A school reported its chaplain to anti-terrorism Prevent program after he told students that they were allowed to question its new LGBT policies.
According to reports, the Reverend Dr. Bernard Randall, 48, delivered a sermon at independent Trent College and told students that they were allowed to disagree with the new measures if they think or believe that they ran contrary to the principles of the Church of England.
But the school secretly reported him to Prevent after deciding that his sermon was ‘harmful to LGBT’ pupils.
After an investigation, police told the school that Dr. Randall posed ‘no counter terrorism risk or risk of radicalization.’
Derbyshire Police also confirmed that the case ‘did not meet the threshold to a Prevent referral.’
Dr. Randall claims that he was later told by the school that any future sermons would be censored in advance.
He also says that the school has warned his services would be monitored “to ensure that requirements are met.” However, he was later dismissed.
“My career and life are in tatters,” Dr. Randall, an Oxford graduate and a former Cambridge University chaplain, said. He is now suing for discrimination, victimization, harassment and unfair dismissal.
His 2019 sermon was prompted by concerns from students about an organization called Educate & Celebrate, which was invited to ‘embed gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation into the fabric’ of the school.
In it, Dr. Randall said: “You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology, than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit, or must be Muslim.”
He also stressed the “need to treat each other with respect.”
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