The Trojan Horse Affair - Part 5
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So by city council told Michael gove that the trojan hose letter was incredible. The counter terrorism police had decided IT was a hoax. And yeah, Michael golf used the letter to sanction numerous high level investigations into potential extremism and burden schools anyway, which raised the question, why did you do that? Well, little do we know will be staring at the answer for a long time without really, I think.

what do you have to talk about is to put .

on the war, right? We do. We need to put up there about a year before we got the minutes of the board of meeting.

Right now, win hate q was the end of a long day. Reporting IT was so early in the process, there was still precious of our idea of a murder war. We were reading in counterterror p.

oclock. Report about his trojan horse investigation. I pick that names and leads from there, and I took this one. Now do we have the birmingham hust? I know, sorry, but british hust association of that, we didn't.

What is the british humanist society? Is a british.

And yet there there were mentioned a few times in the clock report. The british humanist association, according to the report, weeks before the torture horse that I went public and Michael go sent investigators into park view, a group called the british humanists have been working on the Whiter blowers from inside the school.

Former members of staff have, for whatever reason, in the military, has gone to a bridge of humans association to complain to them about was happening in part of you. Now why would teachers go to them? I don't know.

I have no idea. Why would they have saying any of this? Why are they in the clocks?

That is, I don't know, but I don't think, do you really think I don't think they were playing .

on the wall would look k fine just to throwing IT out there. And they mentioned we can do .

IT all over here, like on the other side, if you want to just put them on a card. And i'll put IT up there.

Brian humid me. He wrote british humanist on a no cod and benighted IT to a spot just above the light switch over by the door. And the humanist stayed all lonely over them in the corner.

The only time they got any attention was one therr summer made a visit home. You're going to follow me to hate cube. Can I showed him in my sister and all what i've done with mom and dad d's room, and I want your immediate reactions.

我在 20岁。 IT looks like something crown of beautiful mind. Let you pay a picture. One of the singer, just a kind of series of strings. They been very parking tape together.

Most of the string action was in the center of the war, but the summer went straw through the door. I start pounding his finger on the card above the lights. Witch, these guys, what would you point? The british human association? What do you know about them? I just had very bad things.

Someone knew about the bridge. Humanists from his university days. There are group that supports seculorum m. In the U. K. The sound inoculum.

The website talks about promoting reason and evidence and the scientific method that I just know that within london, in the university islamic society community, these guys were known. It's just organization. Non Greta. And everyone knows that there pedling just redick of island forbid and doing IT in this kind of intellectualized way.

So that is not the kind of format that you associated with bited people, but they do IT through like studies that they've done to show how back with the communities and things like that was the most pervasive type. Around the time my brother was in school, the humanist on revise president, who have been named humanist of the year in the U. K.

And the united states, oxford professor Richard dawkins was issuing such takes as quote, I regard as some as one of the great evils in the world. And of course, you can have an opinion about islam without having red koran. You don't have to read mind calm to have an opining about not theism, that neglected card in the corner.

IT would prove important to brands of investigation because when we finally did get those minutes of the fibre twelve meeting between alba bar and Michael gove, sure they made clear that burma city council had told Michael golf police told the torture a horse that I was bogus. But the minutes also made clear that the meeting IT wasn't just about the torture horse data Michael golf and his aides showed up that day with another letter they wanted to talk about a quote let to receive by the bridge human society relating to park view academy. Unlike the children, horse at a this letter wasn't markey or fake looking, is from identifiable people who work at park view and who were voted for by the british humans, who said there really who was an a various estimates ation going on at the schools.

These first flowers seem like git, and they're coming forward. That might have been the true starting gun for the trojan horse as important, may be more important. And the trojan horse that itself, over the years these were blows, have most stayed in the background, out of public view. But when we got in touch with them, we learned that they were eager to bed of the shadows and tell us what they saw happening at park you school.

Those of us who tell the truth, we tell the truth. The people who lie tell lies down line and the truth is difficult to establish from .

server productions. And the new times i'm decide i'm .

brian read this is .

a trojan horse affair.

Think so packed .

er is bustling around .

and genes and a jumper getting homes and me settled in her cottage out in the country where we're setting up to interview her and her husband.

Steve can ask you how you got our emails and how you knew about this soon.

Steve packer both use to work at part of school. Stephen taught there is entire career, thirty five years, primarily computer science. Sue was the educational visits ordinator. Shower soft eld trips. To answer Steve's question, we learned about him.

And so because they testified in disciplinary hearings against a bunch of park view teachers, cases that grew out of the trojan horse investigations, we got their hands on a transcript of the proceedings, which took place in what was known as the national college for teaching and leadership. In the years since soon, Steve have been enjoying a quiet retirement from education out here in the countryside, far from alone, rock. So first of all, you guys haven't done this then. I guess you haven't one like a one from interview about this.

This will be your first. I did some anonymous ones OK when he was all going on, because because of this thing, i'd gone anonymous. Ly, too.

The british who is association human is U. K. Because Steve sun.

Steve, say speaking out about park view was not something they did lightly. The school was important to them.

We actually loved our jobs. Yes.

we really did you best job .

in the world.

And children after wonderful. I wouldn't.

Steve was part of the renaissance at part view. He was there when the school was a dismal. He was there in the nineties when offset put the school on notice that if he didn't improve, IT might have to close. And he was there when to hear alarm, took charge as chair of the governing body, hoping to step back to school on a new path.

He taught him my first year of the school. I was his computer studies s teacher. I here, really. So here.

this was in one thousand nine hundred eighty three. Good, good. Steve. Thank you.

Always shot. Steve remembers to hear .

being a nice kid. And he remembers when he turned back up as an adult volunteering to run the governing body. What did you make of his motivations for being there .

and what he was in? I an, he didn't necessary talk about islamic, muslim side of things. This is about the fact that children wonder achieving, and that we could could get them to do Better.

And that he talked about that often.

Yeah, yeah, that would always be his main focus. I mean, totally agreed with that because the one year we were the worst performing school in the hole, verma, and something had to be done about IT.

Steve was one of the old guard teachers who could see the new vision for the school, and he threw himself into achieving IT. When some teachers formed a ramadan committee to help integrate the holiday into the school. He was a founding member.

He used to play the called a prayer from speakers in his office. He held computer training for mom's and alan rock when park view became what's known as a business enterprise school where kids learn entrepreneurs skills as part of the curriculum. Steve was in charge of that.

He became a vice principle, and he got close with a group of guys at the school, a mix of old timers and newer teachers, muslims and non, we've talked to many of them, most whose lives were turned upside down. Careers were derived iled, in part because of Stephen testimony at their disciplinary hearing. But they all spoke finally of Steve.

They shared memories of traveling to china together, of going running on the weekend, of hiking together out and whales. They miss him. And we could tell, talking to Steve, that these relationships have been meaningful to him too. But when sue joined the park, few staff in the early two thousands after marrying, Steve SHE questioned how his friends were running the school. And that puts Steve to see things differently.

You know, i'd work with these people for a long, long time. I I went there with a new set of eyes, and I could see things. I felt work quite right. I'm originally ally, is back at way back in two thousand and eleven. I think IT was when the first concerns happened when those these worksheet that were being given to the boys one day.

sue says SHE Steve got in the car to head home from work, and Steve told her about something unsettling that happened that day while discovering for a science teachers access class.

the teacher was a way I was down to cup of the lesson. There's no work left. Anything aren't in there.

So the first thing I did is, what did you do? Last lesson? And then one boy said, all we were told that if we want what I to have sex others, then they have to, I can't refuse both said .

if we were taught that if his boys have six survive.

they have to say yes, yeah, yeah they can't say no. Our first of all, after I thought he was, have no laugh. I thought he was a bit of a joke and I said, you're joke and you weren't told that.

And the kids yesterday, yes, because it's just a boy's group. So well, let me tell you now that is wrong. Any woman has the right to say no, and she's says no and he goes to her, then it's rape. And IT was is an uncomfortable thing to talk about because I was a bit of a shot really .

they seem accept IT .

that appeared to accept you from me. I mean, I was that point. I was assistant head.

So I was strong enough in the school, had cloud just sort of say this is wrong. I'm right. And this question doesn't go any further.

SHE was appalled by what Steve was telling her in the car, the fact that one of their colleagues would say something like this was bad enough. What to teach to students? So here are some boys in school. When are twenty thousand girls about IT? And then he says a work he's surfaced from the lesson, which he said had religious quotes on him about the rolls and obligations of many of women in marriage and how women had to obey.

Yeah, the shock of reading IT and knowing that that had been given out to the boys. I was not just horrified. I was just so enraged by IT. I was just but like you have saying, it's such a serious thing. So obviously, I spoke to you about IT sue.

Turning to Steve. He says they went to a person who was in charge of the sexed curriculum, but he felt the school wasn't acting fast enough. SHE mentioned to her son, tom one day on the phone.

Tom would work apart you for a gear as a team assistant when his fresh out of university. He's a science professor. Now I was mostly upset this happening in a science lesson, like sex education falls under science.

And the content of that work sheet was was religious. Tom remembers how distressed his mom was explaining what happened. SHE wondered if there anything else you could do.

And I know I told her, don't go to the press. I don't think we should be doing that. Tom was wary of how the british media covers muslims, but he agreed they should do something.

He said that he, his mom, we need to have some kind of third party intermediaries who can help us do this in a responsible way. That is not going to have prejudice on on any, any particular community. We didn't want a daily mile front page. We didn't want right wing newspapers putting their own spin on this. And I scared that that might happen and I decided like the the most sensible thing to do is .

to go for a third .

party um in the I suggested the british human this is how the humanist enter the story. The humanist aren't immediate, obvious place to take this matter. But tom told us he become interested in humanism in grade school.

He thought the bridge humanist as proponents of tolerance, equality, science and human rights. One of the group's longstanding missions is to eradicate relatives, practices from british ate schools, the regulations that require a daily, active collective worship in all state schools. The recent part of the school held islamic assembly.

The humanists want those repealed. So tom told his mom, you copy the work sheet. And what I do is I put an email together, which he did, tom, and that up on the phone with one of the humanist top people. They came over the plan for how the humanist would help them take the story to the press, the rover to go, then get into IT, who says, the teacher who over source, I said, are to say, Helen assembly, for all the boys in yet ten, where he disappears them of the notion that wife is obligated to obey husband.

They were told, apparently, that that wasn't the case. The girls were, you know, you had to be sex, had to be consensual. I did that.

You know, I just accepted that. Okay, that won't happen again. And we've gotten move forward. So things that are setting down again then really the school had a ight standing off state.

This was the watershed moment in twenty twelve, when off stead the school inspectors awarded park view the highest designation a school can get. People from round europe were visiting park view for inspiration.

The prime minister, David Cameron, praised IT for closing the achievement gap, and the department for education under Michael gove asked park fuse leadership to start running two other eastbury ingham schools that needed help through an initiative they were pushing called the academy program, which gave the school leaders more power and autonomy. But according to suit, Steve IT was during this peak of recognition and success that some of their colleagues started taking advantage of the independence. But given .

they want to give the children a good education, but he was just that sort of the religious anthem wasn't say, that took over really everywhere.

So in Steve turn, they say they saw changes being implemented that looked to them to be religiously motivated. The holiday postbox were kids used to deposit Christmas cards for each other, was removed. The called a prayer, which David supported as a romantic thing, became a year round fixture.

Pupils were lean on, they say, to choose arabic or urdu as their language elective over french. Steve sharp on an overnight school trip and had to enforce a rule to the kid's disappointment that they weren't allowed to go to a disco soon. And Steve say girls and boys were prevented from mingling and dating.

And they say certain teachers were telling children that if they didn't pray, they weren't good muslims. The packers felt like the school was shifting. Rather than merely celebrating the kid's muslim identities.

Park view was pressuring kids to practice islam. Dictating to students how to be most disturbing to sue was the effect he felt the religious imperative was having. And women and girls at the school, staff members and students.

there is a lot of, and fan is going on equality. You've gone out the door where everything was very strict. Sort of think our girls going to have their hair highlighted. They were encouraging to wear their scarves. Girls were being brought back from any good of events where there was a male present.

For instance, sue says there was a tennis lesson organize for five part, two girls and five boys at another school when the teacher accompanying the kids saw that the instructor was a man, he brought the girls back to park view because there was a school rule that sports were separated, boys and girls. SHE says the girls were upset getting get to do the lesson that day. So was furious.

Women weren't weren't being treated properly. Girls were not being given choices, girls were being detected to. There was a blanky role that girls were not allowed to do things to.

And Steve had an idea of who was behind all this.

I say the person really pulling the street was to hear to vote.

And Steve, all the official funding over a park view seem to have been bolden to hear. They felt he was exerting more influence on the school than the governor was supposed to. He was still focused on academics.

They felt there was something else driving him as well. What do you think tires ulterior motive? Was you you're saying like there was something else going on that was driving .

him in trouble of the schools to have them wonder why he wanted them run.

But not, but not to the ends of achievement to difference .

achievement as well.

but the emphasis .

on doing things in a certain way, the way I wanted IT done. And not, not according .

to islam. Is that what you mean?

Well, that pretty clear train of islam.

strain of islam, does take her practice.

Well, you don't. Either one that says that girls can't take party activities when there's a man present.

You can't Christmas each other, whatever that is.

When the long time head teacher of park view, a non muslim White woman, was promoted in twenty twelve, she'd not be overseeing all three schools. That party was trying to reform the person the governors chose to take her place while they fill the position was a muslim teacher whose some staffers didn't feel was the best choice to run the school, but who was close with.

To hear moto saying mos taking over meant that all the top managers within park new school were now men. So also mentioned us a focus group. SHE took part in with the local police about combatting violence against women. He's burma, where SHE learned that this firming m has one of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the country. IT all made to worry.

My may concern is that the girls were just able to access as much opportunity is possible and come back to school, you knows, equipped as possible to deal with what whatever they come across in in life. You know, my feeling is where that, you know, girls need to be strong and needs to be said of, and I fail in control. So we tried to get the .

school to address these problems. SHE raised with a head teacher, mos, but IT wasn't getting back to in the middle, making plans to go to speak to the governed by these issues. When a former park few student in a mina told you about something that happened on a full trip, shade helped one to a local museum and interaction with another teacher that bothered them as soon tells him, I mean, that I was volunteering a park view.

SHE was just out of university. Her mom was on the governing body, and a dad also work there. And I mean, I told him on the way back from the museum, she've been sitting on one of the buses with the kids when to teach her go on a man and said to her that he was on the wrong bus.

He said, I came onto the coach and said, you need to be on the coach with me like that. So he said the felt that he spoken to her very rude in front of the children, and he was unnecessary. So I just said, what's a look, you know, you need to really go in speech, was about keep.

Did IT seem that serious or did IT seem kind because that seems like not that big of a thing to do this? Or I guess.

because IT was becoming common place, they sort of attitude to women as far as soon.

I mean, he did mention IT, a supervisor, but too, in here they're been any followed for management SHE tent, an email that the head teacher was and others asking what was being done about the colleague who had been ruled to a miner.

And then the following day after i'd done that, I was called to muse's office. He was there standing over desk of things, only papers on his desk. And you just have exploded at me and just said, you know, you've been predictive, malicious right in these emails about a member staff really disappointed in you. This can be a full investigation and then I was accused of bring the garden to these reviews, attempted to a decrease IT member staff, yeah. And sound wasn't I know word than that .

came up because I thinking that you used the wrong work because they should be live al, because it's written.

I was just absolutely speechless that I didn't not to say I was devastated. And I just thought, what have I done? I just so shocked because I and I knew hadn't done anything wrong.

Okay, I was questioned a mail, but as only you do IT because they're been complaints about him. And I felt as seen my position as education of visco and iter. That was my job to do that because I had to make sure the people going on the trips were qualified, competent.

And I felt like you are being seen as a trouble maker.

as if the leaders of the school, we're retaliating against her for calling out .

their discrimination. I had a letter from the hydro manager to say that the investigator is gna start.

And I just I was just .

in a mess, was all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In a chicken with bang changes, but this could handle sales by moni ties and left.

Sue had quit the school, but her husband was still there. Friends, colleagues, students, people who cared about was still there. So we started contacting the authorities, impLoring them to look into the creeping estimates ation inside park view.

SHE wrote to offset the school inspectors. SHE wrote to burma ity council. SHE wrote these places anonymous ly, because he was scared Steve might lose a job if their colleagues a park, you find out what he was doing.

But as far as he and Steve could tell, the agencies didn't do anything. He made several cost offset. Steve also wrote the anonymous ly, still nothing months went by. And then came genre twenty fourteen. And the moment that sue accidentally helped at night, the trojan, a horse affair.

Unbeknown sue, the trojan horse, ta, which hadn't had gone public, was making the rounds in burkham and london, and was at the same time that too sent an email to the british humanists about park view and the halem and a sometime also wrote the humanists saying he wanted resurface his complaint about the six lesson from three years before more, more males with extreme religious views are being recruit through router humanists. The children are not allowed to choose how to live their lives. The humanist s move quickly that connections at the depart for education to assembled soon tom's allegations, and send them along. Within days, he was finally on the phone with the dealer education official, the deputy head of its counter extremism m division. This division was set up by the day in twenty ten, the year Michael go to control the department.

Remember what you talked about on that on the phone call?

I think I think they would just said clarifying, because obviously there was the sudan antiterrorism to have forced the railway. And I said immediately, tel is nothing to do with that. This is just about human rights, girls being, stop doing things.

But obviously, I think my concern, while you know when when children are set of marginalize and not feeling part of a community, I know that you know that can lead into the or the roads counted and nothing. That's what what they were. They were looking at.

ren and I said that .

they had got concerns. So now I felt to was taken seriously. The next day.

Michael golf people in london wrote server bars, people in birmingham to arrange a critical meeting on february twelve. The df d had the trojan horse sleep for months. At this point, IT was only after hearing from sue that they kicked into gear when ala bar and the burnham city council arrived at the february twelve meeting, everybody was talking about the rogan horse letter and sues complaints in the same breath as two pieces of evidence that appeared to be caborn the same threat.

The council told Michael gove that the rogen horseleigh was bogus according to the analysis of, and it's interesting, the minutes note that gove actually said in the meeting we should try to figure out who the author is but according to the minutes, at least nobody responded to that and they kept talking about the apparent troubles at park view until Michael gove sent council borrow away with an order to report back by the end of the week with a plan for how the council was gonna al, with that school. Just to say here, we did consider whether sue packer could have been behind the treasure course letter. SHE was writing a lot of letters, a number anonymous ly, about muslims and his burma schools. There's one letter of shoes, actually.

So what are you asking now? Is not my letter?

Yeah, did you write them? Which bears a curious resembLance to the cover sheet. The came with the trojan horse sleep, the tone, the sign off, some of the language that .

wouldn't been got Steve going. He was, no, I have to say this is quite interesting now.

So reassured us under husband.

I just, anna, make IT clear that i'm not at the author, the trojan hose letter because I feel as if that is the way this .

is possible going. No, actually we don't think you the trode horse letter, not least because in all of sues writings that we've read, we've never seen her mention elderly primary school or the resignation case there. SHE says SHE doesn't even know anyone at that school.

Atterly is the school the treasure horse author r is most focused on and knowledgeable about were a sue in her letter is concerned primarily with park view and so we're left to marvel at the I don't even know what to call IT unhappy confluence supernatural forces. Tragic coincidence that LED two letters from completely different people, both about park view school to land on. Michael goes desk within weeks of each other containing the same types of claims, and ni mean the same individual to hear alarm as a ringleader.

sue said. When SHE Steve first heard about the George horser, they were glad for you, another source blowing the whistle, le part of you, they forget I could only help back them up. But then they watched these journalists and politicians to the issues they raised and conflicted them with this wild allegation of estimated conspiracy spreading through the schools and frustrated them.

So over the next several months, the human is start arranging interviews for sue, they say, to try to refocus tension onto what he saw as a real issues in his equality for girls and women and the improper inclusion of religion in schools. Park view academy at the center of this rail since IT began, three former park view teachers took their concerns to the british humanist association. Former member of its staff spoke anonymously to a former member of staff.

Their claims included, it's not like soon Steve, tom were the only ones raising concerns about park view and other reason of schools. They, along with the torch horse seta where the trigger. But once the story became public, all sorts of people who been involved in scores in burma n start bring issues to authorities and reporters.

But the pack of family's concerns are emblem matic of the kinds of complaints others were making. And soon Steve stayed active in affair for years, playing an influential role in the authority's response. They CoOperate with official inquiries. They spoke to pay the clock team to offset the school inspectors to the member of parliament representing adam rock, who suit with. They traveled london to tell their story to parliamentary humanist group and what one lord called stunning testimony. And finally, when the government started bring a disciplinary cases against park, few teachers, soon, Steve took the stand, along with some others to testify against their former college, their essential to the government's case, providing some of the most important to first time testimony.

So this is how britain ended up with multiple investigations into the rogen horse sleut that we aren't really about. The trojan horse sleep, the pa. Kerr and the trojan horse select fused into an indomitable dl.

crossbreed. The rogen horse select made sensational claims about a sweeping islamic plot, a jahr. And now here, all these specific complaints from the packets and others like them, which read like evidence that something larger and diaoyu be a foot.

People took the trojan horse monitor the code name of that supposed Operation from the letter, and grafted that onto the packet. Er's concerns, which made allegations that might have otherwise been dealt with as employment issues or matters of school management seem like a national security threat. Now the trojan horse letter had already been found to be fiction, but what about the packing ers? Had they ve been writing .

any fiction of their .

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That's T H U M A 到 C O。 In the beginning, I was friendly. As soon ince's cottage, they were excited to talk to us about their experience. In fact, right after we walked in, we learned that Steve had recently finish writing a book about IT self published on amazon, which he had lying out for us, a Green paper back titled mune ize at daybreak, with silly ets of a chicken and a rooster and a rabbit on the cover.

This is my telling of the story of what happened to at school, written as a, as an animal farm type story, really. yeah. The book's .

protagonist, imes, are two chickens, scarlets and coker, clearly. So, and Steve, who, with the help of the hairs, the humans fighting a lead group of goats, muslim men who are controlling the sheep, muslim women, while scheming to Operate the farm to code the blurb according to their own docker, in by manipulating the other animals and glooming the Youngsters.

I mean, would obviously going to .

get you to sign a copy for us. I'll give you. okay.

So is this fiction is a non fiction, that of, how would you describe .

IT as a difficult one? It's fiction, but IT tells the story.

Before we met .

with soon Steve, we'd not only read their testimony in the disciplinary hearing against part few teachers, but also a bunch of other stuff from the involved with the trojan horse affair, emails that written letters, transcripts of interviews.

And we've noticed in the way they spoke and wrote about part view that they are worries about what was going on at the school seem to be shot through with this kind of discomfort, about the way that certain teachers and governors were expressing their muslim ness. And we wanted to interrogate how much that was coLoring, what they saw happening around them and the way they represented IT to authorities. As we questioned soon, and Steve, we fell into a precarious pattern. We push them on the particular of their account, like a Steve suggestion that there was something shifty about the fact that he saw muslim men, members of staff, spending a lot of time in the head teacher mos, who sees office.

What's threatening about a men speaking to each other? And why does IT Carry this sinister kind of attitude that he's people filing into mother room and speaking in their own men? There must be something dodgy going on. Okay.

okay, you point there be home .

and long pauses and lots of circling around to. And Steve would say they weren't sure they wanted to continue the interview. Then we'd pull back, talk about something easier.

They'd propose a beverage.

can a capture. We'd say, yes, please, then we'd never get the cup of tea because things we get uncomfortable again. I went on like this for seven hours.

There are something you can't describe in solid facts. And we talk about the atmosphere in a place when we talk about the you know how oppressive IT was. There is not nearly anything changeable about that. I thought I thought we an opponent to put outside across there's a microphone .

under your chin and you're talking into IT. Is that not putting your side .

across IT is yeah somewhat soon.

Steve told us was CoOperate about the staff and students at park view. Like the success glass, for instance, pretty much everyone agrees something happened, and all remember that the scored did hold assembly for the boys in that great to tell them that sexual consent is rape.

That incident is perhaps more disturbing than soon as Steve could even have known, though, is the march of twenty twenty one, after our interview would soon deep, and years after part of few days to exist, that same teacher who will been teaching in the sexy plus of park view was convicted of sexual activity with a child from another school. You've gone on to work out, if convinced, a fifteen year old girl that he was his coal and coal wife, he was sent to three years and three years in jail. We asked leadership of park view and others, teachers and students, whether an allegation of this kind surfaced to buy this teacher back when he who was working apart of you, and they all told us know, but he does seem from talking to people.

The while the school took the sex and incident seriously ough to hold a special assembly. They did not do a former investigation into this teacher and his conduct in the class. What seems like a horrible red flight mist.

The park has wanted us to know that what they're done in the trojan horse affair this year, as long effort that and walked upon was largely to protect this group of people they believe we are suffering muslim girls and women. And the disciplinary hearing transcript, who testifies forcefully on their behalf to hear. So ti SHE sacrificed her career defending a muslim woman.

That's how committed he was to their well being. But let's consider that incident with suicides as the impose of a time a part of you come to an end. SHE justified about IT under oath at the disciplinary hearing.

The incident on the bus where a muslim woman colleague, amena, was spoken to briscoe by a teacher, a man, sue, told us this interaction was indicative the wider issues at the school where sexism was going unchecked and women and girls weren't being respected. And SHE says, that's how, I mean, I saw you too, that the atmosphere at the school had changed. She'd been a student there over.

I mean, as other specific thing, he told you that he says, issues at the school.

just this set of pressure to behave in a certain way, you know, not to be individuals, individual. He said, yes, yes. He, he was very much in individual .

beautiful. Why did I mean .

a then watch .

you go through this investigation without commentary. Defensive SHE just went quiet at that point. He climbed up like, what happened.

Well, I mean, no, no one would speak out.

Did you go to work and ask for, say, I can you, can you back me up here? I I was speaking .

on your behalf IT. Knowing what what happens to me. I didn't want to possible room in her future.

I mean, just at the time, even when mars said after visiting sun, Steve, I gotten touch with a meana to ask. This was how he remembered things. SHE didn't want to do an interview, but SHE wrote back pretty heated.

This was a routine outing where a colleague was a little short, he wrote, if this isn't IT was a serious issue fantasy, I would naturally have raised a formal complaint and ensured there was a reported outcome. This was a professional school with all the Normal accountabilities in procedures. I am perfectly capable to raising the issue if that was my intention.

Remarkably, in all the years su has been talking about amena and this bus aftermath, a mean, I told me no one, not the british humans, not any official investigator looking into sues allegations, not a single lawyer from the legal teams litigating the trojan horse cases has ever contacted her to ask if what he was saying about was accurate. I mean, I had no idea til I reached out to her that soon spent years pointing to this incident as an example of endemic sexism, a part of school. I mean, he said he never personally experience sexism there, or at any colleagues told her they did either. Honestly, I got the sense from a miner's response that he was a bit annoying yed with me for taking shoes account seriously enough to get a whole email asking her about IT.

Quote.

the account stipulated by sue comes across as nonsensically. In summary, SHE is implying SHE has lost her job as a result of taking IT upon herself to represent the collective rights of all women suffering such strife at the hands of male prosecutors in a world war like setting and has been murdered by the oppressive regime for absolutely no reasons of our own. If anyone believes such prepuce ent notions, they are clearly cut .

from the same cloth by no means. Was park view school devoid of sexism or patriotic? In women we spoken to from park, we have been clear there were problems, just maybe not the way sue has been portraying game.

I think what so done is soon taken the most sensational. Uh.

this is a zine car who joined park view as his acting head of english a year and a half before the trojan horse five.

you know, SHE press team has been shouted down by this men, or, you know, the girl in the are not given the opportunities you've gone from something which is the word of oppression.

a park who had been made by woman head teacher for a bad decade. But when, as rain was there, I was all men at the top, and as rain saw how that influence of schoolmates ture, a terminal st. That he felt disadvantaged, the women SHE found out some of colleagues were in all mail, what's side group, for instance, all the part of your brotherhood, which eventually shut down.

And as rain's main complaint was, a party leadership had a blind spot when he came to elevating women into senior posts. Of course, this wasn't just true. A park you is true in secondary schools across the U.

K. It's not a uniquely muslim problem. But as rain says at park of you, a certain infections, stuffers was seeing .

things through that lens. Don't include women. We don't have discussions with women as that the women are second close citizen, thanks to because that perception island, the muslim. You know.

man who told us he wasn't part of a group of any kind. But as we are others from park, you have describe this contingent as a sort of click and said he included too, and a handful of the staff members, most of women and few the most in women, to give a sense of their energy as rain, referred to one of the more vocal participants as P. P. Poison planter, that raw each other rub.

that would coming to the office and openly disgusting. They would sit on the table and they would open the this more, this more more than coming in this more than this. Did you know they have this? What sup group? Or look, he just got promoted.

And did you happen to? 是。 And IT was very dreaming as rain believes .

her coworkers were reading too much into things. The tennis issue, for instance, when the girls were brought back from the lesson because instructor was meal to rain.

now of teeth left and least girls alive, emails. And males are a mails. So I just in every school, but to them is a big, massive thing. I remember you had a pick is to the day.

And IT wasn't just students at park view. This poison group was concerned about one of nation's colleagues in the english department. A teacher named sadik ab married another muslim park view teacher. He was later suspended because of the church, an horse scandal when sa dca showed up after summer break, newly wearing a her job. Nazarian says assumption started flying .

because they suppressed in her. He's impressing her. As both said, where is go? The brain .

washed her. Was that word used?

Brain washed. Next brain washed. Interestingly, most a member staff forced her to do IT.

I was just finding .

that I was so comfortable in this school. I always wanted to embark on wearing the he. Jb, here is the degree, and I just taught myself, you know what I mean, such a work environment that just made me feel like I was welcome to be who I want to be. So to be in the place where IT was okay, to not have .

to quietly hide.

I was like.

i'm just trying to have my own journey, more a bubble, only a place. And you're telling me I was forced, if anything, I was feeling nervous about putting scarf on because of those opinions, because of the likes of sue. So says she's never had a problem with women choose in to wear a head scarf.

SHE told us he knows there are a variety of views among muslim women and SHE respects that SHE instead sued us that they were reflecting abuse of many muslim women at park view. But one thing we'd noticed reading through the records from the disciplinary hearing against party w's leadership were soon and steep testified not a single muslim woman from park new school came to testify alongside them to give evidence against the school's leadership. The muslim woman who did appear from part of you spoke in support of the school. We ask you about this, why are there no muslim women from park view who kind of testify saying we were discriminated against? We were pressed.

Do you know why? I think it's just because the women aren't very good at speaking out. I shouldn't over. Women are sorry, a lot of women props on confident to speak out in that community, especially female muslims. I think they're just a fear about speaking out.

The packagers wouldn't put us in touch with any of the colleagues. They say they were testifying on behalf of, they told these these people didn't want their names passed along to us. hums.

And I have heard criticisms of park view from some women who attended to students. One said, even though prayer wasn't Mandatory, SHE felt there was a social pressure from some staff to take part and that the atmosphere could be strict. SHE said SHE could not wait to go to college.

Other students told us they really appreciated having period school and the other religious elements, but they did remember one or two moments from their time there that bothered them in retrospect CT. Like when a male teacher told the girl that her skirt, which was fine for the dress code, should be longer, they agreed these were things that should have been addressed. But nearly all the women we talk to, staff and students, were uncomfortable with sue being their emissary.

As one students put IT after we read some of sues letters and writings about the school, that's a White person's view of islam. And they told us they were offended by the suggestion that they couldn't speak for themselves. Do you think it's possible that you've missed read some of the things that .

we're happening at park view or the way women felt there is not IT was really hard because you you didn't know we not prejudice you know at all. I mean, we know my closest friend is a fema muslim girl, and i've got lots of friends. We both have, you know, you just afraid that you be made out your racist, that you don't understand the cultures. And I feel that we do understand the cultures, but he was just about, you know, this group of men forcing one set of form of islam on a whole community.

Can ask you about your offset complaint at one point at soon. And Steve, I pulled out a copy of the letter to sent to off stead and birmingham council about part few school in the summer of twenty thirteen. I just want to confirm that this is what this is.

Can you for do you recognize that? Yeah, and this was sent anonymously. Yeah, okay. In a story littered with letters, this one stands out. Sue wrote to off stead while he was in the thick of her dispute with park view leadership over what had happened to a mina on the bus, which LED issues resignation he wrote this months before he went to the british humans and then to the department for education, and then all the other officials and journalists and investigators SHE spoke to. And this letter is pretty raw.

I see this kind of a caso de of sues mindset during this time, before lawyers and officials had an opportunity to maybe sand down the edges of her account. So in this letter to off stead, so you say that children said in a class that homosexual should be thrown off a Cliff or burnt alive, and that the teacher who is head of that year agreed and said, that's what we believe. It's what we believe yeah, you said the entire staff was told not to compliment girls in the school and you said.

you said that Young girls from park.

we are being taken a way to get married and that stuff are not stopping IT in this letter to stead yeah.

and then you .

say that there's a surreal council promoting surreal law on alam rock. I never saw sub bringing up these specific allegations again. The ones I listed to her also interesting. I never saw use the word sharia again either. You don't make these allegations again. Why only here in this anonymous letter, it's true that children said in a class that homosexual should be thrown off a Cliff or Better alive and a teacher agreed. You never, never mentioned again when you're because stand during giving evidence.

because I wasn't witness to that, but I know what the people were.

So the reason is because I was here say, is that why?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of things are here. I aren't they but the the concerns that I sent to offstage were legitimate truth for concerns. But you didn't .

want to stand by IT swarm witness statement. Sounds like.

is that what i'm gathering?

I tried to, and that's okay. And I just want to understand why if there were these serious things, there are an anonymous letter, but not inform with a statement.

Think with the witness side of IT. I'd trying to stick to facts with the things that I had actually as much as possible. And I witness myself.

okay, so that's a difference here. How can you just can do that here when I always stick effect?

Because I was trying to raise an alarm here.

as I will use the word to rea.

possibly, but IT, but is true rosha councils in the area.

you say, I feel what is happening there at the school now can only be like into shreelane. This we tell off.

This was an animal letter that I did after having the allegations made against me. I said he wasn't being treated properly. I wasn't being treated fairly. And obviously, I was just doing some research in the shari a law.

One last part of south letter that's worth mentioning in the middle of our four pages, anonymous ly written. There are a couple of paragraph s about and i'm getting dja vu. As I say, this unemployment dispute sugars on a time about the acting vice principle and how he had applied for a job.

But the school said they, we're going to give IT to him. He writes. It's because he's not muslim.

Quote, the leadership team promoted themselves into their new roles, and they have created jobs for male muslims. Acting vice principal who got passed over. That was Steve. Those who doesn't say in the letter that she's any relation to him.

SHE told us again that he wanted to end the interview, and this time he was for real that had mean dog for hours.

Goods.

good.

Thank you. Quest, ah.

thank you much. ran. I shelled out the college and jumped in the car on IT. I told him as I lined up the crooked driver in my review mirror. I may have run over some bushes.

What struck me by soon, Steve, was how this mod minded couple, with their anonymous letters and golfed LED animal book, had been taken so seriously by gal agencies. The media, the public was IT because they they pack their concerns as mula m issues and now fit a world view that so many hold the most lives are like this, that we're sneaky, controlling the main mugen isc, the women meet.

The next morning we went to see the person who played large pot. And given the pack, is credibility. Richard thomson of the british humanist, the secular loving group that was instrumental in empire.

Soon, Steve, that, since rebranded as humanist, U. K. As my brother lived to, these british humanists have a reputation among some of being islam phobic. The human is tonight is strongly. And I said, theyve worked with lots of mums and exam, but that's not what brand now were there to discuss with them.

That day we went to see Richard to find out why he and his follow humanists believe the packers and what they're done to verify the packets claims before endorsing ing them. But in the midst, back in fourth, rich would utter five words that was so careless, so enraging, that whatever so called journalists sibling ties I was meant to uphold came tumbling right down. Start of friend enough. Brian went through his standard first fifteen minutes interview. But B.

A, H, I, somehow.

in which you got into the contradiction of god in the new paradox.

ao, powerful. Then he would be .

able to move the object, therefore he can't crea lot patients the time they bean of opposed on the war. Where are smaller? Make friends where a scale, and make wrinkles.

What do we live for, if not to make the world less difficult for each other course? One thing interesting to see, how did the pretty man we asked, what, if any, fact checking riggi and his colleagues date of soon? Steve claims about a park view, and his answer was unsurprising.

At the time, we did not go to any h effort to verify the allegations beyond talking to them and saying whether or not we felt in broad terms that they were credible. How do you make assessment? Broad terms even?

How do you make an assessment? Talk to someone without seeing any evidence? How do you get the confidence? Yeah well, it's difficult. And of course, we can't be fully confidence. We just have to work out whether or not just from a bw conversation if they seem sere and they did and and he said he wasn't .

touch with two or three other people from park, few who shared similar concerns as the packet ers who alleged there been instances of gender discrimination and homophobia at the school. And he said as time when on, he felt the allegations were caborn by other reporting, but he also told us the humanist didn't have an obligation to verify or investigate to and Steve, because as far as he was concerned, his organization was just a messenger shuttling the packet er's issues over to the people in charge.

do you think dangerous for allegations out there, specific on the internet, checked on chAllenge on court, do you think is a dangerous thing to do? nature. The allegations that was.

well harms that was questioning Richie about a bunch of claims against park view that the humans published on their website without checking them or contacting the school first, the Richie e set him off.

I would also say as well, we've regard to your reference defect news that this, of course, was five years ago when the problems that we have seen since with that news, things don't happen overnight. It's the climate is created three years and years of this kind of stuff, these kind of stories.

There's a sentiment that has now taken hold and taken over and is informing everyone's political choices and everything else in the world because of events like this. The children horse was, i'm sure you accept as far as britain, concern had a huge impact. What impact did you have? What impact did you have?

Five words. Richie had been a booster of the trojan horse fair for years. He will bring IT into being. He'd promotion ted IT through the holes of power and into the national consciousness. He held a fundraising drive off the back of IT with sue, but he was asking hamza to catch him up on what impact the Christian hse had.

IT changed our uh, educational policy IT changed our account terrorism policy, right? IT gave lifetime bands to educationist in ese birmingham. A destroyed part of you trust that was doing things that where people aren't europe coming doing IT to learn from IT had a swarm of headlines.

This was referenced in the tory party conferences. John saying, like this is not a little thing. Yes, this wasn't a little thing.

yeah. IT continues to inform debate and dialogue about muslims in this country. yes. Um so okay, so you asked what in tasted impact IT hard. So I don't know well, I don't know that it's it's quite I think obviously I I don't know what to save for that impact. Clearly, all the impact and everything else that went around IT was not .

on us and husson Ritchie kept at IT things. We're getting tense humanist. We're looking at us through the glass fall.

I got why hums was pissed, but he was no longer doing what i'm used to doing in interviews. He was always be asking Richard for his take on events, not showing his own take at riche. I don't think he was getting this anywhere. You seem quite angry, rich, he said to hamza r.

because I I feel like there's things being talked about and the consequence of this are not quite registering with the people who responsible for IT. That's why i'm angry.

I you two final questions. First, Richard asked times, do you think we were right to pass on the allegations to the department for education? And yes, hans had told him, but he wish the human has had made clear. We haven't looked into any of this ourselves.

yeah. So I think a bit of caution on your pa may have helped. What's the second question?

The second question is, do you go by the time the humanist really started amplifying sue by sending out for press interviews in April twenty fourteen, the trojan horse sephar was already a nice story, nothing we could have done at that point. We made any difference anyway.

Richard says, rich, start by April investigating your own sources and if you found sup to b and unrest with resource, that's what you could be done by April before he gets in front two o'clock before the someone's going a lifetime band. That's something you could done by April to change the entire spectrum of this conversation. So there was still something left you to do in April if you're done your job. No comment.

Which you turn from us stricken and walked out of the room. I packed up her stuff and headed out the building to get us a cab. And so harms, I go look for riche to shake his hand. You invited for a drink.

I want to because Young leg, Young leg, have, quite Frankly, answer of the things that are beyond him. And I appreciate that you tried get up .

yelling at people. I think you can say exactly what you're saying and I yellow them that's IT turns off.

I don't give a fuck me that doesn't what turn him off. That's what gets into fine. You just stop fucking around is a fuck.

You, you, you ask me, what did the Roger horse due? Fuck this meat. Fuck this meat is about .

as accurate or reflection as you could come up with of where harms a was by this point two years into our investigation. And i'm not just talking about with the trigger hall story, i'm talking about where homes was that with journalism.

This whole thing is just I just makes me lose my mind sometimes me and you asking me to stop streaming.

And this wasn't the first time he and I had had to disagree, ect, about how to do this work. Next, on the trojan horse affair, cucumbers and coker bombs.

The trojan horse affair is produced by hum aside and me, along with rebeca lacks. The show is edited by syra ic, additional editing by irag lass and by a contributing editor, asian osdene fact checking in research by mark chronic and benn fAilin original score by Thomas meller, with additional music by maggi I, Stephen Jackson, sound design mixing and music supervision by Stephen Jackson, and filled down a hot ski at the audio non visual company. July snyder is our executive editor, kneel drummer is managing editor, supervising producer is a day tube o executive assistant is Alberto daily, on same dome is an assistant managing .

editor of the new york times. I said, said he say, IT and SHE inside soshi are him a beach and some doy a false draw audio was licensed by low ecp's I, T, V, archive.

The trojan horse affair is made by serial productions and the new york times. What is the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a Christal ball? Until then, over forty thousand business business have future proof. Their business o one cloud erp, bringing count inventory hr into one fluid platform with real time insights in forecasting very will appear into the future and seize new opportunities. Dollar, the cfs guide to A I in machine learning for free at nesvitski flash N T com flash N.