A teacher at a Catholic Girls’ school in Wimbledon has been suspended and reported to police for glorifying Hamas and claiming the proscribed terror group “committed no crime” on October 7.

Ronan Preastuin, a Year 9 tutor and Religious Education teacher at Ursuline High School, also described the Hamas terror attack as a “justified act of resistance” and prayed for a Hamas victory over “the grotesque, barbaric, idol-worshipping invaders IDF”.

In the string of incendiary messages posted this year, Preastuin also said the “destruction of the racist state of Isarel (sic) is coming soon” and wrote “glory to Hamas”.

In another post on March 26, Preastuin called Hamas and Hezbollah “freedom fighters and defenders of humanity.”

Preastuin tweeted under the name "Eriu” but was identified after leaving a number of digital footprints such as the name of his workplace.

Legal advocacy group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) wrote to the school’s headteacher, Eoin Kelly, on April 29 calling for an urgent investigation and claiming Preastuin was an “overt supporter of terrorists” who was “an extremely dangerous influence” on the children he teaches.

In the letter, UKLFI Caroline Turner said they were “extremely concerned” that the teacher was “extolling the virtues of the Hamas terrorist group, in breach of UK anti-terrorism law”.

They wrote that Preastuin’s “open support for a terrorism group is particularly egregious given his job as a Religious Education teacher and a Year 9 form tutor in your school.

“As a teacher, in a position of authority over his students, he is likely to influence his students, and may well encourage them to follow his own beliefs, as well as stir up racial hatred against Jews and Israelis.”

Kelly, writing back on the same day, thanked UKLFI for alerting him to “this extremely concerning allegation” and confirmed he understood its “serious nature”.

Kelly confirmed that Preastuin had been reported to the police, who have opened an investigation, and that he had been suspended from work while the school opened its own internal probe.

Social media posts of Ronan Preastuin (Credit: GnasherJew)

Preastuin tweeted under the name Eriu but was identified after leaving a number of digital footprints such as the name of his workplace.

The government announced in November 2021 that Hamas had become a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK, meaning individuals could face up to 14 years in jail for expressing or inviting support for the group.

The posts were first exposed by the GnasherJew digital research team on April 23. A few hours later, Preastuin deleted his X/Twitter account.

On January 25, Preastuin posted: “I’m delighted to infirm (sic) you monsters Hamas committed no crime. Their actions were entirely legitimate resistance to a criminal state masquerading as Jewish, colonising their country.”

In another post also from January, Preastuin called October 7 “a justified act of resistance under a brutal and crushing occupation”.

He wrote that Israel “was not a true Jewish state, but an inversion and perversion of Judaism.”

In April, he wrote: “We stand shoulder to shoulder with Hamas, Palestine who have been invaded by American and European colonisers masquerading as a Jewish state.”

The Metropolitan Police has been contacted for comment.

Headteacher Eoin Kelly told UKLFI: "Given that this is a legal process we are unable to comment further until all the investigations are concluded."