An RE teacher at an Ayrshire secondary school has been reprimanded by the General Teaching Council for Scotland — after sharing an antisemitic post online from a fake profile.
Edward Sutherland used the alias ‘Stevie Harrison’ and shared one message which read “f**k Israel” on Facebook.
Sutherland, a Religious and Moral Education teaching principal at Belmont Academy, Ayr, carried out the behaviour between September 25, 2018 and January 2019.
Sutherland, with a 25-year teaching career, faced allegations that his behaviour was “antisemitic” and that his fitness to teach was “impaired.”
He admitted posting the material, but claimed the messages were not antisemitic due to there being a “distinction” between Zionism, a political position, and Judaism, a religion.
In one post Sutherland, a convenor in the Confederation of Friends of Israel Groups in Scotland, said: “If I lose my job because some Zionist doesn’t like me supporting the people of Palestine, don’t worry about it. I’ll still have my dignity.”
Another post read: “Looks like a certain Zio’s big nose is out of joint,” while another said: “I’ve seen it all now. Zio p****’s asking for donations” and “a certain Jewish lawyer woke up this morning to find Free Palestine painted rather prominently”, or words to that effect.
One witness told how the Glasgow Friends of Israel group (GFI) — of which Sutherland had been a member — used false identities on social media to post materials to flush out and “assist” in identifying those committing hate crimes against them.
The General Teaching Council for Scotland said Sutherland’s behaviour “fell short” of the standards expected of a teacher and that his actions “amounted to misconduct.”
They made a single finding of antisemitism against Sutherland and deemed other comments to be “vulgar” and “unacceptable.”
An extract from the GTCS fitness to teach panel outcome report said: “The conduct was not at the most serious end of the range of this type of conduct due, in particular, to the parties’ acceptance that there had been no intent on the part of the teacher to make any remarks of an antisemitic nature.”
The panel was also of the view that Sutherland’s conduct was of “an isolated nature,” and they noted they had been “no repetition” of the behaviour.
The GTCS also stated that the events represented an “ill-judged, one-off incident” in an “otherwise unblemished teaching career.”
They added: “The Panel considered there was a low likelihood of reoccurrence and concluded that the reprimand should be imposed for nine months.”
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