A primary school teacher was sacked and branded a safeguarding risk after telling a Muslim pupil that “Britain is still a Christian state”.
The teacher — who wishes to remain anonymous — was referred to his local child protection board over comments he made to a Muslim pupil at his non-faith school in London. It was also reported that a senior detective from the Metropolitan Police’s child abuse investigations team became involved.
This case is one of two recently revealed by the Free Speech Union in which safeguarding protocols — designed to protect children from genuine harm — have been manipulated to silence individuals holding right-wing views. The other involves former Royal Marine Jamie Michael, who was banned by the Football Association of Wales from coaching his daughter’s football team after a safeguarding panel deemed him unsuitable to work with children.
In the teacher’s case, he was punished for stating objective facts and for admonishing pupils who were washing their feet in the boys’ bathroom sinks. In doing so, he pointed out that the school was a non-faith institution where prayers in the playground had been informally banned. He also explained that King Charles III is the head of the Church of England and that Islam remains a minority religion in the UK.
The Free Speech Union is supporting the teacher, who is now suing the local authority after being dismissed following a safeguarding officer’s conclusion that he had made “hurtful” comments about Islam, allegedly causing emotional harm to a pupil. Prior to the incident, the teacher had worked at the London school for three years and had faced three written complaints from pupils.
The General Secretary and founder of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, said: “This teacher lost his job and very nearly ended up being barred from the profession for life simply because he pointed out to a class of Muslim schoolchildren that the national religion of England is Anglicanism.
“Things have reached a pretty pass in this country if a teacher can be branded a safeguarding risk for stating something that is incontestably true. Had he claimed that Islam was the official religion of England — which it is not — I doubt he would have faced any consequences at all.”
This case not only exposes the misuse of child-protection laws, but also illustrates the likely consequences of introducing an official definition of Islamophobia — effectively a new blasphemy law. The Government is expected to publish its new “anti-Muslim hostility” definition before Parliament rises for Christmas.
The Free Speech Union is clear that safeguarding protocols should be used for their intended purpose: protecting children from abuse and serious harm, such as that exposed in the grooming gangs scandal. They should not be weaponised to silence lawful speech that departs from prevailing orthodoxy.
This case, together with that of Jamie Michael, is one of more than a dozen instances handled by the Free Speech Union in which safeguarding laws have been distorted in a deeply troubling and sinister manner.
Read more in The Telegraph.