A widely respected Christian teacher with a spotless 20-year career has been dismissed over social media posts he made in response to the Manchester Airport brawl and the Southport murders.

Simon Pearson, 56, supported by lawyers from the Christian Legal Centre, says he is determined to challenge what he calls a “grave injustice.” His case reflects a growing trend of respected professionals losing their livelihoods over opinions shared online.

That trend includes HRLA client Jereth Kok, a medical doctor whose medical licence was suspended by the Medical Board for posts made outside of work.

The Manchester Airport incident that sparked Pearson’s post involved viral footage of two men – Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and his brother – assaulting PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook, breaking one officer’s nose in a violent struggle.

In the immediate aftermath, some in the Rochdale Muslim community attempted to frame the event as unprovoked police brutality, prompting crowds to gather outside Rochdale police station and threaten violence. Several Labour MPs publicly condemned the police before the full video emerged.

After viewing the unedited footage, Pearson shared it online, adding:

What brave police endured before that was not shown by these two savages and the leftist woke media. If these people have no respect for the police and UK law, they need deporting back to their ancestral home and their property confiscated by the state. They deserved all they got in return and more. The police deserve a medal.

Pearson also made a separate post on what he saw as “two-tier policing” in the wake of the Southport killings.

Shortly afterwards, an Islamic representative of the National Education Union at Preston College lodged a formal complaint, claiming the posts were “Islamophobic” and “racially discriminatory.” The representative threatened to involve police and the media if Pearson was not dismissed.

Despite providing extensive evidence of his support for Muslim students, asylum seekers, and international communities – including letters to the Home Office and acts of personal charity – Pearson was suspended, investigated, and ultimately dismissed for gross misconduct.

Like Dr Jereth Kok’s case, Pearson’s dismissal shows how ordinary people are threatened by censorious employers, regulators, and governments. Those whose views conflict with a certain ideological narrative can lose their careers for expressing lawful personal views. Both Mr Pearson and Dr Kok had unblemished professional records and were expressing political opinions in a private capacity on their own time in a way which had no relevance to the performance of their jobs.

Pearson’s lawyers are expected to draw parallels with the case of Kristie Higgs, a Christian school assistant sacked in 2018 after raising concerns about extreme transgender ideology in her son’s school.

In February 2025, Higgs won her landmark case at the Court of Appeal. We can only hope for a similar outcome for Mr Pearson.