BIRMINGHAM: A headteacher has allegedly accused that four of her staff were part of a conspiracy to convert a Birmingham school to one “run on strict Muslim principles” as part of the alleged Trojan Horse plot, a local newspaper has reported.
Hilary Owens, Rehena Khanom, Yasmin Akhtar, and Shahnaz Bibi, four teaching assistants - are currently alleging unfair dismissal from Adderley Primary School in Saltley.
The school has reportedly claimed that the four former employees handed in their letters of resignation in December 2012. However, the teaching assistants have alleged that the letters were forgeries.
Allegedly the head teacher Rizvana Darr has insisted the teaching assistants penned the resignation letters themselves and had planned to lie about them being forgeries in a move that they hoped would lead to the head’s dismissal.
In her witness statement that forms part of the employment tribunal’s evidence, Mrs Darr has alleged that Ms Owens was used “as an English face” as set out in the Trojan Horse plot to “add credibility and detract from the assumption that the Muslim community is behind things.”
The Birmingham Mail reported a letter, supposedly written by one conspirator to another, was leaked last year detailing Operation Trojan Horse - an alleged plot to take over governing bodies, oust headteachers and Islamise the curriculum.
Adderley Primary and teaching assistant Ms Owens were both mentioned in the letter.
Mrs Darr allegedly said that she believed the plan would have seen the school being taken over by the former Park View Educational Trust (PVET) - which ran three of the five Birmingham schools placed in special measures in April last year following the allegations detailed in the Trojan Horse letter.
She further alleged a template was being used by parents to send letters of complaint about the school to MPs and Birmingham City Council.
In her witness statement presented to the tribunal, which she signed last month, Mrs Darr has referred to the report penned by former anti-terror chief Peter Clarke who was appointed by the government to investigate Trojan Horse.
Mr Clarke concluded there had been a “co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action carried out by a number of associated individuals to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamic ethos into a few schools in Birmingham”.
It is widely thought that the anonymous Trojan Horse letter was not genuinely penned by plot conspirators and was a hoax.
Several investigations were sparked thereafter. Peter Clarke said in his report he had not looked in detail at claims about Adderley as, by then, the police had arrested the four teaching assistants over their resignation letters.
The women were never charged. They all vehemently deny any association with Trojan Horse.
Inspectors found there was no issue with pupil safeguarding at Adderley but leadership and management “required improvement”.
In January 2012 the school had been rated as ‘good’ overall with ‘outstanding’ leadership and management. In December last year, Ofsted said the school was taking “effective action” to tackle areas that require improvement. MPs who formed the committee said they found only one incident of extremism and there was no evidence of a plot to take over the city’s schools.
