A primary school teacher in the United Kingdom, who was dismissed from his position, is suing local authorities after they allegedly investigated him for telling a Muslim student that “Britain is still a Christian state,” a U.K.-free speech organization reports.
The Free Speech Union is representing the unnamed teacher who reportedly came under fire for reprimanding students washing their feet in the boys’ bathroom sinks.
Afterwards, the teacher, who does not wish to be named, told his students that Islam is a minority religion in the U.K.
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“To claim that Britain is a Christian country and to point out that the king is the head of the Church of England isn’t a particularly politically contentious thing to say. It’s just stating a pretty straightforward fact,” Lord Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, told Fox News.
Washing feet in the sink is a pre-prayer ritual for Muslims.
“The parent of a boy at the school complained because the teacher had told the boy not to wash his feet in one of the sinks in the school lavatories,” Young told the outlet.
According to Premier Christian News, the school dismissed the teacher in February after suspending him in 2024. He was also notified by the police and the local safeguarding board that they would be investigating the incident as a hate crime.
The police investigation was later dropped. The local safeguarding board investigation found that the teacher had made hurtful comments about Islam and should be prevented from working with children.
The teacher appealed the move before the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA). After a full hearing, TRA dismissed the charges, finding “no case to answer,” but that damage has already been done. Young pointed out that if the ruling was not in favor of the teacher, he could have been barred from the profession for life.
For now, the teacher is working in a part-time position outside of London.
“Things have reached a pretty pass in this country if a teacher can be branded a safeguarding risk because he says something that’s incontestably true,” Young told The Telegraph.
“If he’d claimed that Islam is the official religion of England, even though that’s not true, I doubt he would have got into any trouble,” he added.
This case comes as an Iraq war veteran has also challenged his local safeguarding board.
Jamie Michael, from Penygraig in South Wales, was banned from coaching his daughter’s soccer team and arrested at work for posting a video on Facebook criticizing illegal immigrants.
Michael was charged with inciting racial hatred following comments he made in a 12-minute video, using derogatory language to label some migrants as “scumbags” and “psychopaths.”
He was reported to the police by a Labour Party staffer and arrested, the Free Speech Union reports. He spent 17 days on house arrest and was denied bail while he awaited trial.
In a matter of 17 minutes, a jury acquitted him of the charges, but he has still been banned by a safeguarding board, labeled “unsuitable” to be around children. As a result, the father of two cannot coach his daughter’s team.
“It’s a horrible feeling to have to tell people I am banned from coaching a girls’ football team. What comes to people’s minds is that I must be a pervert or I’ve done something violent to children,” he said in a statement.
With the Free Speech Union’s help, he is suing the safeguarding board.
“We’ve got over a dozen cases of people being referred to safeguarding panels because they are said to be a threat to children’s safety just because of the views they’ve expressed,” Young told Fox.
