A SUPPLY teacher who told pupils covid was fake and claimed Islam was \u2018demonic\u2019 has been banned from the profession.<\/p>\n
Patrick Lawler also told children that Black Lives Matter (BLM) stood for \u201cBurn, Loot, Murder\u201d and wrote an article saying male homosexuality was an \u201cunnatural, unhealthy, disgusting perversion\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Teaching Regulation Agency held a professional conduct hearing after complaints about his comments while teaching at Bristol Brunel Academy in Speedwell (pictured above) and another school in the North East, as well as articles he posted online.<\/p>\n
The TRA panel, whose findings were published this week, said that while employed as a supply teacher by Bristol\u2019s Monarch Education Recruitment Agency in September 2022, Mr Lawler told Bristol Brunel Academy pupils there was no scientific proof of COVID-19 and that you could eat as much salt as you wanted without getting poisoned \u2013 a claim he attempted to back up by eating salt in front of children in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The incidents took place when Mr Lawler, aged 62, was covering a maths lesson and was supposed to be teaching students about statistics.<\/p>\n
Previously he had taught at a school in Northumberland from 2015-20, where he had told Year 6 pupils that civil rights icon Rosa Parks had not existed, the account of her refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man was \u201cstaged\u201d, and that Martin Luther King was a \u201cfraud and had embezzled lots of money\u201d.<\/p>\n
He had also told a colleague, in earshot of pupils, that \u201cwomen are murderers if they have an abortion\u201d and \u201cthere are too many burkas in London\u201d, and belittled pupils in front of classmates.<\/p>\n
The conduct panel\u2019s report said Mr Lawler had also authored or co-authored an article in 2015 in an online Catholic newsletter called The Flock that said: \u201cCatholicism is the one true religion and\u2026 all other religions are false, and of all the false religions Islam is demonstrably the most demonic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The article went on to describe gay sex as \u201can unnatural, unhealthy, disgusting perversion\u201d, abortion as \u201ca great wickedness\u2019 and Islam as \u201cSatanically inspired\u201d.<\/p>\n
A second article described the majority of clergy as \u201ctraitors to the Faith\u201d and said a \u201cvery large number\u201d of Catholic priests were \u201cpredatory homosexual child-molesters\u201d.<\/p>\n
The conduct panel found that Mr Lawler was guilty of unacceptable professional conduct that could bring the profession into disrepute.<\/p>\n
It decided he should be banned from the profession indefinitely, with a minimum of four years before he could apply to be reinstated as there was a \u201chigh risk of similar misconduct reoccurring\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Serious misconduct\u2019<\/p>\n
Confirming the ruling, panel chair Marc Cavey said: \u201cThe conduct of Mr Lawler fell significantly short of the standards expected of the profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe findings of misconduct are serious, as they include a teacher engaging in behaviour that sought to advance his own personal, often controversial, viewpoints over others, and reduce the standing of his own pupils.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatrick Lawler is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth-form college, relevant youth accommodation or children\u2019s home in England.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Lawler, who did not attend the hearing and was not represented, has the right to appeal the ruling in court.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Cabot Learning Federation, which runs Bristol Brunel Academy, said: \u201cPatrick Lawler was employed on a supply basis at Bristol Brunel Academy for a single day in September 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to his engagement, he was subject to \u2013 and cleared by \u2013 all of the usual safeguarding and professional standards checks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe following day, students reported that Mr Lawler had made comments relating to Covid scepticism and salt consumption which were at odds with our health teaching and the values of Bristol Brunel Academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Lawler\u2019s conduct was reported to the agency he had been engaged through, and it was requested that he not return to Bristol Brunel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monarch Education Recruitment Agency has been asked to comment.<\/p>\n
By Adam Postans, Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A SUPPLY teacher who told pupils covid was fake and claimed Islam was \u2018demonic\u2019 has been banned from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,204369,748,3386,2266,393,4884,7921,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-678611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-brunel-academy","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-covid","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-teachers","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115850548791683230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}