Christian teacher ‘forced out’ of his job denies insulting Muslim girl over headscarf
ICC Note
‘The Christians and Jews are our enemies – you too because you’re a Christian’.
02/09/2010 UK (Mail Online)-A primary school teacher who claims he was forced out of his job today denied making offensive remarks about a Muslim pupil’s headscarf.
Nicholas Kafouris, who is suing his former school for racial discrimination, told the girl she was ‘wearing a headscarf for no reason’, according to a parent.
The parent claimed Mr Kafouris was promoting ‘Christianity as better than Islam’ and complained to the headteacher, an employment tribunal heard.
He denied making the comment, insisting it would make ‘no sense’ for him to have said it.
The teacher claimed that complaints were only made against him after he reported racist remarks made by the pupils.
The predominantly Muslim youngsters, some as young as eight, openly praised Islamic extremists in class and described the September 11 terrorists as ‘heroes and martyrs’.
One pupil said: ‘Don’t touch me, you’re a Christian’ when he brushed against him.
Others said: ‘We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up’, and ‘The Christians and Jews are our enemies – you too because you’re a Christian’.
According to Ofsted ‘almost all’ the school’s 465 pupils are from ethnic minorities and a vast proportion do not speak English as a first language.
They told him: ‘We hate the Christians’ and ‘We hate the Jews’, despite his attempts to stop them.
