A teacher who is an activist with the British National Party has lost his legal challenge against Michael Gove and regulatory body after he was struck off for life.
Adam Walker, who has been pictured on BNP marches with the far-Right party's leader Nick Griffin, was challenging the ban authorised by the Education Secretary which followed him receiving a suspended sentence for verbally abusing three schoolboys, chasing them in his car and slashing the tyres on their bikes with a Stanley knife.
At the Administrative Court sitting in Leeds, the 44-year-old – who now works for two BNP MEPs – claimed the decision to ban him for life was "prejudiced" because of his BNP support.
But following a hearing at the Administrative Court sitting in Leeds last month, Judge Clive Heaton QC has handed down a ruling which concluded: "I reject his argument as lacking any credible evidential base at all."
The former IT teacher, who qualified in 2000, appeared before a conduct committee in 2010 after he labelled some immigrants "savage animals" on an internet forum using a school laptop.
Mr Gove has used his case of an example of why members of the BNP should be banned from teaching. But no legislation has come into effect.
Last month, Rory Dunlop, for the respondents, said Mr Walker's behaviour with the unruly children on Tudhoe village green on St George's Day 2011, which resulted in convictions for criminal damage, possessing a knife, threatening behaviour and dangerous driving, was serious.
"Children look to teachers as their examples," Mr Dunlop told the court.
"When you have someone not just behaving extremely badly, endangering children, but also failing to take responsibility for that behaviour and lying about it, what kind of example does that set to children?"