UPDATE: Cop Banned from Policing for Having Christian Book in Work Locker Wins Settlement

A former British police officer who was banned from serving after asking questions about Islam has reached a settlement with the police force that banned him.

“I am pleased to have now reached a settlement, I want to move on with my life but believe radical national change is needed in our police force,” former officer Luke Salmons said, according to the BBC.

Salmons ran afoul of the rules when during an October 2024 training session he asked some hard questions about Islam.

“The whole day was pretty much about Islam. At one point the trainers walked up and down the room for several minutes saying ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ over and over again. It was bizarre,” he said.

A Muslim sergeant invited him to a discussion over coffee after a private lunch conversation. To be prepared, Salmons brought a copy of “Answering Jihad — A Better Way Forward” by Nabeel Qureshi, an ex-Muslim turned Christian, to work with him.

Two officers photographed the book, and the next day, the hammer fell when an inspector took him aside.

“She took me in a room, deliberately said to me, ‘I don’t like your beliefs,’ which indicates to me that she was meaning my Christian beliefs, which is discrimination towards me and my faith, which in itself is gross misconduct,” he said, according to Fox News.

Salmons said he was irked by instructors chanting, “Islam is a religion of peace.”

“To me, it kind of stopped being a training course and became more of something like indoctrination really,” Salmons said.

But that’s normal in Britain, he said.

“There’s a real fear in the police about speaking out, about anything, especially to do with minorities, certainly about Islam. There’s certainly a fear within the police within the institutions in the whole in the U.K.,” Salmons said.

“So I was told to shut up and apologize, so I did that, and then I waited, and this investigation went on and on,” he said.

In time, he moved on to provide for his family, but he noted that in spite of the settlement, and his removal from the list of people banned from joining the police, the North Yorkshire police never apologized and he was never offered his old job back.

“It’s a bit disheartening really,” he said. “So, obviously, that’s why I’m putting my story out there, to encourage other people in the same position.”

His advice to others in his situation was, “Don’t quit, don’t stop fighting. If you’ve done nothing wrong, stand up for what is true, stand up for justice, stand up for your faith, if you’re a Christian in the workplace.”

“We need to get back to people doing their job on merit and not on skin color or religion. Our institutions are scared of Islam,” he said, according to The Telegraph.

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