Children at a Birmingham school that was at the centre of Britain’s “trojan horse” scandal were shown a jihadist propaganda video in the classroom.
The Telegraph reports that Ian Kershaw, who conducted an investigation for Birmingham City Council into the alleged takeover of state schools by hard line Islamists, said the film included images of “violent extremism” and had already been branded “completely unacceptable” but was shown anyway.
He added that the management of the school – which he has not named – then failed to discipline the teacher who showed the video.
Giving evidence to a panel of MPs yesterday, Mr Kershaw agreed that it was a “jihadist, violent extremist promotional video,” adding that it was: “shown in one classroom at one moment and that should have been stopped and should not have happened.”
Also speaking yesterday was Peter Clarke, the former anti-terror chief who conducted another report into Birmingham schools, who said that a similar film may also have been “shown or copied” by a technician in one school.
Mr Clarke said: “There were some suggestions that that sort of film had been shown or copied by a technician within one of the schools, but I did not come across direct evidence of the promotion of violent extremism.”
Kershaw and Clarke were commissioned to write their reports following a series of revelations over attempts by Islamist fundamentalists to take control of nominally secular schools in the city of Birmingham.
Clarke warned that the problem may have spread, saying he was “not a great believer in coincidence and I would find it very surprising if this was only happening in the few schools that we had the time and the opportunity to look at in East Birmingham”.
He added that some of the suspects have held national roles in some educational bodies, making it easier for them to spread their ideas to other cities:
“Some of the people who were involved in promulgating these techniques of gaining control and influence in schools have had national roles in various educational bodies and I know have lectured and taken part in conferences in other cities, so I think it is incumbent on the Department for Education and others to take a very careful look at whether the sorts of things that we found in Birmingham are indeed happening elsewhere.
“I don’t know, I haven’t looked, but I would I suppose in a way be surprised if there weren’t at least some symptoms elsewhere.”