and improve, we will carefully consider the points the judge has made about our processes.”

Stonyhurst College has been contacted for comment, but has not yet responded.