Teacher Referred to Prevent After Showing Trump Videos to Politics Students
A teacher has been referred to the Prevent counter-terror programme as a risk to children and forced out of his job after showing sixth-form students Donald Trump videos in a class on US politics and propaganda. Very not good! The Telegraph has the story.
A teacher in an English school was accused of posing a risk to children and referred to the Government’s counter-terrorism programme after showing Donald Trump videos to his US politics class.
The teacher, who is in his 50s, has told the Telegraph he was “likened to a terrorist” after showing the videos, including one of Mr Trump’s inauguration, to A-level students.
Henley College, a sixth-form in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, with more than 2,000 students, reported the politics lecturer to the local child safeguarding authority, which concluded a referral to Prevent, the Government’s counter-terrorism programme, was a “priority”.
The teacher was accused of causing his A-level students, aged 17 and 18, “emotional harm”. In one document, seen by the Telegraph, local officials in charge of child protection suggested the showing of the videos could amount to a “hate crime”.
The extraordinary claims prompted the teacher, who first qualified in the mid-1990s, to begin a grievance procedure against the college. In a negotiated settlement, it gave him a £2,000 payoff after effectively forcing him to resign from his £44,000-a-year post.
His case is the latest uncovered by the Telegraph in which child protection laws have seemingly been used to try to ban adults with alleged Right-wing views from working with children.
The Free Speech Union believes the laws, intended to protect children from murderers and rapists, are being wrongly used to go after adults with unfashionable opinions. It said the teacher’s case was a clear example of child safeguarding protocols “being weaponised to silence someone for political reasons”.
The teacher, who does not wish to be identified, said: “They likened me to a terrorist. It was completely jarring. It’s dystopian, like something from a George Orwell novel.”
Documents seen by the Telegraph show how Henley College began its investigations in January 2025 after complaints were made by two of the lecturer’s students. He was accused of “biased” and “off topic” teaching.
The college said in an official email dated Jan 28 that he was alleged “to have shown your students videos of Donald Trump, his campaign, propaganda and other videos which are unrelated to what is being taught”.
The college then claimed that one of the videos had “made one of the students feel quite uncomfortable”.
The teacher said: “It was just terrifying; just mind-boggling. We were discussing the US election, Trump had just won and I showed a couple of videos from the Trump campaign. Next thing, I was accused of bias. One of the students said they were emotionally disturbed and claimed to have had nightmares.”
Asked if he was a far-Right extremist, the teacher, a practising Catholic who admits he is a Republican supporter but is adamant that his views are mainstream, said: “I am not an extremist.”
He accused the college of a “complete Left-wing bias”, adding: “They don’t tolerate anything about Donald Trump.”
The college referred the case to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO), the official in charge of investigating safeguarding concerns.
The LADO report, dated May 22, said the teacher’s views “could be perceived as radical” and that Henley College “should complete a Prevent referral”.
It went on: “There is concern that this behaviour could cause harm to a child, there could be a criminal offence from the views which could constitute a hate crime and it’s possible that his promoting of views could be radicalisation.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: You can watch the supposedly offending video for yourself here.
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Not surprised at all by the story itself, but I was by the teacher’s salary – £44k for teaching at a sixth-form college??
Too much or too little? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me provided that the individual is putting effort into their work.
Too little, was my thought. Reading further on the DT site I see he was working part-time.
Ah thanks for that info- I would agree
I read a comment in the DT that said the school headmaster was on 200k.
Someone should send the story to Trump so he can put all of those involved on a permanent visa/ESTA blacklist – though presumably none of them would want to go to a country that had elected a Nazi terrorist.
Why “admits” he supports the Republican Party? Why is that an “admission”? Why is it necessary for him to emphasise that he is “mainstream”? What do his personal political views have to do with discussing the twice democratically elected President of one of our closest allies?
Whether or not the pupils like/support Trump surely they need to be able to talk about the phenomenon without being triggered. They’re studying Politics FFS. They’re the ones with bias.
You are right. My own children have sworn not to visit the USA whilst Trump is President. Not keen on giving DNA or their social media history. So can’t blame them.
How childish. I think your children need to ‘get a grip’….
Politics A-level students caused “emotional harm” by a video of the democratically-elected American president should be confronted with footage of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Same goes for the safeguarding mafia that brought about this travesty.
Meanwhile on the college website…
https://www.henleycol.ac.uk/about/governors/meet-the-governors
…True to form the Principal Mafioso proclaims:
“The Henley College has a long-standing reputation for academic rigour and a focus on nurturing independent, resilient students.”
Yes Principal Simon Spearman, plus Simon Wright, who is the Head of Student Services, which takes care of “safeguarding issues”.
White men screwing over fellow white men. Imagine my surprise.🙄
Resilient?!
Safeguarding, neither any kind of guard and not safe either.
This makes my blood boil.
Totally!
The college can be found on the Internet along with its Google reviews page. Just saying.
BBC news also shows video clips with Donald Trump. Are they also going to be referred to Prevent?
The teacher was asked if he had far right views.
What exactly is the definition of “far right”?
A few decades ago that meant something like being a member of KKK, thinking Adolph was a hero, violently attacking gays or something similar.
What exactly is the definition these days?
Is it thinking that, for example, marriage can only exist between one man and one woman?
Fine, then I’m far right. But so are Muslims. Oh, an Orthodox Jews too.
Prevent does not seem tovery good at preventing anything so another one for the Reform scrapping list.
How well have these LADOs done in safeguarding white schoolgirls fro m Paki rapists? No, thought not.
I had to look it up:
My emphasis added.
Every time a teacher is bullied thousands more are intimidated. Sack the bullies and make an example of them; they badly need a taste of their own medicine.
Well, Trump is obviously a dangerous, far-right terrorist in the process of genociding the planet and everything on it by willful climate change and claiming that people are not born sexless.
aka
Has made various political decisions which crossed people with very deep pockets who don’t care in the slightest about truth as they’re convinced they can just manufacture whatever perception of reality they desire.
…and deploy at will their ‘army’ of credulous useful idiots, simply by incanting an emotive phrase into the echo chamber.
In case liberals didn’t get the message.
Woke is dead
Noooooooo..!!!
Now I’m completely lost. How on earth can you lose your job for showing a video of POTUS? There must be more to it than that? Otherwise he could justifiably sue for wrongful dismissal! No sorry, don’t buy it! Even left wing Britain hasn’t yet become that draconian, although the vast majority have an inbuilt dislike of Trump on principal.
Well everyone who views and speaks about Trump or his videos must be under suspicion then.—— So determined are the Progressive Left to silence their opponents that they don’t actually realise that it is because of their banning and ostracising and silencing of people that people turn to TRUMP.
Maybe the students need to see the video of the October 7th atrocities to assuage their world view. Unfortunately the middle classes have too too much to lose to revolt and the benefits are way to good for the others to come out into the street.