THE Revd Dr Bernard Randall will face a fresh employment tribunal regarding his dismissal by Trent College, after a judge ruled on Tuesday that there was an “appearance of bias” in the composition of the first tribunal.
It emerged last year that Jed Purkis, a lay member of the three-person panel which had previously found against Dr Randall’s claims that his dismissal as chaplain had been discriminatory (News, 3 March 2023), had made anti-Christian posts on social media.
The Times reported that Mr Purkis’s comments, which came to light in the course of another case of a school worker who alleged that she was unlawfully dismissed because of her Christian beliefs, included an assertion that “only atheists should be allowed to run for office”.
On Tuesday, at a hearing of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in London, Judge James Tayler ordered that Dr Randall’s case return to the Employment Tribunal with a new panel, because of the “appearance of bias on the part of Mr Purkis”.
Dr Randall was made redundant in December 2020, and argued in a subsequent employment tribunal that he had been unfairly dismissed. He alleged that the redundancy process had been concocted to remove him, and that he had been discriminated against for preaching sermons that advocated traditional Christian teaching about sexuality and marriage.
In one sermon, he told students that they did not need to accept the “ideology” of an LGBTQ+ charity, Educate & Celebrate, which ran programmes in the school.
The charity has since shut down. Before its closure, it was told to remove references to being recognised by Ofsted as offering “best practice”, because the schools inspectorate said that it did not endorse individual organisations. The misleading description was cited in the original tribunal judgment, which will now be re-run.
Dr Randall was first dismissed by Trent College in 2019, with the head teacher saying that he had demonstrated “wilful neglect or refusal of duty by not putting the pupils’ welfare first”. A panel convened to review the decision, however, elected to give him a final chance at the school.
He returned to work under certain restrictions, but was furloughed during Covid lockdowns, along with more than 170 staff members at Trent College. He was subsequently made redundant.
In late 2022, the employment tribunal, consisting of a panel led by Judge Victoria Butler and including Mr Purkis, ruled against Dr Randall’s claims of direct discrimination, harassment, victimisation, and unfair dismissal.
In a statement on Tuesday, Dr Randall said that he was “thankful” for the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s decision, but that the “continuing long wait for justice is painful and holding back my life”.
Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting Dr Randall, also welcomed the decision. “This case has significant implications for freedom of speech and religious belief in schools,” she said.