Christian officer wins appeal over suspension for questioning Islam ‘indoctrination’ session
A British police officer suspended and permanently barred from policing after asking questions about Islam during a mandatory diversity training session has won an out-of-court settlement after his dismissal was overturned on appeal.
Luke Salmons, a 46-year-old police community support officer with North Yorkshire Police in northern England, brought employment tribunal proceedings against the force, alleging constructive dismissal, direct and indirect religious discrimination, harassment under the Equality Act 2010, and violations of his rights to freedom of religion and expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case has now settled out of court on confidential terms with support from the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), a U.K. nonprofit that handles religious freedom cases. Salmons said he never received an apology from the force.
Salmons was placed on the United Kingdom’s College of Policing barred list following a gross misconduct hearing in July 2025 that found he had expressed beliefs “not aligned” with force policy and had shown a “targeted intent” to push his views on Islam.
The case stemmed from a compulsory training session on race, religion and culture held Oct. 8, 2024, at police headquarters in Northallerton, The Telegraph reports.
During the session, external trainers repeatedly walked around the room chanting “Islam is a religion of peace,” which Salmons described as “indoctrination.” A Muslim police sergeant also addressed participants and invited questions on difficult topics.
Salmons asked the sergeant about his views on Gaza and Islamist groups, including Hamas, followed by a question about the meaning of jihad. The sergeant engaged with both questions and later invited Salmons for coffee to continue the conversation.
Two days later, a female inspector named Salmons called him in, told him, “I don’t like your beliefs,” instructed him to surrender his police identification, and sent him home, he told the newspaper. He was formally suspended the following day.
In the lead-up to the suspension, two colleagues found a book in Salmons’ locker, Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward by Nabeel Qureshi, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and died of cancer in 2017. They photographed it and reported him as a “risk” to superiors.
Salmons remained on paid suspension for months.
In March 2025, he wrote to senior officers explaining the toll the process was taking on his mental health and family and asked to return to work. The letter went unanswered. He resigned in May 2025. A disciplinary panel nonetheless convened on July 17 and found him guilty of gross misconduct in his absence, placing him on the barred list, which can prevent an officer from working in policing for at least five years and potentially for life.
He appealed the decision with support from CLC.
At a hearing last December, Chief Constable Tim Forber overturned the gross misconduct finding before Salmons had finished presenting his case, according to the advocacy organization Christian Concern, whose legal arm is CLC.
Forber wrote to Salmons that while he had on several occasions made colleagues feel “uncomfortable and unsettled” during training, that did not constitute gross misconduct or a breach of Police Staff Standards of Professional Behaviour. Forber added that the matters could have been addressed through reflective practice rather than a disciplinary process and confirmed that Salmons would not remain on the barred list.
The case ultimately settled out of court.
Salmons said he never received an apology from the force.
“There is a culture of fear — people are scared to say anything or ask anything in case they get pulled up for it,” he told The Telegraph. “Our institutions are scared of Islam.”
A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said Salmons had been referred to the professional standards department “following reports of concern from a number of colleagues about his behaviour and views” and that the expression of personal beliefs must always be consistent with force values.
Among earlier incidents, Salmons said a superintendent asked him in spring 2024 to write an Easter article for the internal staff intranet because of his Christian faith, only for an inspector to prohibit any reference to the Bible.
During an online training session on inappropriate sexual behavior by minors, he suggested that children raised in stable family homes were less likely to exhibit such behavior. A trainer reported him to his sergeant, who told him he could not discuss his morals at work.
CLC Chief Executive Andrea Williams said the case exposed how inclusivity training within the police had become “a vehicle for enforcing a narrow ideological orthodoxy, where only approved views are permitted and lawful questioning is punished.”
Salmons, who earned £36,000 (about $45,500) annually as a PCSO, now works as a senior housing officer for a homelessness charity at a lower salary.
