A Church of England chaplain who was fired, reported to counterterrorism authorities, and blacklisted as a safeguarding risk for preaching a sermon on freedom of belief has won a confidential settlement and been cleared of every allegation against him.
Rev. Dr. Bernard Randall spent seven years locked out of ministry after delivering a chapel talk at Trent College in Derbyshire, England, telling students they were free to disagree with the school's embrace of LGBTQ ideology. The school fired him for gross misconduct. The Diocese of Derby branded him a risk to children. Administrators reported him to Prevent, the United Kingdom's counterterrorism program, the same apparatus designed to catch aspiring terrorists. Prevent found he posed no threat. An independent Church of England review, conducted by the Diocese of London, has now ruled that every safeguarding concern raised against Randall was "unsubstantiated" and found no evidence of harm.
The settlement with Trent College, a private school serving students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, followed an Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling that set aside an earlier judgment against Randall and ordered the school to pay him £20,000, roughly $25,000, in costs. The tribunal ordered a full retrial. Shortly after that ruling, the two sides reached a confidential agreement, the terms of which have not been disclosed.
Randall had served as Trent College's chaplain for five years when the school partnered in 2018 with an outside group called Educate and Celebrate. The organization's stated goal, Fox News Digital reported, was to "smash heteronormativity" and embed queer theory into the school's culture. Randall raised objections with senior leadership at the time.
They were not interested.
The following year, a student asked Randall why pupils at a Christian school were being required to accept LGBTQ ideology. Randall responded with a chapel sermon on freedom of belief and conscience, encouraging students to think, debate, and respect one another regardless of what they believed.
Days later, administrators summoned him to a meeting. They interrogated him, suspended him, launched a formal investigation, and reported him to local law enforcement and to Prevent. A chaplain at a Christian school, answering a student's sincere question with a sermon about conscience, was flagged to the same program that tracks potential terrorists.
Trent College fired Randall for gross misconduct. The Diocese of Derby went further, blacklisting him as a safeguarding risk to children, a designation that effectively barred him from any role involving young people in the Church of England. Randall appealed his firing and was reinstated, but under conditions that gutted his role: his sermon topics were restricted, and all chapel content required prior administrative approval.
Then the pandemic hit. The school furloughed him. On December 31, 2020, Trent College made him redundant, the British term for a permanent layoff.
With the support of the Christian Legal Centre, Randall challenged his dismissal. An initial employment tribunal ruled against him. But the Employment Appeal Tribunal reversed that decision, set aside the judgment, and ordered a full retrial. It also ordered Trent College to pay £20,000 in costs. The school settled shortly after.
Educate and Celebrate, the group whose ideology triggered the entire episode, has since dissolved.
The Diocese of London's independent review delivered the verdict Randall had waited years to hear: the safeguarding allegations were baseless. No evidence of harm. Every concern "unsubstantiated." Randall has completed mandatory safeguarding training and is now eligible to return to public ministry.
One obstacle remains. The Christian Legal Centre says Randall is still waiting for the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, to grant him permission to officiate. Lane has not provided a public statement on the matter.
A Diocese of Derby spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the diocese has been working with Randall over the past few months:
"The Diocese is happy to continue supporting Dr Randall's potential return to ministry as he decides whether and where to apply for a role. Over the past few months, through our ongoing contact with him, he has been signposted to current vacancies in the Diocese of Derby, the Church of England's 'Pathways' recruitment portal, and to the Church's Clergy Transitions Service which has confirmed that they are also available to provide further assistance."
Randall, for his part, is not framing his ordeal as a personal grievance. He sees it as a warning.
In a statement shared by his legal team through Christian Concern, Randall said:
"I encouraged pupils to think, to debate, and to love their neighbors whatever they believed. No minister, teacher or chaplain should be punished for upholding Christian teaching in a Christian setting."
What makes Randall's case particularly striking is who did the damage. This was not a hostile secular institution punishing a believer from the outside. Trent College is a school with a Christian identity. The Diocese of Derby is part of the Church of England. The people who blacklisted Randall as a danger to children were, in theory, his own church.
Randall told Fox News Digital he tried to raise concerns internally when Educate and Celebrate arrived at the school in 2018:
"I objected to [it] at the time it started, and tried to discuss it with the senior leadership, [but] they weren't interested."
He put the betrayal plainly:
"The people who should support you most are the ones doing you harm."
Randall described his decision to fight back in terms that were unmistakably pastoral:
"It's as Jesus said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? And I sort of feel I'm in that position that it matters to stand up and be counted and tell the truth. And that was more important than just an easy, comfortable life."
Randall's case sits inside a broader pattern of speech restrictions in the United Kingdom that has drawn attention from senior American officials. Vice President JD Vance criticized growing restrictions on speech in the U.K. during a visit to Munich last year. The U.S. State Department has raised concerns over the prosecution of peaceful religious expression under British buffer zone laws.
Randall told Fox News Digital he worries about the trajectory of free expression in his country, but takes some comfort from American scrutiny:
"I know that our American cousins and the people in the White House are looking at Britain and raising the question of free speech, and in Europe too as well. That has to be a good thing because it doesn't hurt to have our friends from across the Atlantic offer a bit of advice about why it matters that free speech is so important and freedom of conscience, that these things really, really matter. So yes, I'm worried, but I'm not without hope."
He reflected on a cultural shift he has watched unfold in real time:
"I think most people in Britain still value free speech. It used to be in this country, when somebody said something that we thought was a bit strange or odd, [we'd say], 'Oh well, it's a free country.' I don't hear people saying that anymore."
Fox News Digital contacted Trent College for comment. No response was included in the reporting.
Seven years, a counterterrorism referral, a safeguarding blacklist, and a firing, all because a chaplain at a Christian school answered a student's question with a Christian answer. The institutions that should have defended him chose the path of least resistance. Randall chose the harder one, and the record now shows he was right.
