An employment tribunal member has been given a formal warning for tweeting that the collective noun for Conservatives should be a ‘tumour’.

Employment tribunal

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Jeremy Purkis had been sitting on ‘a strongly disputed and politically sensitive case’, the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said. 

The case concerned an anonymised Christian teacher who reportedly said she was sacked over her opposition to a school’s transgender policy. She argued ‘her dismissal had been unlawful, discriminatory and due to her religious beliefs’ and was bringing a case against a primary school and Nottinghamshire County Council.

During the hearing, the representative for the claimant unearthed tweets of a political nature made by Purkis, who is a non-legal member of the Employment Tribunals in England and Wales and a former GMB union officer.

The tweets ‘called into question his impartiality, integrity and propriety as a judicial office holder’, the JCIO said in a statement.

Purkis had responded to a tweet which said, 'Only atheists should be allowed to run for office' with: 'Damn right, you won’t catch us killing in the name of our non-god'.

In other posts, he responded to the question, ‘What’s a good collective noun for Tories?’ by saying ‘a tumour of Tories’ and a ‘cess pit of Tories’.

As a result of the tweets coming to light and the possibility of bias, the tribunal panel recused itself after six days of an eight day hearing, at significant cost and inconvenience to the parties and the public purse, the JCIO said.

Purkis explained that ‘rather than an attack on organised religion his tweet was intended as a light-hearted comment on the misuse of religion by politicians to fuel conflict’. 

He fully accepted his intention was unclear in the comment and open to misinterpretation and he offered his apologies for the expense and any potential disrepute that his actions caused to the tribunal service.

The senior president of tribunals - taking into consideration his explanation and apology - issued Purkis with a formal warning for misconduct.