Teacher BANNED from working with children after telling Muslim pupil 'Britain's a Christian state'

A senior detective from the Metropolitan Police's child abuse investigation team subsequently became involved in the matter, launching a hate crime investigation.

The incident arose after the teacher, who does not wish to be named, allegedly reprimanded pupils for using sinks in the boys' toilets to wash their feet.

According to the complaint, the teacher said the school was “not a religious institution” and suggested the pupil attend a nearby Islamic school instead.

The teacher also reminded pupils that King Charles serves as head of the Church of England.

Following the feet-washing incident, the teacher went about explaining the British values of tolerance to his Year 6 class.

He informed the children that Islam was a minority religion in the United Kingdom.

Legal representatives for the teacher have highlighted the school was a non-faith institution where prayers had been informally prohibited from the playground, with foot washing in sinks similarly restricted to a designated prayer room.

The school suspended the teacher in March 2024 before subsequently dismissing him, per The Telegraph.

The teacher was informed in April 2024 that he had been referred to the safeguarding board and Scotland Yard. The force's investigation was later dropped.

However, the safeguarding officer determined the teacher had made hurtful comments about Islam and that the child had suffered emotional harm, resulting in his ban from working with children.

Three pupils submitted written complaints against the educator.

Nine individuals reviewed these complaints, comprising the local safeguarding officer, a detective sergeant from the child abuse investigation team, two social workers, an HR adviser and the headteacher.

The children said they felt upset and frightened by the teacher's outburst, claiming he had shouted at them.

The teacher successfully appealed against the ban and is now understood to be employed part-time at a school outside London.

Lord Young, director of the Free Speech Union, stated: "This teacher lost his job and almost ended up being barred from the profession for life just 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 because he says something that's incontestably true.

"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."

The Free Speech Union is supporting the teacher's legal action against the local authority and has assembled a dossier containing more than twelve cases where adults working with children were allegedly referred to safeguarding boards for expressing right-wing views.

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