A teacher has been sacked for teaching the "flat Earth theory" and preaching his awful homophobic views in a series of YouTube rants watched by his students.
Robert Headley taught pupils at Rokeby School for Boys in Canning Town, east London, about the flat Earth theory - the scientifically disproven theory that the Earth is disc shaped - and that the moon landings were faked.
Mr Headley - who taught Design and Technology at the school between 2008 and 2019 - is said to have asked the kids to "keep these discussion confidential", according to an employment tribunal published on March 2.
Jo Doyle - a deputy head of the community school - unearthed Mr Headley's YouTube channel, where he openly promoted "discriminatory views" against LGBTQ+ people and other ethnicities, MyLondon reports
Being an openly gay woman, Ms Doyle said she found the content particularly hurtful.
Among the statements made on Mr Headley's YouTube channel are: "Jews, Scribes and Pharisees are of the devil", " What is found in the DNA of Satan, like your LGBT, like your antichrist".
Ms Doyle wrote in her report: "To see a member of staff saying derogatory, divisive and hateful things about LGBT and Christian community on a public platform distressed, upset and saddened me
"I am comfortable with who I am, but I am more concerned with the effect these views might have on younger members of staff, students and families.
"There are some very vulnerable boys and young staff who may be exploring their sexuality and questioning it and it is important that they are not judged or made to feel that they are evil."
Mr Headley's YouTube channel currently contains 816 videos dating back a few years, where he can regularly been seen proselytising his views. He has just a few thousand followers.
His early videos were filmed in the DT classroom he taught from, where he could be seen wearing the school logo sitting in front of a noticeboard which included pictures of staff members.
Another deputy head teacher, Emma Hobbs, discovered the videos and asked him to stop filming on school premises as she was concerned they would appear affiliated to the school. However she did not watch the video in full.
It was only when Ms Doyle watched the videos further that Mr Headley's conduct become officially flagged.
Mr Headley was sacked on July 16, 2019 after a panel with the school governors, but he bought forward a claim that he was wrongly dismissed. The employment tribunal report published this month says Mr Headley was not wrongly dismissed as his views do, as the school claimed, go against the school's values of inclusivity.
The report reads: "We accept that it would be difficult if not impossible to promote values of plurality and openness to students when it was known that a senior teacher publicly denounced LGBTQ+ people, Jews and Catholics as being evil or the descendants or followers of Satan.
"There was evidence, which we accepted, that there were a number of openly gay students at the school. We find that there were reasonable grounds for finding that students were aware of the channel."
The investigators in the case pointed to Thank you cards written by pupils addressed to Mr Headley, which did reference them subscribing to his YouTube channel. The report adds: "[Mr Headley] has made public statements over a number of years. We accept that the cumulative effect of those statements is such that it seriously damaged the employment relationship."
In his attempts to claim unlawful dismissal, Mr Headley argued he was teaching flat Earth theory to "teach students perspective". He brought a claim that his dismissal was an act of unlawful direct discrimination because of his religious beliefs
To this end, the employment judge wrote: "We conclude that the treatment of the claimant was not because of religion or belief. The reasons for the dismissal are in our view entirely [separate] from the beliefs themselves and are solely because those beliefs were manifested in a manner entirely inconsistent with [Mr Headley's] position as a senior teacher at a multicultural secondary school. Had he chosen to express himself in other terms the outcome might have been very different.
"The school was entitled to conclude that its own interests in promoting pluralism and the welfare of its students were a sufficient reason for restricting the claimant's rights to manifest his religious beliefs and/or express his opinions in public in the manner that he did. He must bear responsibility for the way he has chosen to express himself."
