A Christian police community support officer lost his job for raising questions about Islam in a diversity training session.
Luke Salmons, 46, was dismissed from North Yorkshire Police and placed on a barred list following a conversation about Gaza with a Muslim colleague.
He successfully appealed against his sacking – but has never received an apology from the force.
Mr Salmons has now opened up on the horror ordeal, which has raised further fears over free speech in Britain and police forces’ diversity obsession in the wake of Henry Nowak’s murder.
The father-of-two from Harrogate spent eight years in policing after two-decades in construction.
He told The Telegraph on Friday: “I loved my job and I was good at it. I was well respected as a PCSO and my colleagues said they loved working with me and couldn’t understand what was happening.
“But an overzealous inspector took against me and that was the end of my career, even though I had done nothing wrong.”
Mr Salmons described the October 2024 training day at Northallerton headquarters as “indoctrination”.
“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.
‘An overzealous inspector took against me and that was the end of my career,’ Luke Salmons said
|
CHRISTIAN CONCERN
A Muslim sergeant invited questions during the session, with staff specifically told they could speak freely.
Mr Salmons then asked the officer about Hamas and terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam.
The pair had a “really good discussion”, the ex-PCSO added, before he asked his Muslim colleague “what he understood jihad to mean”.
“There was no problem,” he said.
His colleague then invited him for coffee to continue their conversation.
BRITAIN’S POLICE IN CRISIS – READ MORE:
- Hampshire Police forced staff to endure diversity training against their will
- Police chiefs launch urgent review into ‘two-tier’ guidelines after Henry Nowak murder
- Police force orders officers to keep record of Britons’ anti-Islam comments
PICTURED: A North Yorkshire Police officer wears a rainbow shoelace in her hair during York Pride
|
GETTY
Mr Salmons said: “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.”
Before the coffee meeting, Mr Salmons brought a book to work called “Answering Jihad” by Muslim-turned-Christian author Nabeel Qureshi.
Two colleagues then saw it in his locker, took photos of it and reported him as a “risk.”
The following day, a female inspector summoned him to a meeting.
“There is no way that inspector would have taken a Muslim officer into a room and said: “I don’t like your beliefs,'” Mr Salmons said.
Mr Salmons had brought a copy of ‘Answering Jihad’ by Muslim-turned-Christian author Nabeel Qureshi
She told him to surrender his police ID and go home – where he remained suspended on full pay for months before resigning in April 2025.
He said: “It devastated me and my family. For months we lived in total uncertainty, with my reputation being shredded in secret.”
A disciplinary hearing in July 2025 formally dismissed him for gross misconduct and added his name to the College of Policing barred list.
At an appeal hearing in December, Chief Constable Tim Forber reversed the dismissal before Mr Salmons had even finished presenting his case.
The former officer reached an out-of-court settlement with North Yorkshire Police in April following employment tribunal proceedings.
He said: “There is a culture of fear – people are scared to say anything or ask anything in case they get pulled up for it.”
Mr Salmons now works as a senior housing officer for a homelessness charity, earning less than his previous £36,000 PCSO salary.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported him, said: “This case demands urgent political attention.
“It reveals a profound failure of leadership and neutrality within public institutions, and it raises serious questions about whether the Home Office and those responsible for police oversight are willing, or able, to confront the ideological capture that is eroding freedom of belief and expression from within.”
A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said: “North Yorkshire Police is an inclusive employer and respects the rights of all individuals to their beliefs.
“The expression of those beliefs must always be with due consideration of respect and courtesy in line with our force values and behaviours framework.”
The spokesman claimed Mr Salmons had been referred to the professional standards department after “reports of concern from a number of colleagues about his behaviour and views”.
He continued: “He was found to have committed gross misconduct before the chief constable upheld his appeal against the decision finding that while Mr Salmons had made colleagues feel uncomfortable and unsettled at times, his actions did not represent gross misconduct nor a breach of any of the Police Staff Standards of Professional Behaviour.”
Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter
