The high court has thrown out the lifetime bans imposed by the Department for Education on two teachers caught up in the Trojan horse controversy.
The decision is a latest setback for the DfE in its handling of allegations of Islamic influence at Park View secondary school in Birmingham dating back to 2014, and may hinder disciplinary hearings against others still under way.
In Birmingham’s high court the judge, Stephen Phillips, overturned the ban imposed against two former Park View teachers, Inamulhaq Anwar and Akeel Ahmed, on the grounds of “serious procedural impropriety”, because of the DfE’s failure to reveal evidence used in other cases to the pair.
The two teachers were appealing against findings of unacceptable professional conduct by a disciplinary panel of the National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), and their lifetime bans from teaching which were imposed by the education secretary earlier this year.
But Justice Phillips said the NCTL had erred in not disclosing evidence and arguments it was using in its concurrent hearings against members of the senior leadership team (SLT) at Park View and its associated schools, involving three former headteachers.
In his judgment Phillips said he had “considerable doubt as to the fairness of proceeding first against teachers” before their school leaders, and concluded that the NCTL was “obliged to disclose material from the SLT proceedings which might assist the [teachers’] case or damage its own”.
The senior leadership hearings – involving former headteachers Monzoor Hussain, Lindsey Clark and Hardeep Saini – have been continuing for more than a year, and are not now expected to conclude until the end of December.
The cases stem from the “Trojan horse” letter alleging an Islamic plot to run and influence a series of state schools including Park View, which has since been placed under new management and renamed Rockwood Academy.
The high court decision throws into doubt the NCTL’s proceedings against three other teachers – Saqib Malik, Shakeel Aktar and Muhammad Umar Khan – which began a year ago and were scheduled to continue next week.