‘Trojan Horse’ plotters dodge teaching ban

The ringleaders of the “Trojan Horse” plot to impose conservative Islamic values on state schools in Birmingham are back in teaching, despite being banned from the classroom, an investigation by The Sunday Times has established.

Tahir Alam and Razwan Faraz are running informal classes — Faraz in a different city and under a false name.

A third figure who helped run a Trojan Horse school, Mohammed Ashraf, has become secretary of a local constituency Labour Party. He has applied to be a Labour council candidate at the next local elections, but claimed last night he had dropped the application. Ashraf was a governor at Golden Hillock School, which banned the teaching of some subjects and segregated boys and girls. He was later removed from the post.

An official report found Alam and Faraz were at the centre of “co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action” to introduce an “intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos” into schools in the city, with girls and boys separated, “un-Islamic subjects” such as evolution reduced or removed, and secular head teachers bullied from their jobs.

Faraz, deputy head of one of the Trojan Horse schools and the brother of a convicted terrorist, was a key figure in the “Park View brotherhood” of teachers, a group on the messaging tool WhatsApp who expressed grossly bigoted and extremist views. Faraz described gay people as “satanic” and “animals”, and said women’s place was “in the kitchen . . . a perpetual role serving men”. He described Muslims who raised money for the military charity Help for Heroes as “Uncle Toms”.

Faraz, who is under an interim ban from teaching, is fighting a permanent ban in hearings due to conclude next month. He claims he is no longer an extremist and says he is “confident” of beating the ban. However, The Sunday Times has established that Faraz has set up a Facebook account under a false name, Riz Pilgrim, in which he continues to express extreme views.

In a post on the day of the Nice terrorist attack, which killed 86 people, Faraz attacked as “idiots” those who expressed solidarity with the victims, saying they were privileging “white suffering” and condoning French colonialism.

In a later post he attacked those who expressed solidarity with the victims of the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo. “Those who did write ‘Je suis Charlie’ can go hang their heads in shame,” he wrote. “Or maybe you are just a secret self-hating Nazi!”

Under his pseudonym, Faraz has also been running £14-a-head classes in “raising emotionally intelligent boys”, most recently in Halifax, West Yorkshire, on November 13.

Faraz admitted last night that he was Riz Pilgrim but said the Facebook posts had been taken out of context. “I am campaigning against patriarchy in a huge way in the Muslim community,” he said.

Alam, the former head of the Park View Educational Trust, is already under a permanent ban. He is appealing to the High Court to have it lifted, claiming he finds extremist views “completely unacceptable”.

However, The Sunday Times has established that Alam has also recently expressed extremist views on Facebook.

He described the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center as the “controlled demolition of three buildings”. He has also promoted a YouTube video claiming that “Zionist neocons” have bribed the far-right British National Party to “ignore Jew paper money and attack Islam”. Alam stated: “He who pays the piper calls the tune. Revealing!”

Alam has been teaching children in informal classes at the Khidmat Centre, a community centre in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. Asked about it last night, he said: “Why should I speak to you about that? I am absolutely suitable for teaching any children, I have done absolutely nothing wrong.” He said he “did not recall” the Facebook posts.

Bans do not apply to informal schools not registered with the Department for Education, but MPs said they should. “It is just wrong that such a key figure in Trojan Horse should have any role in education,” said Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr.

It can also be revealed that one of the Trojan Horse schools, Park View, had far closer connections than have previously been reported with Rasheed Benyahia, a 19-year-old who died fighting for Isis in Syria.

It is known that Benyahia’s mother, Nicola, was a governor at the school. However, it can also be revealed he was a pupil there — and his father, Mustapha, was a teaching assistant. Mustapha’s mobile number appears on the Park View brotherhood WhatsApp group. He said it had been added by someone else and he had asked to be removed. He said he and his wife had co-operated with counter-terrorism authorities.

Mahmood said the disclosures proved the authorities were right about Alam, Faraz and the risks of radicalisation.

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