Trojan Horse affair: remaining disciplinary proceedings dropped

The government has given up its two-year-long attempt to ban teachers caught up in the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham, after those in the remaining cases were told disciplinary action against them has been halted.

Fifteen teachers and senior staff were accused of attempting to apply undue religious influence within a small group of schools in Birmingham after an anonymous letter made lurid accusations of an Islamist conspiracy to take over state schools.

But now letters from the National Council of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) – an arm of the Department for Education – to lawyers for the remaining teachers involved have been told that proceedings have been discontinued.

In response, a DfE spokesperson said: “Following the decision of the independent panel, we will no longer be pursuing these outstanding cases.”

The decision means that only one teacher out of the 15 who faced proceedings by the government has received a classroom ban, while the other 14 have had their cases dismissed, overturned or dropped.

The DfE’s legal fees are thought to cost several hundreds of thousands of pounds since the actions were started in 2015, according to lawyers who have taken part in the proceedings.

The original letter alleging the conspiracy and its publicity – now regarded as a forgery or a hoax – provoked a series of investigations by the government and Birmingham city council in 2014, and culminated in five schools having their management replaced. But the reports found little evidence to support fears of a city-wide conspiracy.

Lawyers for Inam Anwar and Akeel Ahmed – who had their bans after NCTL hearings overturned by the high court – were officially told last week that no further proceedings would be taken the two teachers.

The NCTL’s website still lists hearings against Saqib Malik, Shakeel Aktar and Muhammad Umar Khan – which it began in October 2015 – and Mazhar Hussain, but those cases have also been dropped, according to lawyers familiar with the proceedings.

The proceedings centred around staff at the Park View academy group, which included Golden Hillock secondary, renamed Ark Boulton academy, and Nansen primary schools, as well as staff at Oldknow academy, a primary school.

In May the DfE’s highest-profile effort in the affair, a case against five former headteachers and senior teachers at the Park View group, collapsed. The NCTL panel hearing the case accused the government’s lawyers of abuse of justice.

The five were told last month that no further action would be taken against them.

Andrew Faux, a lawyer who defended several of the teachers before the NCTL, said: “The striking thing about the Park View cases was just how crude the prosecution was. It was left to the defence team to introduce basic documents setting out the law and guidance on collective worship and other educational matters.

“Witness after witness called on behalf of the department confirmed that they were not aware of the guidance and it had not informed their approach to the central question: were the schools too religious?”

Despite initial claims that as many as 100 teachers or teaching assistants could be barred as a result of the Trojan Horse furore, only 15 faced disciplinary charges in the hearings that began in 2015.

The government’s sole success was against Jahangir Akbar, the former acting head of Oldknow school in Small Heath, who received a five-year ban. But the ruling in Akbar’s hearing also cleared him of promoting religious extremism and several other allegations, including accusations of segregating pupils by gender.

Asif Khan, another teacher at Oldknow whose case was heard alongside Akbar, was found to have no case to answer.