A police officer sacked for asking a Muslim sergeant questions about “jihad” and Islamist groups such as Hamas during mandatory diversity training has won a legal settlement on confidential terms from the North Yorkshire Police in England.
While we face a national security threat from Islamist terrorism, the police are being forced to attend training where ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ is reportedly chanted.
Luke Salmons was suspended and later dismissed from his post as a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) for “gross misconduct” and “discreditable conduct” in July 2025 after discussing Islamism during a compulsory race, religion, and culture pilot training program. The disciplinary panel accused him of expressing religious and political beliefs “not aligned” with police policies and a “targeted intent” to push his views on Islam.
Even after he resigned during his prolonged suspension because of the toll the process had taken on him and his family, authorities placed him on the Police Barred List, prohibiting him from working in law enforcement for life, according to a June 5 press release from the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which supported the former police officer.
Questions About Jihad Rattle Police Authorities
Salmons recounted how trainers repeatedly walked up and down the room during the sessions held in autumn 2024, chanting, “Islam is a religion of peace.” The course was presented as a “safe space” where officers were encouraged to ask challenging questions. Participants were explicitly told they were free to discuss difficult topics, the CLC press statement emphasized.
On October 8, 2024, Salmons asked the Muslim police sergeant leading the presentation about human rights abuses committed in the name of Islam by Islamist groups such as Hamas operating in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Salmons referenced a widely published Christian book, Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward, by ex-Muslim and New York Times bestselling author Nabeel Qureshi, which, according to the blurb on the book, offers “deeply personal, challenging, and respectful answers” to “the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism.”
During the session, the sergeant responded fully to Salmons’ questions and even invited him to continue the conversation over coffee. The next day, however, an inspector summoned him to a side office and told him, “I don’t like your beliefs.”
He was suspended two days later, on 10 October 2024. During this period, a colleague accessed his locker without his permission and removed Qureshi’s book, which was photographed and circulated to senior officers.
From Training to Indoctrination
Salmons, a practising Christian, said that the training sessions were disproportionately focused on Islam, and little or no attention was paid to Christianity. On another occasion, when Salmons was asked to write a piece about Easter for the staff intranet, his superior told him he could not include Bible verses.
“I believed I was on safe ground when the training sessions invited open discussion. I quickly discovered that questioning Islam is now treated as wrongthink within North Yorkshire Police,” remarked Salmons, who is now working for a Christian charity supporting the homeless. Salmons noted that the chanting of the slogan “Islam is a religion of peace” was the point when the program “stopped being training and became indoctrination.”
“‘It is astonishing to hear that police trainers went up and down the room chanting ‘Islam is a religion of peace,’” Tim Dieppe, head of public policy at Christian Concern, which oversees the CLC, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI). FWI has asked the North Yorkshire Police for a response and will publish any replies once received.
“One wonders whether the trainers resorted to chanting because they realized they were not able to support this assertion by reasoned argument. As I have written before, Islam, as judged by its texts and by the example of its founder, is not a religion of peace. Thankfully, most Muslims are nevertheless peaceful and law-abiding citizens,” Dieppe, an expert on Islam, explained.
Dieppe stressed that Salmons was quite right to refer to Qureshi’s book on jihad as “it is an excellent summary of the issues involved” and “should be recommended reading for the police, and especially their trainers.”
“While we face a national security threat from Islamist terrorism, the police are being forced to attend training where ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ is reportedly chanted. Our police deserve better than this,” Dieppe wrote in The Critic. “The fact that Islamic texts teach violence is why groups like Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and even Hamas can justify their violence in Islamic terms.”
Salmons’ Defense and Vindication
In his defense, Salmons highlighted inconsistencies in witness evidence, reliance on hearsay, and the failure to distinguish between respectfully asking questions and expressing extremist views. He said the force had unlawfully discriminated against him and violated his rights to freedom of religion and expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
He accused the authorities of constructive dismissal, direct and indirect religious discrimination, harassment under the Equality Act 2010, unlawful interference with his rights under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and operating a one-sided interpretation of equality and diversity by excluding orthodox Christian beliefs while privileging others.
Salmons said that his superiors reprimanded him for making mild comments about antisemitism in the UK. He also argued that a double standard had been applied, criticizing him for possessing a book while the Muslim sergeant had offered to provide him with reading material about Islam.
In the appeal decision, North Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Tim Forber, told Salmons that he did not believe his actions represented “a breach amounting to gross misconduct of any of the Police Staff Standards of Professional Behaviour.”
“I believe these matters could potentially have been dealt with more appropriately in line with reflective learning under the reflective practice review process (RPRP),” Forber conceded. “In consideration of the above, I therefore do not agree with the panel finding of gross misconduct and your appeal is upheld.”
Forber concluded by noting that Salmons’ name would no longer appear on the College of Policing Barred list. In response to the case, Christian Concern has issued an online petition challenging the two-tier policing and “ideological conformity” within the UK police forces.
