School chaplain told pupils 'you don't have to accept LGBT stuff'

Reverend Bernard Randall has taken Trent College to an employment tribunal

A school chaplain used a sermon to tell pupils they did not have to believe in "LGBT stuff".

Rev Bernard Randall delivered his message to children aged as young as 11, an employment tribunal has heard.

Rev Randall was later made redundant from his role at Trent College in Derbyshire.

He is now claiming he was unfairly dismissed by the school and seeking compensation.

The hearing, in Nottingham, was told Rev Randall opposed parts of a programme the fee-paying boarding school, in Long Eaton, was implementing to try to improve LGBT inclusivity.

Rev Randall, 49, told the tribunal he believed elements of the programme, devised by charity Educate and Celebrate, were Marxist, revolutionary, atheist and incompatible with Christian values.

In June 2019 Rev Randall delivered the sermon, entitled Competing Ideologies, which he composed because he found elements of the Educate and Celebrate programme "highly troubling".

Ruffle a few feathers

Rev Randall said he was inspired to write the sermon, delivered in June 2019 to pupils aged between 11 and 17, after he was asked by a sixth-form pupil: "Sir, how come we are told we have to accept all this LGBT stuff in a Christian school?"

He included the question within the sermon, which he said concerned school leaders.

He also said, in his sermon: "You do not have to accept the ideas of LGBT activists".

Rev Randall accepted his sermon might "ruffle a few feathers" but told the hearing he did not anticipate any complaints about it.

Paul Wilson, representing the college, asked Rev Randall whether he was being deliberately provocative and undermining the programme the school was implementing.

Rev Randall said: "The school has no place telling pupils they have to accept an ideology - I would say that even applies to Christianity".

"I don't think it ever occurred to me that anyone would think that was offensive."

'Diversity wall'

The complainant told the hearing he was not the only member of staff who had been concerned about the introduction of the Educate and Celebrate programme.

He said: "Some objected on religious grounds, others found the aggressively political approach concerning, feeling beliefs were being forced upon them.

"Others were simply confused about what they could or could not believe".

He said the school set up an Educate and Celebrate 'diversity wall' and pressed pupils to sign it to show their support for the programme.

If they did they were given the charity's stickers but Rev Randall claimed some pupils who declined to sign had them put on their jackets anyway.

The tribunal continues.