Megan McPherson

Introduction

Megan McPherson is a social care worker whose employment town was Glenrothes, Fife, who was removed from the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) register after a series of assaults — including on a police officer — and unsafe conduct involving a vulnerable person in her care. The SSSC removed her with the decision taking effect on June 17, 2026, finding her fitness to practise impaired because of misconduct toward a person who uses care services and later convictions for multiple assaults and threatening and abusive behaviour.

Background Information

McPherson worked as a home carer for East Fife Care at Home by Fife Council. Her case began with an incident in January 2023, when she attended the home of an individual known as AA outside working hours. Separately and afterwards, she accumulated two sets of criminal convictions in the sheriff courts — first in Edinburgh in November 2024, then in Kirkcaldy in July 2025 — for conduct that was not directed at service users but that the regulator treated as directly relevant to her fitness to work with them.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. McPherson’s convictions at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in November 2024 and Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court in July 2025 were matters of court record. The SSSC’s findings about the January 2023 incident involving AA and its characterisation of a pattern of violent and abusive behaviour are regulatory findings; the account below distinguishes the two.

While under investigation, McPherson was convicted at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in November 2024 of assault and assault of a police constable, after attempting to punch one person and spitting on a police officer in Penicuik in February 2023. In July 2025, at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, she was convicted of assault and of threatening and abusive behaviour after spitting in a woman’s face in Methil and shouting, swearing, throwing household items, damaging a television and struggling with police officers during an incident in February 2024.

The care-related matter dated to January 2023, when McPherson attended the home of AA outside working hours while employed as a home carer. The authority found that she moved AA to bed using a tracking hoist on her own when this should normally be done by two people, failed to make sure AA had access to her community alarm pendant, and later banged on the door after leaving her phone inside. The following day she returned, banged on the door again and spoke to AA through a window asking for her phone back. The council said she failed to maintain professional boundaries, put herself and AA at unnecessary risk of harm and showed a “serious lack of judgement”.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The SSSC said there was a pattern of “violent and abusive behaviour” and warned that the risk of her repeating it was high. The regulator noted that McPherson had not engaged with its investigation or shown insight, apology or regret. It concluded that a warning, conditions or suspension would not adequately protect the public, and that a Removal Order was necessary in the public interest and to maintain trust in social services and in the regulator. The removal took effect on June 17, 2026.

Current Status

McPherson is removed from the SSSC register and cannot work in any social care role in Scotland that requires registration. The removal rests on both limbs the regulator identified: the boundary breaches and unsafe single-handed hoist transfer involving AA, and the subsequent convictions for assaults including on a police constable, which the SSSC folded into a finding of a pattern of violent and abusive behaviour carrying a high risk of repetition. No appeal against the removal was reported in the sources covering the case.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The removal ended McPherson’s career in registered social care at the age of her service with Fife Council’s home care operation. The case is notable for the route by which off-duty criminality ended a care registration: neither conviction arose from her work with service users, but the SSSC treated the sequence — a boundary-breaching incident with a vulnerable client in January 2023, then two sets of assault convictions across 2023-2024 incidents — as a single escalating pattern rather than isolated events. Her non-engagement with the regulator’s investigation and absence of insight, apology or regret removed any basis for a sanction short of removal.