A straight teacher is claiming he suffered sexual discrimination after repeatedly being called gay and a “poof” by pupils.
James Campbell, 62, told a tribunal yesterday that pupils at Denny High School, Stirlingshire, Scotland, subjected him to crude and offensive comments suggesting he was gay. He said he “hates” kids because of what happened to him, after they called him names including “perv”, “gay”, “poof”, and “weirdo”.
Campbell, the former art teacher at the school, had already lost a disability claim after pupils mocked his baldness, and an unfair dismissal case after he claimed unruly kids forced him into early retirement, the Scottish Daily Record reported.
Married Campbell told the tribunal in Glasgow: “At one stage they’d call me baldy. At another stage they’d call me poof. It shouldn’t have happened. Nobody should have called me all these things. Surely there should be some retribution for this.
“Somebody has called me all these names. I think it is just and equitable that the case is heard. It is still affecting me. When I see kids nowadays, I hate them because I expect the same thing as what happened to me at school.”
Campbell, who took early retirement in August 2007, said he was “far from gay” and the pupils had “no reason to think that in the first place”.
A prior tribunal ruled that baldness was not an impairment and rejected his disability discrimination claim.
Falkirk Council contend Campbell’s current claim is time-barred. A judgment will be issued at a later date.
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