The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries told its disciplinary panel that the truth of what I said "did not matter"

by Patrick Lee on 23 Jun 2026 in categories actuarial with tags FreeSpeech ifoa politics

On 16 June 2026 an independent inquiry into the grooming-gang scandal, chaired by Rupert Lowe MP, published its report. It documents organised sexual abuse of children — overwhelmingly white girls — across at least 149 local authority districts, close to 40% of all such districts in the country; perpetrated, it finds, predominantly by men of Pakistani-Muslim heritage; and, for decades, covered up or ignored by the very institutions meant to protect those children — police, councils, social services, the NHS — in significant part because officials feared being called racist if they named who the perpetrators were.

In 2020 I was posting publicly about that scandal, and about the doctrines and the cover-ups that surrounded it. Among other things, I shared the words of a former Director of Public Prosecutions confirming that "by and large" it was Muslim men who had been targeting white girls; I shared a Greater Manchester Police whistle-blower's account of Rochdale; and I called for the release of the long-delayed Home Office review into grooming gangs. One of them included the line: "#MuslimGroomingGangs Release the report now!"

My professional body — the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, which holds a Royal Charter and presents itself as scientific, ethical and acting in the public interest — charged me with misconduct over those tweets, among others. I had already left the IFoA in 2020; in 2024 it nonetheless excluded me, barring me from applying to rejoin for two years. Its Council election is open now, and candidates are asking for your vote. Before you give it, here is what the IFoA did in your name.

Consider some of what the IFoA put forward as professional misconduct. When Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, called the United States and the United Kingdom "evil," I replied that he was evil — his own prophet had tortured people to death, just as his regime does — and I attached the religious text recording it. In another reply to him, I set out what his regime does: it hangs gay people from cranes, imprisons women and girls for showing their hair, and cuts off people's fingers and hands. I shared a video of an imam declaring female genital mutilation to be "in line with Islamic practice." I replied to a man who appeared to maintain it was acceptable to beat women. And one tweet was a reply to footage of children being whipped on the soles of their feet — posted alongside a Muslim woman's account of the man who came to her home to teach her the Quran beating her, as a child, in the very same way. My tweet read, in full: "Islam needs urgent reform (if possible?). The majority of its victims are Muslims who live under repressive, backward regimes. It still inspires far too much terrorism, child marriage, & hatred of Jews/gays. It is very sad that in 2020 it has barely changed for centuries." Each of these — and dozens more — the IFoA charged as misconduct. For the children in that video, and for the woman recounting her own beating, it expressed nothing.

The charge against me, brought under the IFoA's Integrity principle, was that I had "failed to show respect for others." It is fair to ask what respect the IFoA itself showed the victims — many of them Muslims — of the child marriage, the wife-beating, the female genital mutilation and the torture I was naming. It pursued the member who named those crimes; for those who suffer them, it had nothing to say.

My complaint goes to the heart of what the IFoA claims to be. No scientific or ethical body should treat the truth of grave, public-interest statements as carrying no weight in deciding whether to sanction a member for making them. Yet that is the position the IFoA took. Its counsel, Rachna Gokani, told the disciplinary panel that "each of the tweets with which we are concerned today meets the threshold for misconduct." My counsel at that hearing, Nicholas Leviseur, ran a defence of truth — that each of my factual assertions was correct and undisputed. The IFoA's answer was explicit: it "does not matter," Ms Gokani submitted, whether what I had said was "right [or] wrong," or whether parts of it had "support from the internet"; what mattered, she said, was only the manner of expression. The IFoA pressed the whole series as misconduct, and it never disputed that my factual claims were correct.

The Home Office review I had called for appeared at the end of 2020 — released only after a public petition, having earlier been withheld on the basis that publication would not be "in the public interest." When it came, it was widely criticised for emphasising that offenders are "most commonly White" while side-stepping the central concern: that group-based exploitation by "grooming gangs" was disproportionately carried out by men of Pakistani-Muslim heritage. It has taken until now — and an independent inquiry, not an official one — for that concern to be documented at national scale. The things I was disciplined for naming have now been confirmed.

Let me be precise, because precision is the whole point. It is unconscionable for a body that calls itself scientific and ethical to object to factually accurate statements — to press them as professional misconduct — most of all when the gravest of crimes are concerned. And that is exactly what the IFoA did: it has never disputed that my factual assertions were accurate — only that, in its view, their accuracy was beside the point. In my view, by prosecuting accurate criticism of this kind as professional misconduct, the IFoA displayed — in its own sphere — the same institutional reflex the inquiry condemns in others: treating the naming of an uncomfortable truth as the offence. I do not equate a professional body with the police forces and councils that failed children they had a duty to protect; the IFoA bore no safeguarding role. What it did do was tell its members, in effect, that raising such matters — even accurately — could cost them their professional standing. That is a chilling effect, and it points in exactly the wrong direction for a body that claims to act in the public interest.

In each case, the IFoA did not engage with the conduct I was criticising. Faced with a choice between addressing the crimes a member was naming and disciplining the member for naming them, it chose the latter.

There is a wider lesson here, and it is why I am writing publicly rather than letting the matter rest. Institutions are able to silence their own members largely because the public never hears about it: the member is disciplined quietly, the uncomfortable point goes unsaid, and no one is ever called to account. The same reflex operates wherever a body fears embarrassment more than it fears being wrong. Sunlight, as the saying goes, is the best disinfectant — which is why the truth of what happened in my case matters beyond me.

Three further things have happened, all on the public record.

First, the IFoA's own appeal tribunal found an error of law: the disciplinary panel had failed to show it had considered my right to freedom of expression at all. (It corrected the reasoning; the sanction was left in place.) A body that calls itself ethical had to be told by its own appeal panel that it had not demonstrably weighed a member's freedom of expression.

Second, in July 2025 an Employment Tribunal ruled that my belief is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act: the belief that Islam in a traditional, unreformed form — as opposed to a reformed, modern, moderate form — is "problematic and deserving of criticism" in so far as it fails to recognise a separation between religion and the state, to value fundamental human rights such as freedom of conscience and of speech, to condemn violence committed in the name of religion, and to treat women and girls as equal to men and boys. The judge found me "a reliable witness" giving "cogent, consistent and credible evidence," and accepted that I am "critical of certain Islamic doctrines and practices, and not to individual followers of Islam or to the Islamic faith / religion at large." (That decided whether my belief is protected; the substantive claim has not yet been heard.)

Third — rather than reflect — the IFoA is seeking permission to appeal that ruling, and the proceedings are stayed while it does. Whatever its reasons, the effect is to delay any public hearing of the substance of my case. Consider, too, who pays: not the executives who took these decisions; it is funded with members' subscriptions — your money.

There is a particular hypocrisy here. The IFoA presents itself as a champion of women and girls — it runs the IFoA Women Actuaries Network and returns regularly to its commitment to them. Yet it prosecuted a member for criticising doctrines that a tribunal has accepted I genuinely believe pose a real risk to women and girls — "particularly in the form of child marriage / rape and FGM" — and for drawing attention to the grooming-gang scandal that a national inquiry has now confirmed saw tens of thousands of girls raped while institutions looked away.

Let me be clear about what my criticism is, and is not. As the Employment Tribunal accepted, it is criticism of certain Islamic doctrines and practices — "not to individual followers of Islam or to the Islamic faith / religion at large." Where I did criticise particular people — the man who said it was acceptable to beat women, the Supreme Leader of Iran, and people who in debate called me a liar yet would not substantiate the charge or produce the "correct" translation they insisted I had got wrong — it was evidence-based criticism of what they had publicly said or done. Criticism of what people actually say and do, grounded in evidence, is the lifeblood of open debate — and it too should never have been prosecuted as professional misconduct. None of it was an attack on ordinary Muslims, who are so often the victims themselves. That is exactly the kind of criticism a scientific and ethical body should be able to recognise as legitimate — most of all when the subject is the safety of women and girls.

Voting in the Council election closes at 2pm on 7 July. Before you vote, put these questions to the candidates asking for your support:

  • Is it scientific, or ethical, for a body with a Royal Charter to treat the truth of what a member says about the gravest of crimes as carrying no weight in whether to discipline them?
  • In my case the IFoA pressed every one of my tweets as misconduct without weighing my freedom of expression — and its own appeal tribunal found that the panel, too, had failed to consider it at all, an error of law. Is that acceptable from a body that is supposed to be the expert on how its own disciplinary scheme should be applied?
  • A national inquiry has now confirmed the scandal a member was raising — a member the IFoA disciplined, and whose accuracy it has never disputed. What does that say about a body that claims to act in the public interest, and about its willingness to let its members speak uncomfortable truths?
  • Whatever the merits of the appeal, it is members' subscriptions — not the executives who took the decisions — that are paying for it. Will you press for members to be told what this case has cost?
  • The IFoA calls itself scientific and ethical. Is the way it has conducted itself in this case likely to attract the principled, scientifically-minded graduates the profession needs — or to drive them away?

And because these candidates are asking to help govern the IFoA on your behalf, put two questions to them personally:

  • In my case the IFoA expressed no sympathy for the victims of child marriage, FGM, wife-beating, rape and the torture of children — and pursued instead the member who named them. Are those ethical standards you share as your own?
  • The IFoA told its panel that the truth of what I said "did not matter." Is that a standard of scientific integrity you share as your own?

Their answers, or their silence, will tell you what kind of stewards they would be.

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