Sacked for Protecting a Child
‘Hannah’ | Executive Committee Member | Primary School Teacher
Note: Hannah is known publicly only by this pseudonym following a court-imposed anonymity order. She is appealing this order. Her real name cannot currently be published.
The Situation
Hannah had worked as a primary school teacher for many years without complaint. She was known as a dedicated professional who cared deeply about the children in her care.
In the summer of 2021, Hannah was informed that an eight-year-old child would be joining her class and should be treated as transgender. The child — known only as Child X for legal reasons — had no medical diagnosis. The school’s approach had been shaped by training from organisations including Stonewall and Mermaids, promoting a policy of full social affirmation of a child’s chosen gender identity without medical evidence.
Under the policy, Hannah was told that the child must be addressed by a new name and pronouns, and would be allowed to use toilets and changing facilities of the opposite sex.
Hannah’s response was not ideological. It was pastoral. She had researched the evidence, she had read the accounts of those who had detransitioned, and she had a genuine and deep concern for the wellbeing of this eight-year-old child. Her Christian beliefs confirmed what the science was telling her: that affirming a young child in a belief that they were born in the wrong body could cause serious and lasting harm.
She could not, in good conscience, go along with it.
The Challenge
Hannah invoked the school’s and the council’s whistleblowing procedure, arguing that the approach was not based on medical evidence and was putting the child’s health and welfare at risk. She backed her concerns with expert reports from scientists and doctors highlighting the dangers of encouraging gender transition in young children.
The school suspended Hannah for failing to comply with a reasonable request. Her suspension was eventually lifted, with Child X moved to a different class. But Hannah’s concerns for the child’s wellbeing did not go away — and she continued to raise them.
Hannah raised concerns with the headteacher, the governors, and the local authority. No one would listen. Faced with no other option, she pursued a judicial review to force the matter to be properly heard.
The school’s response was swift and punishing. In response to Hannah’s legal action, the school summarily dismissed her for divulging confidential information to her lawyers. She was then reported to the Information Commissioner for an alleged criminal offence under the Data Protection Act, to the Teaching Regulation Agency for professional misconduct, and to the Disclosure and Barring Service — a referral that, if upheld, would have barred her from teaching permanently.
After a lifelong career as a professional teacher, Hannah was forced to find a job in a sandwich bar.
The Information Commissioner found no evidence of a criminal offence. The DBS declined to impose a ban. But the investigations continued — and Hannah’s career, her livelihood, and her ability to tell her own story remained in jeopardy.
Our Support
Supported by the Christian Legal Centre — the organisation from which NCTU was born — Hannah has had sustained representation and advocacy through every stage of an extraordinarily difficult process. She has faced judicial reviews, employment tribunals, regulatory investigations, and now an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal — all while being legally prevented from speaking publicly under her own name.
Throughout every hearing, her legal team has stood firmly behind her — reiterating that she followed all the correct policies, that the law protects her, and that in reality it is the school and the council that were in the wrong. She did nothing wrong — and she deserves to be exonerated.
Hannah has not been left to carry this alone. And that has made all the difference.
The Outcome
Hannah’s case has been marked at every turn by procedural injustice — not just from those who dismissed her, but from the very processes meant to provide redress.
When her Employment Tribunal hearing began in March 2024, it collapsed on day six when it was discovered that a panel member had posted a series of anti-Christian and anti-conservative comments on social media — forcing the entire panel to recuse itself for apparent bias. That panel member was subsequently formally rebuked by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office for misconduct.
At the retrial in March 2025, yet another panel member was required to step down — a former president of a major trade union with connections to the respondent council. Twice the process had to be restarted. Twice because those sitting in judgement could not be trusted to do so without bias.
In May 2025, Employment Judge Peter McTigue dismissed Hannah’s claims. He ruled that despite Child X being guided through social transition under the influence of Stonewall and Mermaids, there was no evidence the child was at risk of harm — and therefore Hannah’s safeguarding concerns were not reasonable.
But the ruling that attracted the most widespread concern was not the dismissal of her claims. It was the anonymity order.
Judge McTigue ordered that reporting restrictions on Hannah’s identity should remain in place indefinitely — to protect the child’s right to hide their biological sex “for the remainder of their life”, including from their future partners and from their own future children. The order means Hannah herself must maintain anonymity for the rest of her life, with imprisonment as the sanction for any breach.
A teacher who acted to protect a child cannot tell the world her own name. That is the situation Hannah is in.
Backed by the Christian Legal Centre, Hannah is filing appeals to the Employment Appeal Tribunal — both against the dismissal of her claims and against the reporting restrictions. She will not stop until she can speak freely, and until the truth of what she did and why she did it can be told in full.
Why It Matters
Hannah’s case is unlike any other among our Executive Committee. It is not simply a case about a Christian being dismissed for their beliefs — though it is that too. It is a case about a teacher who saw a child being harmed, followed every correct procedure, backed her concerns with expert evidence, and was destroyed professionally for doing so.
In Hannah’s own words: “I could not participate in causing harm to Child X. The tragic stories of detransitioners, the expert scientific evidence — they back and vindicate me. Teachers are being bullied not to question trans-affirming policies when evidence shows that the actual result of this approach is to put the welfare of children at serious risk. It is because I care so much about children that I am taking this action.”
Hannah joined the NCTU Executive Committee because she wants every Christian worker who finds themselves in an impossible situation — compelled by conscience to speak when every institution around them demands silence — to know that there is somewhere to turn.
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned.” — 2 Corinthians 4:8–9
Hannah has been pressed on every side. She has not been crushed. And she has not been abandoned.
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