In June 2019, Rev. Dr Bernard Randall delivered a sermon at Trent College, a Church of England (CofE) school in Derbyshire.

A student had asked about the school’s new LGBT curriculum. Randall’s response, from the pulpit of the school chapel, reflected the Church’s own doctrinal teaching on marriage.

He spent the seven years that followed fighting to clear his name.

The school suspended him within weeks. The headteacher reported him to Prevent – the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism programme. The Diocese of Derby raised a safeguarding referral that blacklisted Randall from CofE ministry. He was effectively barred from preaching and from any role in religious education.

What followed was an investigation by the Disclosure and Barring Service. Then the Teaching Regulation Authority. Then Prevent itself.

None found a case for Rev. Randall to answer.

An Employment Tribunal nonetheless upheld his dismissal in February 2023. In March 2025, the Employment Appeal Tribunal declared that original decision unsafe – the panel had demonstrated apparent bias against Christian belief. A retrial was ordered. Trent College was required to pay £20,000 in costs.

Now, a confidential settlement has been reached. The safeguarding blacklisting has been overturned. Rev. Randall is eligible to preach again.

“Seven years have been taken from me for doing my duty as a CofE chaplain in a school with a CofE ethos,” Randall said.

The institutional machinery deployed against him – a school’s safeguarding referral, a bishop’s intervention, a counter-terrorism programme – was set in motion by a sermon that the Church’s own doctrine authorised.

The pattern is present in Australia. Dr Jereth Kok, a Melbourne GP, was suspended from medical practice and tied up in a legal case for over five years over his social media posts.

Lyle Shelton has been before Queensland tribunals since 2019 over a blog post criticising Drag Queen Storytime at a public library.

Even when an individual’s name is cleared, the process is the punishment.

Rev. Randall’s seven-year ordeal has ended. For some Australians, the ordeal is still running.