Trojan horse tribunal throws out case against five Birmingham teachers

The government’s attempt to ban five senior teachers for their involvement in the Trojan horse controversy has been thrown out after government lawyers were accused of an “abuse of justice” by a tribunal.

The hearings against the five teachers – all accused of allowing undue Islamist influence in the running of three Birmingham schools – were halted after a disciplinary panel discontinued the proceedings, citing a repeated failure to share crucial evidence against the teachers.

Lawyers acting for the Department for Education (DfE) against the teachers, including former heads of Park View secondary school, failed to disclose the transcripts of witnesses who spoke to the investigation into the Trojan horse affair conducted by Peter Clarke, a former Scotland Yard officer and counter-terrorism chief.
The panel hearing the case at the National College of Teaching and Leadership in Coventry concluded that “there has been an abuse of justice of such seriousness” that it had no option but to end the hearings.
The decision by the independent panel brings an end to a case that began in 2014; since October 2015 the tribunal has held more than 30 days of hearings featuring dozens of witnesses.
The tribunal’s decision will be embarrassing for the DfE and ministers who had vowed to ban those involved in the Trojan horse affair from teaching.
The teachers included Lindsey Clark, Monzoor Hussain and Hardeep Saini, all former principals of schools in the Park View Academy Trust. The trust was at the centre of allegations of a plot involving an Islamist “takeover” of several state schools in east Birmingham.
The other two teachers were Arshad Hussain and Razwan Faraz, who held senior teaching positions at the trust.
More details soon …