This is about the extraordinary case of Rev Dr Bernard Randall and the latest developments in his story. In 2019, Dr Randall, an ordained Church of England (CofE) minister, was working without any issues at Trent College in Derbyshire. The college had a CofE chapel and a CofE ethos and Dr Randall was employed to pastor, teach and uphold Christian beliefs in the school. Everything changed, however, when the college invited extreme LGBT group Educate and Celebrate to implement its ‘gold standard’ inclusive curriculum to even nursery aged children.
At a staff training day, Educate and Celebrate’s Elly Barnes introduced the work of the partly Government-funded charity to school staff. She encouraged staff to stand up and chant “smash heteronormativity” – the belief that male and female relationships are the norm. During this training, which Dr Randall attended, Ms Barnes misled staff that ‘gender identity’ was protected under the Equality Act and lied that her organisation was recognised by Ofsted, which it wasn’t. Before going defunct, Educate and Celebrate was given access to thousands of schools across the country teaching ‘Queer Theory’, the ‘gender unicorn’ and telling educators to remove the terms ‘boys and girls’ from the school environment.
In recent years, Educate and Celebrate, especially its patrons, have been plagued by scandal to the point it was quietly closed by the Charity Commission. One patron, Stephen Ireland, has been charged with multiple accounts of sex abuse against children, including rape and conspiracy to kidnap.
Another patron, transgender comic, Jordan Grey, stripped naked on Channel Four and played the piano with his genitalia. Gray had suggested that he went into schools to “talk about gender” on behalf of Educate and Celebrate, adding that “toddlers kind of get it straight away.”
Another patron, Peter Tatchell, published a letter in 1997 claiming that children aged nine to 13 can gain “great joy” in having sex with adults. He said: “it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful”. Mr Tatchell may now have distanced himself from these views but still campaigns to lower the age of consent.
Dr Randall raised concerns with senior management at Trent College about Educate and Celebrate, but his concerns were swept aside. Implementing the extreme programme into the moral fabric of the school, pupils asked Dr Randall: “Why do we have to learn about this LGBT stuff?” In response, Dr Randall gave a sermon in the school’s CofE chapel, which reflected CofE teaching on marriage and human identity. He said it was okay for pupils to question and debate LGBT ideology. The consequences for Dr Randall, however, were devastating.
In a Kafkaesque development, without his knowledge, Dr Randall was reported by Trent College to the Government’s terrorist watchdog, Prevent, for “religious extremism”. He was also reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) as a potential “safeguarding risk”. Both said he had no case to answer. Nonetheless, Trent College, reported Dr Randall to the CofE’s safeguarding team at the Derby Diocese. One member of staff is recorded as describing the report as “a game changer”. Dr Randall was then investigated, censored and then isolated and ‘made redundant’ during the pandemic.
If losing his job was not enough, Dr Randall then experienced what he describes as “Stalinesque interrogations” by the CofE’s local safeguarding team who concluded that not only was the expression of his beliefs a safeguarding risk, but that Biblical teaching on marriage and “the Church itself is a risk-factor”. Dr Randall was told that he had to undergo an independent safeguarding assessment by a psychologist. The psychologist chosen specialised in assessing sex-offenders. Refusing to do so, as it would be an admittance that he had done something wrong, the Bishop of Derby, the Rt Rev Libby Lane refused to allow him to officiate in church services.
Blacklisted from his vocation, Dr Randall pursued a serious complaint of misconduct over this decision, but this was blocked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. However, a senior church legal officer for clergy discipline subsequently found that the Archbishop had “misunderstood the scope of his powers”, and was “plainly wrong”. The same investigating officer described the blacklisting of Dr Randall as “egregious” and a “gross” error and said that there was no evidence to conclude that he was a safeguarding risk. Despite repeatedly trying to block the case proceeding, Justin Welby was forced to order a review of the safeguarding processes within the Derby diocese. Over a year since this decision, the CofE has still not resolved the issue or given Dr Randall’s ‘Permission to Officiate’ certificate back.
After launching legal action over his dismissal by Trent College, Bernard’s case was heard at Nottingham Justice Centre, before Judge Victoria Butler and lay member and trade unionist, Jed Purkis. Before and after a ruling was made on the case, which found against Dr Randall on every point, Mr Purkis made a series of anti-Christian and anti-conservative posts on social media. Mr Purkis stated: “Only atheists should be allowed to run for office,” accompanied by, “Damn right, you won’t catch us killing in the name of our non-god.” He also said of Christians: “If they’re that f***ing super how come there’s so much shit going on in the world?” and “I need no ‘higher power’ to tell me the right way to treat people and behave.”
In March 2024, at the same Nottingham tribunal, Judge Butler and Mr Purkis also began presiding on another similar Christian Legal Centre case, involving Christian teacher ‘Hannah’. Hannah was taking legal action after being sacked for raising safeguarding concerns about an eight year-old ‘transitioning’ under the guidance of Stonewall in a primary school. During this hearing, Mr Purkis’s anti-Christian posts were discovered, and a recusal application was made by Hannah’s lawyers for “apparent bias”. In a rare move, Judge Victoria Butler was forced to recuse the whole panel, including herself, and the hearing collapsed. The Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, supported by the Senior President of Tribunals and the Lord Chancellor, subsequently said that Mr Jed Purkis’s comments amounted to misconduct and he was given a formal rebuke.
The Purkis and Butler controversy brought into question whether anti-Christian bias had influenced their ruling on Bernard’s case. In her ruling, Judge Butler had also suggested that Bernard had “taken an extreme view of Educate and Celebrate” and she repeatedly and falsely stated that the group was recognised by Ofsted. As a result, this week at the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the original ruling made by Butler and Purkis was overturned as “unsafe” and an urgent retrial has been ordered.
While this is encouraging news, huge questions remain. When will the Church of England give Bernard his permission to officiate back? Based on the evidence, who is the safeguarding risk to children here? Dr Randall, Educate and Celebrate, or the Church of England? When will Dr Randall receive justice almost six years since he gave his last sermon?
Andrea Williams is the founder and Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre. This post was originally published on X. If you would like to support Bernard you can make a donation to the Christian Legal Centre as it continues to pursue justice for him.
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