British authorities are using ‘safeguarding’ powers (designed to stop sexual predators accessing children) to punish Britons with politically incorrect views. Meanwhile, the same authorities protect teachers who flout the law against partisan teaching.
The latest scandal goes something like this. In November, a primary school in London dismissed a teacher who admonished three Muslim children for washing feet in sinks, and who went on to say, after a child claimed it was justified as a ritual before prayer, that the school is not a faith school and that ‘Britain is still a Christian state.’
The facts of the case are second-hand, because the teacher wishes to remain anonymous. He has engaged the Free Speech Union to help to sue the local authority.
The FSU says that his dismissal begins with a complaint from a parent governor. The school invited three children to submit written statements. These were examined by the headteacher, the local safeguarding officer, two social workers, and a detective from the child abuse team of the Metropolitan Police. The school suspended and eventually dismissed the teacher.
The safeguarding officer concluded that the teacher had caused emotional harm, justifying a ban on working with children, although the ban was later overturned.
The investigators seem to have treated the statement about our Christian country as the severest issue. Lord Young, founder of the FSU, said: ‘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.’
Safeguarding is being used to punish Britons with the wrong politics. Lord Young says that the FSU counts ‘15 people on our books who’ve been branded a risk to children because of their political views.’
One of them is Jamie Michael. In February, he was prosecuted for inciting racial hatred, through a video he posted on Facebook in July 2024. The video complains about unvetted immigration, Islamists, and ‘radicalized idiots,’ but does not incite anyone: so says his lawyer and the jury at Merthyr Crown Court, which took just 17 minutes to acquit him.
Months later, we learn that a local safeguarding board ruled Mitchell not ‘suitable’ to work with children. Then the Football Association of Wales banned him from coaching his daughter’s football team – and any children. His Facebook video is the only apparent cause. No other complaint has been made against Mitchell. He had already passed all background checks. He is a decorated Royal Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Safeguarding rulings are easy to make but expensive to overturn.
Safeguarding rulings are usually made by persons with no training, qualifications, or accreditation in law or childcare, except their employment by a school, or youth group, or sports administration. These rulings are usually made at the most micro level, with unclear chains of accountability. Sometimes, these rulings are made without any interaction with the victim, without any defined process, without any consultation with higher authorities.
Opaque decisions and unclear accountability are almost impossible to challenge. Letters to local authorities are routinely ignored. Letters to Members of Parliament or Ministers will provoke the usual irresponsibility about ‘independent’ authorities.
The victim’s final recourse is civil litigation, which is horrendously risky in Britain, given the high bar for proving harm and the low prospect for compensation.
With the FSU’s support, Mitchell is crowdfunding a legal challenge to overturn the decision by the Football Association of Wales. (To donate, please click here.)
Mitchell has the FSU’s support because the FSU sees a political motive behind the ban.
But safeguarding is being used to punish people with unclear politics, although the punishment is still political.
Take the alacrity with which courts, schools, and sports authorities stop fathers accessing their children when mothers claim that fathers are abusive.
As I have reported, in family court (and schools and sports organizations) a claim of abuse does not need to reach the burden of proof normal in criminal courts, i.e., beyond reasonable doubt. The handling of abuse claims is gendered. Claims by women are routinely treated as facts. Claims by men are routinely ignored.
I learned of one case recently where a man received a letter from his county’s organizing authority for cricket, telling him not to attend any more matches in which his son plays (for the county side), because of a safeguarding concern filed by the boy’s mother. That organization refuses to disclose the concern. The victim doesn’t have the resources to sue the organization.
How many men are in the same position?
