A 60-year-old teacher in West Yorkshire lasted three days at a Catholic school before telling a class of teenagers that Ukrainians are evil Nazis, that he was "happy" Vladimir Putin was killing them, and that gay and transgender people are mentally ill. Britain's Teaching Regulation Agency has now banned him from the classroom for at least six years.
William Garwood joined St Mary's Menston Catholic Voluntary Academy in late September 2023. By the following week, he had turned a year 11 history lesson on Nazi Germany into a platform for his own views on the Russia-Ukraine war, homosexuality, and transgenderism, the Daily Mail reported.
The TRA misconduct panel found that Garwood's remarks amounted to a justification of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and fell "within the scope of discriminatory behaviour." He cannot apply to have the banning order lifted until June 2032. If he never appeals, the ban stays in place indefinitely.
The misconduct panel's written ruling laid out the classroom comments in detail. Garwood told year 11 pupils that Ukrainians are Nazis, described them as evil, and said he was "happy" that Putin was killing "satanic Nazis" in Ukraine. He also told students that gay and transgender people are mentally ill and that billionaires cause transgenderism.
The panel also considered, and rejected, an allegation that Garwood told students the September 11, 2001, terror attacks were planned by the U.S. government. The ruling did not specify the basis for dismissing that claim.
None of this had anything to do with the lesson plan. The class was studying the history of Nazi Germany. The panel noted that a pupil had asked whether there are any "just wars," and Garwood apparently used the question as a springboard for his own views on Ukraine and sexuality.
The TRA panel left little room for ambiguity in its written ruling. It described Garwood's comments as "clearly inappropriate and wholly unrelated to the subject matter of the lesson on the history of Nazi Germany."
"The panel noted that the remarks involved a significant and highly subjective value judgment, which had no relevance to the curriculum content being delivered."
The ruling went further, singling out the comments about homosexuality and transgender identity as "especially problematic given their potential impact on school-aged children, noting that this subject matter is one of common public discussion and sensitivity."
The panel also found that Garwood made no attempt to offer balance or alternative perspectives, a basic expectation in any classroom, let alone one at a Catholic school with a duty of care to minors. The ruling stated that his conduct was "significantly outside the bounds of acceptable teaching practice."
"In particular, the panel highlighted that the statement amounted to an impermissible generalisation, effectively labelling Ukrainians as evil or Nazis, which was inappropriate."
The panel found a high risk that Garwood would repeat the behavior, a factor that weighed heavily in the decision to impose a six-year ban rather than a lesser sanction.
Garwood did not go quietly. He gave evidence at the misconduct hearing and mounted a defense rooted in religious liberty and what he described as philosophical conviction. He invoked Section 10 of the Equality Act 2010, claiming he was "entitled to his religious belief in Islam and to the philosophical belief of anti-Nazism."
He told the panel that his Islamic stance on transgender issues "coincided with traditional British values." He further argued that his position had been used to "assert that he was a psychological threat to children's wellbeing" and to "emotionally manipulate safeguarding professionals." He called the TRA's investigation "a political reaction" to his comments and described what he said as "a legitimate difference of opinion."
On the subject of homosexuality, Garwood said he did not give an opinion on gay people "but asserted that he is a Muslim and that this position is known, and that students misinterpreted this and formed a false caricature of him."
The panel was unmoved. It found his comments discriminatory and inappropriate regardless of their religious or philosophical basis.
There is a principle worth defending here, and it has nothing to do with endorsing what Garwood said. Adults who stand in front of other people's children in a professional capacity have an obligation to teach the subject they were hired to teach. They do not have a license to use a captive audience of teenagers as a sounding board for geopolitical grievances, religious pronouncements on sexuality, or praise for a foreign dictator's military campaign.
That standard should apply evenly. When teachers' unions coach educators to inject political activism into lessons for children as young as three, the same alarm bells should ring. The classroom is not a pulpit, not for the left, and not for anyone else.
Garwood's invocation of religious liberty deserves a careful response. Sincere religious belief is protected in free societies, and conservatives rightly defend that protection. But the right to hold a belief is not the same as the right to declare, in a professional setting, that an entire class of people is mentally ill, particularly to 15- and 16-year-olds who may include members of the groups being targeted. The distinction between private conviction and professional conduct is not a technicality. It is the line that makes ordered institutions possible.
The cultural landscape around these issues is shifting. Gallup polling shows American support for LGBTQ issues in retreat, and similar currents are visible across the English-speaking world. That shift reflects legitimate concerns about age-appropriateness, parental authority, and institutional overreach. But those concerns are best advanced through democratic debate, not through a supply teacher freelancing inflammatory claims to a room full of teenagers during a history lesson on Nazi Germany.
Garwood's comments about Ukraine are, if anything, more alarming than his remarks on sexuality, and they received less attention. Telling British schoolchildren that he was "happy" Putin was killing "satanic Nazis" in Ukraine is not a "legitimate difference of opinion." It is a propaganda line lifted directly from the Kremlin's justification for an invasion that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
The TRA panel found that the remarks "amounted to a justification of Russia's invasion of Ukraine." That finding matters. When institutions act to remove people who abuse positions of trust, the system is working as intended, not persecuting dissent.
Garwood framed the entire proceeding as political retaliation. That framing collapses under the weight of his own conduct. He was not disciplined for holding private beliefs. He was disciplined for broadcasting those beliefs to minors in a professional setting, without any connection to the curriculum, without balance, and without regard for the students in front of him.
Several questions hang over the case. The Daily Mail reported that Garwood could not be contacted for comment. It is unclear whether he has appealed or intends to appeal the banning order. His prior employment history and any previous disciplinary record are not part of the public record in this case. St Mary's Menston Catholic Voluntary Academy has not issued a public statement about his brief tenure.
The exact date of the TRA panel's ruling was not disclosed in the reporting. Nor is it clear what specific safeguarding referrals, if any, followed Garwood's classroom remarks, though he himself referenced safeguarding professionals in his evidence.
The broader cultural debate over what teachers may and may not say in classrooms is far from settled. Institutions across sectors are recalibrating how they engage with identity politics, and parents on both sides of the Atlantic are paying closer attention to what happens behind classroom doors.
But this case is not really about that debate. It is about a man who walked into a school, ignored the lesson plan, and used someone else's children as an audience for his own grievances. The system caught it. The system acted. That is how accountability is supposed to work, no matter who is doing the talking.
