Home Affairs Correspondent
A Cheshire nurse has been struck off after a tribunal found that her hostility towards Muslims, including carrying sharpened scissors and a weighted chain into a care home, created a risk to colleagues and vulnerable residents.
Belinda Jayne Ellams, an agency nurse at Millbrow Care Home, repeatedly made anti-Muslim comments in the days after the Southport attack in July 2024. She told colleagues that “the Muslims are building an army to kill all white people” and “we need to be ready for the Muslims when they come”.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel, which heard the case in London from August 10 to 19, found that her conduct was motivated by hostility towards Muslims and represented serious breaches of professional standards.
Following the July 29, 2024 attack in Southport, in which three girls were killed, Ellams falsely told colleague Michelle Isaac that the attacker was a “radicalised Muslim” and that the media were concealing this fact.
“We are gathering an army,” she also told Isaac.
Isaac told the tribunal she feared the comments could lead to “real murders” and was particularly alarmed by the reference to an army because she had children.
Ellams subsequently told Isaac to keep doors and windows locked “in case a Muslim gets in”. She was carrying a chain fitted with weighted steel balls, which she demonstrated could cause injury, along with a large pair of scissors.
She also gave, or attempted to give, Isaac sharpened nail scissors, telling her to keep them “in case the mussys come”. Isaac described them as sharpened to a fine point and resembling a weapon.
The panel found that the comments and behaviour created an intimidating, hostile and offensive environment and showed that Ellams regarded Muslims as a dangerous and violent group.
It also considered a Facebook post made on July 30, 2024 from an account in Ellams’ name. The post featured bearded men in traditional Muslim clothing, including one holding a large knife above his head, alongside a distressed white child wearing a Union Jack T-shirt.
The accompanying message accused the government of allowing “illegal migrants” into Britain and said it did not care about “your lives or your children’s lives”.
The panel found that the post linked Muslims with illegal migrants and portrayed them as violent towards a white child. It described the imagery as a “widely recognised Islamophobic trope” and concluded that the post was racially motivated and driven by hostility towards Muslims.
On August 8, 2024, Ellams allowed her nursing registration to lapse and told the NMC she was unaware of any matter that could give rise to a fitness-to-practise allegation. The panel found this was inaccurate because concerns about her conduct had already been escalated.
Ellams did not attend the hearing but denied the allegations in written evidence.
“I deny all the allegations against me and I am absolutely appalled by them and how I have been treated,” she said.
Rejecting the allegation that she had discriminated against Muslims, she wrote: “I am not.”
The panel rejected a separate allegation that she had acted dishonestly to conceal the complaints from her recruitment agency, finding insufficient evidence that she intended to do so.
In its findings, the panel said nurses were entitled to hold personal views but could not express them inappropriately in the workplace. It concluded that Ellams had fallen significantly below the standards expected of a nurse and breached several provisions of the NMC Code covering equality, professional behaviour, integrity and social media.
The panel rejected conditions on her practice, saying the concerns reflected “deep seated attitudinal issues” rather than a clinical skills deficit. Suspension was also considered insufficient to maintain public confidence in the profession.
It found that Ellams had demonstrated no meaningful insight or remorse and provided no evidence of reflection, training or remediation. There was no realistic prospect of her addressing the concerns, and the case was classified as presenting the “highest risk” level.
Allowing her to continue practising would, the panel concluded, undermine public confidence in nursing. It therefore imposed a striking-off order, describing her conduct as “exceptionally serious”.
An interim suspension order lasting 18 months was also imposed while the appeal period runs. The striking-off order remains subject to the applicable appeal process.
