The Trojan Horse Affair - Part 1
59:38 Share

This forecast is supported by U. S. bank. And U. S. bank. When they say they're in IT with you, they mean IT.

Not just for the good stuff, the gray and openings and celebrations, although those are pretty great, but for all the hard work that took to get there, because together they're proving day in and day out that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us. Visit U. S.

Bank tok. Com to get started today. Equal housing lender member F. I C. These first two episodes of the trojan horse are are free.

but he heard the whole series. You'll need to subscribe to the new york times, where you'll get access to all the serial productions and new york times shows. And it's super easy.

You can sign up through apple podcast or spotify. And if you're already a time subscriber, just link your account and you're done. This is my first story as a journalist I hadn't planned for to my last story, but I probably will be, given what's happened in the gears, have been working on this.

It's about a letter that surfaced in my city and had huge consequences for brain. This later launched four government investigations, change our national policy and ended careers. It's hurt some of the country's most vulnerable children. A letter that many people who've seen IT agree is ridiculous.

is unsigned, updated.

then look like a serious document, just seemed comical. What is I remember looking sometime you, the inside that was the right .

on partment in blood and side down.

I first learned at the letter in twenty fourteen, I wasn't a journalist, then as a doctor would quit medicine, living in burning in england, making my breakfast at one pm, listening to the news. When I heard about the discovery of a secret communicate between muslims extremists, they were discussing a lot to infiltrate our city schools and run them on strate islamic principles, potentially with the aim of radical ising students.

Someone had forwarded the letter anonymous ly to the local government, the burning city council, but was missing the first and last page, so it's unknown exactly who wrote him or who they were sending IT too. According to the intercepted pages, the plot had a code name, Operation children horse. I have to admit, when the story about muslims and bermuda first broke, as a muslims in bermuda, I was alarmed that sound impossible.

Kids across britain, across europe, or flying off to syria to join this group called ISIS. And burnham has been home to quite a few terrorists my nights, or was a terrorist, the guy who killed five people and then try to run into parliament with a knife. He did his planning in a flap of the persian restaurant across the street from me.

So wasn't surprised watching as over the next several month, Operation trojan horse snowball into a huge national story. A number of schools in birmingham been infiltrated by hard line muslim headlines like islamist plot, jihadist plot are legging a conspiracy of, and the government responded with full force. The prime minister gun involved convening his cabinet to discuss the threat.

The national .

government sent in a bunch of investigators, including scotland, yards from my head of counterterrorism, to look into two dozen schools in majority muslim areas of.

Like, I think, is all very frighting until a few months later, when the various investigators finally start reporting their findings that found no plot called Operation trojan horse, that seen no signs that anyone had been radicalized, no evidence of violence or plan violence, they didn't bring any terror charges against anyone work on the schools they'd looked into. But despite all of them, despite finding no plot, investigators still concluded that something terrible was happening in bergen schools. The letter helped them uncover that muslims had influenced schools in a dangerous way.

Government officials snapped into action. Things that should not have happened in our schools were allowed to happen. Our children were exposed to things they should not have been exposed to.

The fallout has been huge. Prime minister David Cameron, as we said, is calling a special meeting of the government's extremism top force.

Officials removed educators, revamp schools, and we named them. They Mandated all schools in the country start teaching what they turned british values to make kids less acceptable to extremist ideas. They beat up for encounter extremism laws by making public sector workers like teachers and doctors part of the state's veille ance Operators tonight inform on their core workers and students and patients today.

If you stop someone on the streets of britain and ask them what happened in burn some schools in twenty fourteen, if they follow the news that like to tell you that a bunch of muslims were up to no good. There is another version of the story, though it's one less told and far less popular. That version of the trojan horse is that nothing happened, that these beaded Brown educators were set up and the nation fell for IT.

But is always seem to me that is a simple way to figure out what really happened here. The letter, even with all the government inquiries, no authority. None of the investigators ever figured out who wrote him.

Remarkably, none. Let me been tried. And that, to me, seems like a pretty clearing overside. The reason that country was looking at these schools of suspicion, the reason they were investigating at all, was because this dodgy letter showed up for train the people who work there as nefarious plots, claiming they were sneaking in islamic to schools like a children horse. The letter is what put the idea in authorized heads.

So I didn't see how you could know what Operation children horse was or wasn't, unless you got to the bottle of the trojan whole data. Who wrote him and why? A few years later, I decided to go to school for investigative journey.

But my professor wasn't completely sold on a story. I wanted to report my student project, Operation children horse. This was investigative journalist.

He wanted me to energy something new, not reach over some years old story. As a doctor, though, i'm familiar with the concept of a second opinion. So the night before my masters were set to start looking for one.

A doctor came to see me for a second opinion one night and fell twenty seventeen. I'm in a fear in birmingham. My podcast s town came out.

I went around doing some Q N afterwards. People sometimes come back stage to chat. And so this guy comes in, introduces himself as hums a siad.

He said he was changing careers to become a reporter. He was beginning a masters program in investigative journalists in the next day, actually, and he wanted some advice. He was speaking fast, like, I might walk away any moment.

To be fair, I was told I had five minutes of brian read, after which I be scouted at the building.

I did not know that. Anyway, hums ran through the children horse story for me, elevator pitch style. I've never heard of IT, but a guy was with back stage, a producer, no, from the BBC he had, and he jumped in as homes that was talking, yeah, yeah, trigen horse.

He said there was a big thing. A while ago, some bad stuff went down. Muslim educators have enough to no good. But who was cleared up? Old story, there was something homes are said, though, which afterwards I couldn't .

get out of my head.

He kept talking about a letter which had set off this whole cascade consequences, whose origins were still a mystery. So when I got home in new york, I the letter IT looked like a cairo latter of a missive between two terrorists filled with islam's bic tropes about conniving and scheming muslims. It's missing pages.

Parts of IT are too dark to read. Like I got jane in the iraq machine, IT instructs the recipient to destroy IT. After reading, IT struck me as a funky document for a government to take seriously, especially because from what I read, the government had even looked into who wrote the letter or why there was a strange lack of curiosity about this instigating document.

I thought to myself, seems like somebody you should try to figure who wrote that thing. And then I thought, will wait, this journalism students doing that, maybe I had a in my hand. And here we are years later, at the end of a dishing, farcical and enraging investigation in which one mystery LED to another, LED to another, tracing this letters path of destruction across multiple contents.

in the fines of many unhappy officials and some aggressive attempts to shut our report .

and down from serial productions and the new york times.

I'm brian read.

i'm to say, presenting to you the most of labor's student project ever. This is the trojan horse affair.

I got the call from brian when I was in class. My phone started ringing from a new york number. I ask my professor and if I could take him.

He said, no, I can go use the toilet. He said, yes, I answered, and brian told me he wanted in on my investigation, but that I would need to. Producer, I said so, or cash.

I had no idea what produce you did. Soon he started getting in touch with missions for me to complete first one. He's secured a recorder for me in birmingham and said, there's something I had to do who supposed .

to be a basic britain button assignment? Go record a meeting? Hum za had seen an event advertised called trojan horse.

The facts where some of the educators have been accused of Carrying out the plot would be speaking publicly. They insisted the trojan horse affair was just in a lama o stitch up. The event hashtag was trojan hoax, and they were trying to clear their names.

They've never got in their lives back on track after the story died down. We've lost their jobs and been made in paris by the national media. But afterwards, times that calls me and says, when he showed up at the spot, the community center five P. M, the reception has told him.

been cancelled, had been cancelled.

Did they give you any way? Did they give you .

any other information? cancelled. I said now this is now I spoke to organized a few days ago. They said he had got cancelled today. So I felt like an idiot to be on excess. Stand there with this big, you know, mike, stand that looks like a fishing rather at my box equipment. This can't be a good woman though, to my be first journalist m assignment.

But then more people still showing up, confused like me, until a man in one of those safety vests swings around the corner, tells us to follow him and takes us up the stream to a wedding hall where everyone is gathering. Instead, a lot of people, maybe over one hundred. And as I explained to brian, well, i'm set up the microphone in terms of what happened. And I turned out that the original venue had received phone calls from the national newspapers, specifically this guy, negativity.

He's like a reporter, publisher.

what? what? He's mist. I for the telegram, and not just any old columnist nicked him. And the used to be the chief of staff to the prime minister, who is essentially to read amaze, right hand man. I spoke to a guy who ran the community centre, who dominici mity had actually emailed, not called, you wouldn't let me see the email, but according to others at the meeting, the implication was, if you hold this event, I will associate you with extremists in the newspaper. And the community center pulled the plug.

Electives ity denies contact in the community center and says he doesn't know who did or what they said, but he wrote a triumphant t column about the planned meeting, which admits, because of on youtube all day watching instructional videos and how to use my record in which he noted, quote, when the daily telegraph discovered this and contacted the owners of the venue, their rightly council day, he went on to suggest the event organizers were extremists and describe the proposed meeting as, quote, a shocking attempt to deny the trojan horse scandal. And quote, the people behind trojan horse are trying to do IT all over again and right and right noses twenty good evening and latest and gentlemen and welcomes to trojan horse or hoax the discussion and debate. So here there were the teachers and school volunteers allegedly behind Operation georgia horse, along with their defenders, academics and activists, and an educational baris union da packed in this wedding hall.

Instead, I am really, really concerned that simply holding a public open meeting like this becomes controversial. Just the fact we are holding this meeting seems to be an act of resistance right now. The people at this meeting called for inquiry to correct the record on the trojan horse of are they believe the government had set them up. So the fact that a former chief of staff to the prime minister, nick mithi, went out of his way to attack a grass root event, a community center, years after the trojan horse, are IT just reinforce their suspicion and mind by honestly that there was something dodging in the authorities were still going to hide.

And then was, I was like a witch hunt. The heads that were rolling this way in that way .

hums to send me the recording of the meeting. I listen to IT, and I was interested to hear that one of the people who got on stage and spoke was the man named repeatedly in the trojan horse sleep as the mastermind of Operation rogan horse, the plots alleged ringleader, a long time school volunteer name, to hear alarm.

I've never been a danger to anyone. I've never hurt anyone. I've never have any police case against me.

Anything of the kind. I wasn't running a plot. You know, we are very proud of what we did this.

I do not regret nor apologize for anything that i've done. There was nothing can dust time hidden or sinister about what we were doing. We very open and very transparent.

So when I landed in birmingham, begin reporting that we decided to go to first to hear alarm, we figured we're looking to find the source of this mysterious letter. Minus will start with the guy out, out IT as an extremist plotter. Is this Better to be the first radio .

in a room you've ever done? Yeah, I need to be called before. Hand me.

What do you mean? Like.

how well I mean, this is me find solo. I'd be like, what, whatever, how to do at my style, you know?

But this is this. What is your style?

Do you have a style?

I feel like a not.

but have an idea in my head of what my style could be. I think you're a lot more sensitive than I am. Put that way. I mean, like you are the more sensitive one. So do you think so?

I don't know. I don't know you that well.

I wonderful to be wearing.

The hell.

Fitting button down shirt .

keys thank.

We kick off our shoes, he shows to a room at the front of his place.

the uncomfortable chest there homes.

and I squeeze behind two school desks meant for children, their protractor lying around a White board. Sketches of geek c shapes a creative writing workbook titled descript to sorry to hear, converted this room from his garage into a tiny makeshift classroom where appears in two, two students quietly. Because one result of the trojan horse sleep is that the government has banned him from our volunteers are working officially in schools again. Here's in front of us in his office chair, confident ari date frame by his bookshelf filled with text about islam ember, the history. I pull a copy of the letter out of my backpack.

You is a completely anonymous letter, updated a claiming that there is a plot to take over and islamization the schools in birmingham by thai alm, which is myself. But I speak from a vantage point where I actually know the truth. I know the reality.

To here denies being an extremist. He denies engineering a plot. He says the reality is that rather than corrupting schools as a radical conspirator, he, a first generation immigrant from a poor pakistani family, was responsible for one of the most maculate school turnaround s in british education, until he says the letter arrived and destroyed him.

The story of this turnaround is not a secret. It's once they hear, shared with journey before. Not that I stand much good and tell us a clearing his name, but this backstory does explain why the trojan horse letter was so persuasive because the hair told us some of what was in that letter was true. The hair begins the story one in nineteen ninety three, when he is watching T, V, and a show called his attention.

I just happen to be just lying on the sofa and the program came on.

IT was a documentary part of the BBC series pana.

Nine times at at ten, I would switch to something else. But I was just sitting there and I started watching.

Britain's new underclass is asian and its muslim. A once title unit community is now in crisis, with drug abuse, crime and family break down on the increase .

and the title of this document, he was under class in person.

In tonight, panama, we investigate an underclass in murder.

Murder, meaning, you know, cover, meaning a veil, if you like, under class in the veil. You, in tonight program, we lift the veil on this new underclass.

A report, the documentary opens with shots of Brown men, slim king around dog cobo, stoned streets in the muslim, what the correspondent calls the muslim, getting at night that doubles as the local red light district. It's A C, D world of vice and delicate, a drug dealing. Working in the shadows is a new managing m phenomenon, the pakistani pip.

He's like a regular pip, but in a course. Part of the document takes place in the hair neighbor od in burma. M caught on the rock on the inside of the city.

It's one of the poorest areas in england and its majority pakistani and muslim. If you're not from bom ghan and you're not Brown, you have ever heard the alam rock is a great place to find a terrorist. If you're not from bus maga and you are Brown, you've had on rock is a great place to find a wedding dress.

Admittedly, this BBC documentary is racist in a nineteen T. V kind of way, but I had a big impact on the hair, because IT is the award. Brown gain, some truly soldering facts emerge. The presented reports of pakistan muslims are increased at this proportionally hier rates. SHE says that some of the highest rates of joblessness they suffer from devastating health issues, terrible housing, domestic violence, with one underlying cause of all, a lack of education.

This, the number I found more shocking, about twenty percent of White students were leaving school without any qualifications, meaning they fell ed to pass exams that would essentially be the equivalent of a high school diploma in the us. And that rate, twenty percent, was roughly the same for most people of color as well. Pakistan and bangladesh, astonishing fifty percent hold no qualifications. What soever fifty percent? Half of us were basically fAiling school that hit the hair hard.

That the extent of education failure was, uh, so bad that we were at risk of creating an underclass of muslims who were basically uneducated, prone to crime and unemployment. So I kind of said there, and I IT made me feel guilty, actually guilty, because I was one of the few people who made IT uh from my family, one of the first ones to make IT into uh to university and to have a good job and so on. But there was also uh uh a sense of humiliation really, because I was from this community.

the hair's family imported in to england in the seventies when lots of people from kish mir will move in here, largely because the british design is huge. Damn, that flooded sats of land and displays tens of thousands of people. And one solution the bridge got behind was to invite display pakistanis over to england so that I could improve the british economy by working in british factories and mills, which is what the hair dad did. The hair arrived in england as a nine year old, wouldn't speak any english. And what to become fluent .

for several years. I knew one word of english only, which was F, O R D. Mean, I don't know. X, Y said, but no. F, O, R.

that's IT. I really, I can speak in english here. I couldn't speak ford.

I was just like mute football. That's what I knew. Football.

that's right. So that's all arrived here. And the first school when I came here, we arrived.

Country is growing up, angry and alienated from White society. Now, the hair watched as a documentary cut to the next generation. Boxie kids were born in brain being educate in state school, still struggling to read, not able to recall basic english words.

The camera got to a park in birmingham. He looked the hair like war in park, which is right across one way. He went to school in an amrou.

I recognize the park. We have used to go and play there. And then I saw some children as at all that our neighbor's children. I recognize the kids, yeah, even though is from a distance. But I recognize who the kids are.

We filed encounter with two asian lads in a park in a muslim quarter of firming m. These asian lads, we use asian to be inside asian, by the way, they're skipping school. And the here knew which school they were skipping is one he'd gone to was a kid right next to a park park view school, another majority muslim school with miserable academic results. It's a secondary school, age is eleven to sixteen, was a school where the hair had done well enough to make IT to college and the university before getting a good job in tending communications. The documentary made him realized how rare his success was and how little he done with that.

So to here decided to do something. He started a tutoring program for kids in the neighborhood, but what he was really interested in was volunteering at his old school park view. And what's known as they are, governing body in england.

A governing body oversees how a school is run like a corporate board does a company. It's sort like a school board in the U. S. Accept IT specific to one school. They can have a lot of influence.

So any wait to hear says one afternoon, a couple of part of parents he didn't know, not on his door, we hear, interested in becoming a governor. They said IT was like the red. His mind, though, actually to hear, been talking about wanting to be a governor of recent wedding.

And these parents got wind the bit. Resentment and frustration had been festering three years among parents. And alan rock, who've been trying and trying to get the authorities to do something about the disable schools, these parents at to his door had joined the park of governing body in an attempt to make a change.

But they didn't speak fluent english. Hand gone university. The here was a professional with a degree who still had in neighbourhood. We'd love to propose you, they told him. And with that to hear, found himself at the next governing body meeting of park view school, being voted in not only as a member, but as the chair.

So that's when I became a .

governor on the seventh of january nineteen ninety seven. Remember the day? Yeah, but I I was to remain there for eighteen years.

Went to hear, started. Park view was one of the worst secondary schools in the country. Only four percent of students were passing, four percent. The national school inspection agency had recently placed the school into special measures, the lowest possible ranking. An emergency status basically made in park view was in danger being shut down. There were bowls breaking out in the schoolyard on a tour, the building to hear sw vandalised bathrooms with stalls, missing locks and toilets, missing seats. But we're to hear, really trained to focus was on the complacent teachers and administrators.

We initially just started by saying that obviously children should be achieving higher, that the achievement was not acceptable and the fact that the school was to blame for for the failure.

This statement so obvious to to hear that the kids in alum rock was capable, kids anywhere was met with massive resistance.

is very difficult. Getting the school to accept that they were the problem. People didn't want to accept them because they were. They have been blaming the community for maybe two decades. They had such a low expectation of children.

One thing to hear, notice, leon, was that the staff of this school, with nearly ninety percent pakistani students, had only one full time pakistani muslim teacher. So to hear, begin searching for more muslim staff and governors. He gave presentations, held workshops. He became a fixture at events around you spermid um standing behind his little table or booth evAngelizing for people to get involved in their local schools.

I love, I love IT with the children because I felt as that I could make a difference.

This is mos, who seem the first muslim teacher to hear hired. He taught math.

I could use my language, my background and understanding of where they come from to make a difference. I knew their families.

Mos can point to a specific moment, by the way, when he decided to go into teaching.

there's a panel of program is called an underclass in part of the .

powerful segment.

Moto sane says, from the very beginning, he encountered serious prejudices among the mostly wide staff. Add a group, children come to me and this, this is one teacher in school. You always cause us packets.

He's calling us pocky. He's doing in a joke he way, but we find the offensive they're able tell anyone else, but they are telling me that look easy sweating at us. That's a slim in any context, but especially shocking for a teacher to say to pakistani students, most them, I think the best thing to do have your parents write the school.

He talked through the procedure for doing that in case their parents right know. He says, eventually the school look into the teacher's behavior. And while you're investigating, he designed and gave his final living speech here in, in, in, in the staff room and goes, this should be our culture dominating the school, not the kids.

And you finish off with the words, the west is the best. And all teachers clapped. All teachers collapsed.

The racism was pervasive. Roz wan, for roz, a former governor and math teacher, says one of his first governing body meanings. He was shown a list of places the students have been given workplace's through a program at the school. And IT was all restaurants, supermarkets.

clothing stores. And there was no surgery, doctor surgery or a law or anything like that. And I said, you know, how is IT that? Like, do the children decide this?

And this one says, the vice chair told him.

will their parents want them to go become doctors and engineers in acetate? But reality, these kids will become taxi drivers, shopkeepers. So we've gotten, prepare them now.

And for a good while, I was struggling to process what he was saying. This is me, a Brown person, a muslim. And he's saying to me that they deserve to have these kinda jobs.

This is this community s role in society.

That's right.

We just filed the kids. We just filed the kids and didn't feel bad about IT didn't believe we didn't. We didn't even feel guilty.

John brocky was one of the non muslim teachers at park view. He was a math teacher who'd been there since eighties. He was Frank with us about the bigotry that he, his colleagues, held towards the students and their families.

Um we we we we thought that we were a superior culture and we look down we look down on these people who didn't know about education.

You're talking about .

yourself here about myself, but i'm also talking about you know many of the people that I work with.

The teacher's attitudes are documented, by the way, a former head teacher of park view. A head teacher is what we americans call a principle, did a master's thesis while he was at the school, for which he collected opinions from the staff, including from john, as to why muslim children we're drastically under performing compared to their peers.

In the thesis, teachers say the kid's parents are ignorant, wrongly claim the student start speaking english. The teachers try for a while when teacher said, but end up feeling like, who gives a damn? That's a quote IT makes john chrge to think back on IT.

It's only when you move away of IT from a situation like .

that can you can realize .

I hopefully is I don't Normally think about about this sort think because i'm still embarrassing. Once we created the shift in the belief of the teachers, then the job became much easier.

The hair says, by the early two thousands, park view is changing. The school began taking basic for transformative steps, setting individualized achievement targets for each students. S that follow them from yet year and preparing students for qualifying exams, which amazingly hadn't happened before school started awarding trophy for good Marks, invite parents of ceremonies when they kissed ted.

Well, the here and the government has had a new head teacher, a non mister moon from a girl school who embraced park, viewed new aspirations, test core start to rise. Students were heading to college park. Fey's reputation was turning around. But there are all the changes. The hair institutes are park view, which later officials would be a suspect, changes that investigators would point to as a tradeMarks of Operation trojan horse.

With instant ard, you can get all your holiday essentials delivered in as fast as thirty minutes, whether it's the White elephant gift everyone will want to steal or the secret ingredients that makes great gramaphone copy so great just down the have to find recipes, shop ingredients and whip of dishes so delicious. Your ancient uncles will forget to ask about your love life.

Enjoy free delivery on your first three orders services in terms apply. This poggi is supported by made in cook ware. As a chef and a restaurant owner, I as meticulous about my cut wear as I am about my ingredients.

That's why I love medium cockaine. Each pan I make isn't just designed to perform, it's crafted to last. As a mom, I love that I can trust me in.

It's made from the world's finest materials, so I can feel good about what i'm feeding my family. I'm chef rk willison, and I used made in cocoa for full details. Visit made in conquer dot com.

That's M A D E. Ian cook ware dot come. You don't get label .

the leader of extremist .

conspiracy simply by raising test scores at your neighbor's secondary school. The main accusation against to hear alarm, the overarching assertion of the trojan horse letter, which the government supported in, which is defined to hear reputation since then, is that he was islamization schools.

This is not a word and particularly fond of islamic, because islamists, in relation to what some assumed non islamic baseline has this story been, islamization by hamas involvement? Yes, it's a word that isn't inherently negative, but gets used that way anyway. That's what the letter said to hear was doing islamization schools. And funny enough, it's also what to hear says .

he was doing we were valuing the cultural uh and the faith background of the children and we were lying that to be expressed if you like we cared for children so they could perform the you know daytime prays if they wanted to um we made a pry facility available for them in a room.

Religious accommodations like these are legal ember to schools, by the way, whether they're explicated designated as a religious school or not. Which part of you wasn't IT was the equivalent of a regular public school in the U. S.

And since ninety eight percent of the children happen to be of these liming faith background, we obviously are catching ing for the constituency that the school serves in line with the regulatory requirements to.

He describe to an educational philosophy that the way he, another park few staff talk about IT reminds me of effort centric or black excEllent schools in the us. That students will do Better academically when their schools incorporate and celebrate who they are. And there's research that backs up so under to hear leadership park fuel lead students to pray if they wanted they installed facilities for wodi the pollution you do before prayers. They celebrated ramadan and altered the schedule during that month to facility. They serve a low food.

And I felt that, you know, this was our school. I mean, we were proud to say that this is our school. We wanted our children to say that this was their school and that they were proud .

of IT in the wake of the charge. A horse later, government officials would declare that the way the hair on his colleagues were running park school had undermined court and call british values that they were limiting the children's ability to thrive in modern briton, which is an interesting charge to bring against the hair.

Because I have to say, I haven't percy met english pakistan more confident than he's bridge than to hear deciding whether not to coach a bridge is a flaw and personal thing for us. Speak for myself, even though I came to england when I was eight and became a british citizen with a british passport, even though I have a british education when departing versy work for brain's national health service. I didn't call myself bridge.

I was never precious about nationality, so I didn't really care what I was called. But I also picked up on the subliminal messaging that in order to be proper bridge, you had to be White. The hair on the other, the hand, not only calls himself british, but so proudly, I got to talking to the hair by this one day in brand, I will get in tea and my favorite child shop .

on a lock road and out as we SAT outside .

one of the main to affairs of a islamic brain around the corner from weth. The hair group would double take a buses, bus and by sweet shops and fabric c stories, and allow chips. I told him.

My reason for why are finding only recently stall in myself bridge. The, i've reading a book about the british empire and a entia rich india, which at the time include pakistan, was, according to some economists, before the bridge took control. I believe the stick is roughly is controlled by the twenty four percent.

something of the words economy. And the ation in twenty .

four percent of the world's economy is roughly with the U. S. controls. Today, I know this is someone of an apples and oranges comparison because the world wasn't organized into a globalize economy back then. But IT does show how rich india was in relation to all the countries at the time when the british left the india's subcontinent after some two hundred years of economic exploiting, indian pakistan were among the poorest nations in the world.

I didn't learn this stuff in school because brita's colonization of a quarter of the planet is not a composition part of the national curriculum, which why ironer discovery isn't adult, that so much to the wealth are. So in britain was actually extracted from the place I come from. Yeah, yeah.

From that point was, after the british, I was just like british. I owe this country. This is my money, with which you raise everything around me.

Very similar to the position I arrived.

except for me proclaiming on bridge is something about finger in the eye. The hair is sincere. IT also came to him later in life, he says, who was an event held by a british most of organization. And they began saying very clearly, you're never going back to pakistan. Your children are never going to move back.

It's not, it's not gonna en what have .

been thinking of the up point because .

parents spoke like that to us. Our homes are in pakistan, pakistani. My parent spoke to us like that. My father never told me we british because that's not what he felt you loved in x most like, why would you say that?

So the people at this event was saying, you live here now.

we were part of this country and that he was important as muslims, we should be benefit to this country. So ever since then, i've been kind of missing the idea that we are other, that we are outsiders, that we don't belong here. Islam is part of writing, is not alien. I don't accept that, can you see? So this is why you so the .

here not only was incorporating islam into the school and academic strategy, IT was also a british value. IT was really nice doing something at home. And my yeah like, I don't want to have a different life at the home. I to our school because these are two students .

who graduated from park view in fourteen. We're not using their names because such as the stinking of the children horse scandal, they don't want potential employers to know where they went to school. They actually keep IT off their resumes when, how then I met them four years after they graduated.

They are all sitting law university, some of the first in their families to go on to higher education. They've been best friends in school. The kind of friends who don't need .

words to communicate are you tell you about? Yeah, I know if I should. What is IT? Basically, the students told us about these .

assembly they would have in the mornings, which included religious teachings and sometimes prayer.

So this is.

this is something that is an america. And made me do a double take when I first turned about IT. The idea of teachers in a public school leading prayers during assembly is not Normal us, but in britain, there is no separation between church and state.

The queen is head of both. So not only a prayer allowed in schools, some form of worship is legally Mandated in all schools that are publicly funded. Schools don't know is IT here to this, but students are supposed to take part in, which called a daily act of collective worship, by default, posed to be broadly Christian in character.

But schools can apply to change IT to other faiths of that Better suits their students, which is what park you did. You got approval for its worship to be islam. The students told us, the park, you, the assembly, they would sit the main hall, and a teacher would tell parables or lessons, usually from islam, but other faiths too.

Do you guys remember actually learning things in the embley? Or did they make you think? Or they just kind of boring teachers blab bbb a bw like like.

I know I really enjoy. I didn't learn this from anywhere else.

Like they still remember this one assembly all these years later about charity.

talking about try. And they say, when you're giving charity, put your hand in your pocket and take out, don't look how you give and just put IT in. Don't count what you're giving and what you have left because when you give, you receive a ten fold.

And charity does not make you people for quite literally like sometimes when I like see somebody who is like asking for many IT thinks like that I put my hand in and i'll taking you out. I don't just I remember that one teacher. When the hair became chair of pok views governing body in one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven, four percent of students were passing by twenty ten. That number was seventy one percent, a seventeen fold increase.

We have not changed the children. We had not changed the parents, but slowly but surely, we took the results so that they were consistently in the seventies, which means the school actually is kind of guarantee and outcome.

Party was now actively preparing to students for the eventuality that their academic success would lead them out of east bermingham, something that a lot of teacher said to me, you live in a bub again, the formal part of your students, I was like, you live in the nation. You're very safe. You don't know what it's like to be like branch out.

I remember we learn about the population and how it's divided in U. K. And I think IT was something like, two percent of the population in the U.

K. Is asian. And I was like, only two percent.

I was like, two percent. How is he two percent? Like, everybody.

I nozing proud that was so d the U. K. Is actually two percent pakistani, seven percent asian.

But point being, there was a vast majority of the population that these students and their classroom mates were not bumping into today. Today and rock the school organized visit to cambridge university. They took them on campaign trips.

They visited the houses of parliament in london. Some students want in a week long trip on a cell, but with kids from all over, including a bunch of White kids, apparently we weren't used to a mingling with people who were not pakistani. So they were exposing us two guys. Okay.

you're looking me.

This is what the other beric first for you guys. Parents climate to get their kids into park view. The school had a waiting .

list of all kinds of ecolab ds nationally in the press. We are officials coming in in and out of our school really this saying what you're doing, you know, perhaps we can learn something. And they invited us, actually, that why don't you support of the schools?

The here became regarded in education circles, and over the years he expanded his reach beyond park view. He was certified as an inspector for office and the agency that monitors and red schools in britain. The booming city council hide him to train other governments throughout the city.

The national depart for education even asked the here and his colleagues the park view to take over two other troubled schools in his, which did the hair, was invited tea, attend down extreme, and a prime minister, tony blair, back in birmingham, though some people presented them, he had made enemies of lot of schools in the area. He became like hate among plot people, most of saying, who became part of his acting head teacher around this time was the full support of their hairs. But still he know the former colleagues toller.

They wish the hair was a bit more circumspect in the way he went around to other schools advocating for reform. He was self assured, blunt and particularly inspiring, would lend up head teachers and other school leaders the way their schools were fAiling mula students to tell all the schools look, puff, you can do IT puff. You can do IT pop.

You can do IT saying, family, some children in yoga, they can device that's excess, wish to tell, tire off this a lot. Stop using us as a beating the stick because it's isolates us. Among the other schools, he was actually pointing the finger and saying directly to head teachers, you're not doing a good enough job player for these kids.

Jackie, he used used to be charged with school improvement for the burma city council, and he says he can name her teachers that he knows the hair made enemies with. Many them were used to have in the final word on academics. And then he was the here as volunteer with no professior teaching experience, walls again, and criticising their work.

I mean, actually, people come to me and say, I can't understand why you give time, the time of days. A terrible man, he said to me and would go sounding off. Colleagues and friends went to here. You might want to consider soften your approach, but the hair wasn't having IT.

You have to fight for justice. Justice is not gonna handed to you on the plate. You know, you have to make space for yourself. So the fact that some people may not be OK with that is a different, easy, easy, relevant to me. You know .

that there a problem in two thousand and twelve part, you received the ultimate validation. What was probably the proud this moment and the hair early eighteen years there off that arrive from inspection and deepen the school outstanding, the highest rating possible among the many things, inspect is praise apart of you or the quote, wide range of opportunities for spiritual development, including voluntary friday prayers. In his time as Cherry governors, the hair had taken park view from the lowest ranking, the verge of closure, to the very top. The person in charge of ofsted chief inspector said, quote, every school in the country should be like this.

Less than two years later, on november twenty seventh twenty thirteen, an envelope arrived on the desk of the leader of birmingham city council, a man named sir Albert bar. Inside was a cover sheet addressed to him marked very important confidential, mr. Bore IT said this letter was found when I was clearing my bosses files, and I think you should be aware that I am shocked at what your officers are doing.

You have seven days to investigate this matter, after which you will be sent to a national newspaper, who I am sure we will treat IT seriously. Sc, rely A N anonymous. Presumably behind that note was the trojan horse letter for poorly copy pages, shadows at the edges, instructions to destroy. After reading, the letter was written as if from a collaborator of to hear describing a conspiracy to here been running to take over and islamic schools by deception, IT took weeks for to hear, to learn about IT.

He heard rumors there was a mysterious letter making its way around birmingham, the city council, into head teachers in town, which named him as the orchestrator of a plot, one of to hear friends rush to his house to tell him that he'd been getting a haircut over on washwood to his road. And afterwards his friend's barber had backed them into the backroom of the shop and showed him a copy to here, did not know what to make of IT. Finally, he got a hold of the document himself.

You know, obviously I was thinking, what is the source of this letter? Who wrote this letter? Why was this letter written while ringing in my head?

The front page was missing, so there was no dear whoever IT just started as if he had been going on for a page or more already. And the letter ended midsentence too, with the phrase I would also like so there's no sign off which meant to here couldn't tell exactly who is fused to be to or from. But whoever wrote the letter set explicit to hear, and I supposed .

to be from somebody who knows me well in burma, and he's talking to somebody in bradford.

another british city that tom do, a lot of muslims .

he's talking about to hear what he's done here. We can do .

IT over there.

And he's who where IT is. yes.

Can you keep reading just the first few paragraphs?

okay. A Operation trojan horse has been carefully thought through and is tried and tested within beigang to hear. And I would be happy to support your efforts in bradford. This is a long term plan and one which we are sure we lead to great success in taking over a number of schools and ensuring that they are run on the strict islamic principles. In birmingham, the benefits.

the main tactic of Operation trojan horse is to target head teachers at the schools you wants to take control of to make their life so miserable that we'll resign or also be fired, at which point you can install your own people who will implant islamic extremism in the school. The author gave several examples of schools in birmingham we're to hear in his crony's. We're supposedly in middle of doing this.

We have caused a great amount of organized disruption in birmingham, the letter says, and are on the way to getting rid of more head teachers and taking over their schools. While sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way to do things, you must remember that this is a jihad, and as such, using all means possible to win the war is acceptable. What was your feeling or your attitude? Were you laughing at IT where you actually kind of taking IT frightened?

I was, I wasn't laughing actually, because I knew the serious nature of the allegations that were being made. But as far as they claim that the themselves are concerned, they were laughing. So I knew that there were something not right about what was going on here to hear.

Contacted the birmingham council where the letter was first sent. He done training for them three years.

And as a look, I work for you and this letter apparently is going around claiming certain things. And i'm surprised that you haven't spoken to me to at least to get my view on the matter, at least ask me to explain all if I know anything, or whatever something. And the gentlemen they are actually from the city council, he said, mm, to be, to be very honestly with you, we don't think anything of the letter. We think it's a completely bog hoax letter and we do we don't believe there is any truth in IT, and therefore, we didn't take any action. We didn't do anything with IT.

Did you feel reassured by that or not?

Really know. Because then the leta began to be printed in the national media as well.

Someone lead the letter to the sunday times of london, and from there he became frenzy. One story turned to two, turn to dozens, and the day mail, the telegraph, spector, T. V.

Many of them giving credence to the letter, saying that extremists like the hair had allegedly been infiltrating U. K. Schools for years. Reporters camped outside park view. They talked the hair on the street.

We tried to put these allegations to the academy's chair of governors.

but to hear a lam turned about his house. Hello, the government kicked into care to investigate this warm part of you. Off stead. The school inspectorate arrived for two surprise inspections.

and then we have the education funding agency investigation, which was about ten days. I think they were in there for ten days. And soon as they left, we had A P, W, C.

Price water house group is a big outside audit firm .

looking into the financial phase of the school. So then we have them for for five weeks in the school as well. I said, what are you looking for? I say, please, what are you looking for? You been here three weeks. You must have a family.

There was more the secretary of state for education called in england's former counterterror chief from scotland, ard a. Manning, Peter Clark and the burma city council appointed its own special investigator. And they scrutinised park view, along with twenty some other other schools in muslim neighbors, ods in the middle of the male.

Some politicians and journalists were saying that the letter itself was likely a hoax. There are some obvious factual and accuracy, yet the government believed IT still warranted this action. Honestly, I don't think any author explain this logic with much clearly at the time, but my understanding of how the thinking went is that even if the letter itself wasn't an actual communicate between two real life conspirators, IT could still be pointing at a real problem.

Even if IT was fiction, the thinking went, the letter could have been fabricated by someone who had legitimate concerns about muslim extremists scheming and wheeling influence in schools, and maybe the letter was their creative way of raising an alarm. So rather than look into who wrote the letter and why, instead the government put out general public calls for information about these schools. And people started coming forward, mostly anonymous ly, with complaints again.

Investigators found no evidence of radical zone, no evidence of violent extremism and no plot. What emerge instead was a of grab bag of islamic Jason allegations, many of the same things authorities had celebrated up to that point. But apparently now we're seeing in a different light, like these educators weren't merely allowing students to pray.

They were pressuring them to pray. They weren't innocently recruiting Brown muslim staff. They were herring their buddies who thought the same way as they did impossible, discriminating against non muslim candidates in the process.

School governors, including to hear they weren't holding head teachers to a high standard. They were pressuring them, harassing them and exercising more power than the governor was supposed to. Investigators also said the'd found instances of intolerance, torch L, G, B, T, Q people and unequal treatment of women and girls. They said park fee would held assemblies and invited speakers with anti western views and that to hear in people alive with him allegedly subscribe to quote, an intolerant and politicize form of extreme social conservatism that claims to represent, and ultimately six to control, all muslims.

All of this, as the then .

secretary of state education, put IT as SHE presented the findings on the church on horseback to parliament, meant that students.

instead of enjoying a broader and enriching experience in school, Young people are having their horizons narrowed. And i've being denied the opportunity to flourish in a modern, multi cultural britain in place.

individuals for this reason, and with deep sense of injustice and sadness, that today we are announcing our intention to resign our positions at park view educational trust and our new members to assume responsibility .

after months of scrutton in early july twenty thirteen to hear looking tired and stressed student elect turn outside park use gates and resigned to here, told us he and the other park view governors only agreed to do that because the department for education promised that the head teacher and other on the ground leadership of the school would be kept in place.

But soon as school opening september, all of those people who are a suspended, all the leadership was basic reject ruthlessly. They went about to destroying their careers, destroying their reputations, and they did that systematically. We had worked for ten, fifteen years really to build the school. They are destroyed within months.

The government renamed the school is no longer park view. IT also notified nearly every teacher and governor he just heard from the here includes that IT was bringing proceedings to ban them for education for the rest of their lives in the years since student achievement has plumbed at the school. Formally known his park view for more than seventy percent, passing two in recent years from the low forty to mid fifty percent range.

So as a story that here told us, the first meeting in its makeshift to turn room, that this letter, which is never put investigated, that described the plot called Operation trojan horse, which is never found to have existed, inspired all of this, the running of careers and an educational movement, the fair monkey headlines against muslims that continue to this day, the government instituting policies that encourage to spy more brazen on each other. We've been talking with the hair for a couple of hours by this point.

What time is IT? I know you need to leave at some point.

I don't want IT. I mean, i'm to go to friday play now. So one o'clock i'm there. really.

I understand a lot to talk if you wanted to.

There is there's a lot to no, no, I don't get tired of talking these things only. I mean, you probably could tell everyone to talk about that. You know, you begin to relive IT isn't IT.

And I have to say that, you know, he does IT is suddenly actually as what has been lost for the children, for the community, the irreparable damage that has been done for absolutely no reason whatsoever. so. Anyway, can I get you guys some tea or something?

At that event, I went to where we all got redirected to the wedding hall, one of the speakers of column M P to urban put IT. Well, he said Operation trolley horse has become a social fact in britain.

But even though within weeks of the georgia horse are hitting the news, people acknowledge was probably a hux that never seemed to matter whether muslims and burning and we're conspiring or not doesn't matter the intimation that their work has persevered to the extent that prime minister's former chief of staff was outraged that some people in the community centre would be to say otherwise. But we don't need to sell for our social fact, because there are actual facts. Why up to this point has no one cared about who wrote this letter and where this letter came from?

Well, that's my question.

This.

this is what I ve been arguing. This is why I went to the police to see what they could do. This is what I said wrote in my letter to the birmingham council that you need to get to the bottom of who wrote the letter.

This is what I wrote to the department education as well. You need to get to the bottom of the letter. Who wrote the letter because of them unravel why the letter was written, you see.

So this is what I ve been arguing. But department of education is not interested. The police are not interested.

The body ming, a city count is not interested in answering that question. why? Because they have used this letter and on this hooks, they have built so much policy. Do you think now they want to launch an investigation into the letter to have a proven that he was written for completely a different reasons? Yeah, how would that make them look like bunch of monkeys?

As i've been sane, if you could just find out who wrote that letter and why, that's the only thing that might change brain's understanding of Operation children horse.

But whoever wrote a letter knew they knew me, I think, and I like to think that I know them too.

Does that mean you?

I have a strong hand, chester, who wrote the letter? You know, I strongly believe that I know who wrote the letter, and I strongly believe that I know the way that was written as well.

See, you think you know that who end the motive?

yes.

That's next on the trojan horse fair, the case of the four resignations.

The trojan horse affair is produce by hum aside and me, along with rebeca lacks. The show is edited by Sarah ic, additional editing by eyeglass and by our contributing editor I issue osd I fact checking in research by mark chronic and benn fAilin original score by Thomas meller, with additional music by maggi I and Steven Jackson, sound design mixing and music supervision by Stephen Jackson, and fill duma hut ski at the audio non visual company. Julie snyder are executive editor, kneel drummer is managing editor, supervising producer is a day tuba, executive assistant is Alberto daily, on same dome is an assistant managing editor of the new york times.

Audio is provided by c get images. Special thanks to my jazz professor, my yoder, Richard danbury, Kimberly henderson, the barki agency, Kenneth pm. Great clock and john Howard for, along with trees or two, ordered an in depth book, which was very helpful to us. Court countering extremism member schools, the truth about the beyond trojan horse affair .

the trojan horse fair is made by serial productions in the new york times.

What is the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a Crystal ball? Until then, over forty thousand business business have future proof, their cloud E R, bringing inventory hr into one fluid platform with real time insights and forecasting, you able to appear into the future and seize new opportunities down of the CFO s guide to A I and machine learning for free at nesbit dot com slash and that net sweet dot com slash N Y T.