West Yorkshire teacher barred over remarks about gay and trans people

A West Yorkshire teacher has been barred from the profession after a regulatory panel found he made discriminatory comments in class about gay and transgender people.

William Garwood, 60, was teaching a Year 11 history lesson at St Mary’s Menston Catholic Voluntary Academy in October 2023 when the remarks were made, according to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA).

The panel heard that after a pupil asked Garwood, “Are there any just wars?”, he answered: “Yes.” It also heard that a pupil account said Garwood told the class he was “happy” that Vladimir Putin was killing “satanic Nazis” in Ukraine, and claimed the world was run by billionaires who created “evil Ukrainians”.

The TRA found those comments amounted to justification of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in front of pupils.

During the same lesson, the panel found he said that “gay and transgender people are mentally ill”, or words to that effect. He was also accused of saying words to the effect of “billionaires are the cause of transgenders and they print it in the media and influence people”, which the panel accepted he had said “on the balance of probabilities”.

Garwood told the panel he was entitled to his religious belief as a Muslim and to the philosophical belief of anti-Nazism under Section 10 of the Equality Act 2010.

The panel said the remarks were “clearly inappropriate and wholly unrelated” to the lesson content, and were delivered without balance or exploration of alternative perspectives.

It said the comments involving homosexuality and transgender people were particularly serious because of their possible effect on school-aged children and the sensitivity of the subject.

In its reasoning, the panel said the conduct was “clearly inappropriate and significantly outside the bounds of acceptable teaching practice”.

The TRA found the comments about Ukrainians and gay and transgender people “fell within the scope of discriminatory behaviour”. Garwood cannot apply for the banning order to be lifted until June 2032.

Educators in England can be prohibited from teaching following professional misconduct findings, typically after a TRA process and decision-maker sign-off.

Similar disputes have reached the courts, including a High Court challenge involving a teacher who said being LGBTQ+ is a sin.

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