by Julian Mann, The Daily Sceptic
If the Trump administration in the US needed any further proof of “two-tiered policing” in the UK, it need look no further than the double standards applied by North Yorkshire Police.
In 2024 the then Acting Chief Constable, Elliot Foskett, issued an apology to the LGBTQ+ community for past discriminatory behaviour. But North Yorkshire Police has offered no apology to former police community support officer (PCSO) Luke Salmons, a committed Christian who was sacked that same year after a conversation about Gaza with a Muslim officer.
In February 2024, Foskett appeared in a video with Superintendent Ed Hayward-Noble, the force’s “strategic lead for LGBTQ+”. Oozing politically correct piety, Foskett intoned:
I am responding to a request for an apology relating to the way that North Yorkshire Police historically treated our LGBTQ+ communities. So as the Chief Constable it is for me to unreservedly apologise for the hurt and damage historically caused by North Yorkshire Police to our LGBTQ+ communities. We’re a very different force these days. We’ve changed a lot. Society has changed and we’ve changed with it. And I know that the actions of North Yorkshire Police way back then absolutely had a significant impact on our gay communities.
Salmons suffered protracted distress at the hands of the North Yorkshire woke police. In its story on June 5th, the Telegraph described his ordeal after he attended a race, religion and culture training session at the police headquarters in Northallerton in October 2024.
Salmons said:
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. Then, a Muslim sergeant spoke about his faith and invited questions. It was made clear that there was no such thing as a bad question and we could speak freely. Someone asked him about why it was bad to depict images of Mohammed, then I asked him what, as a peaceful Muslim, he thought about the situation in Gaza, with Hamas and other terrorist groups carrying out atrocities in the name of Islam. We had a really good discussion and I asked him what he understood jihad to mean. There was no problem, I spoke to him privately at lunch and he asked me what books I had read about Islam. He said he would love to speak to me more, so we arranged to meet for a coffee at his police station.
In anticipation of the meeting, Salmons took a book with him to work called Answering Jihad – A Better Way Forward by Nabeel Qureshi, the New York Times bestselling author, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. Two colleagues found it in his locker, photographed it and reported him as a “risk” to superiors. The next day, he was hauled into a meeting with a female inspector who told him: “I don’t like your beliefs,” and told him to hand in his police ID and go home. He was later told he had been suspended. Salmons was suspended on full pay for months, and eventually resigned in April 2025. A disciplinary hearing was held in July 2025 at which he was formally dismissed for gross misconduct and placed on the College of Policing barred list, the Telegraph reported.