GB News presenter Martin Daubney has furiously defended the former Batley Grammar School teacher who was forced into hiding in 2021, as the school has responded to a Government report on extremism in the UK.
Dame Sara Khan, who wrote the report, claimed the incident has “not just impacted him, it’s impacted his family and his children”.
Khan told GB News on Tuesday: “As I write in the report, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of what happened to him at the time of the incident, which is exactly three years ago today.”
Warning that rising hate crime could “erode our freedoms”, Khan said the Batley school incident was “totally and utterly unacceptable”.
Martin Daubney has defended the Batley teacher following the school’s response to the report
GB News
In a letter obtained by GB News, Batley Grammar School’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Vickers and Headteacher John Hughes responded to the report, saying they were “disappointed” by Khan’s findings.
The letter, sent to all parents of pupils at the school, stated: “This disappointment is because we do not recognise so much of what is in it, because we do not recognise the description of what’s happened, and because we do not recognise the characterisation of the school and our community.”
Close friend and campaigner for the former teacher, Paul Halloran, has previously claimed that he was “thrown under the bus”, was “failed” by the school, and was given no form of compensation from the school or the Government.
Halloran has also set up a GoFundMe page, which with the help of GB News viewers has raised almost £100,000.
Batley Grammar School have said they are ‘disappointed’ with the findings of Dame Sara Khan’s report
GB News
Martin Daubney has revealed he is “incredibly emotional” to see the growing support for the teacher and has called for “justice” to be served.
Martin noted that the school’s claims that they “supported” the teacher, who remains in hiding three years on, is a “complete contradiction” to Halloran’s recollection of events, which was directly given to him by the affected teacher.
In criticism of the school, Martin fumed: “This teacher who three years on cannot work, is still in fear of his life. And the school were among the people who abandoned that teacher, the Headteacher put him on instant dismissal and with no chance of him ever returning to that school.
“He had to leave the area living in fear, unable to work. We found out from Dame Sara Khan that he’s experiencing PTSD over what he went through, and still believes it’s too dangerous to walk the streets. Where’s the justice in that?”
Martin continued: “Where is the feeling that we protect those who serve us? This was a part of the pre-agreed curriculum. This was something that had been done before. Paul Halloran indeed told us that a co-teacher in that lesson was a Muslim teacher. It was specifically put in there, this visual stimulus, to prompt a conversation about extremism, about the use of religious literature, about cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
“It wasn’t done to provoke. It was done as a learning aid, with the full knowledge and approval of the school. And yet now they’re saying they don’t recognise this statement of accounts.”
Batley Grammar School saw crowds of protesters gather outside in the days following
PA
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Martin told Batley Grammar School: “This is one that we will not let go on. I think that teacher deserves compensation, justice and protection.”
In the letter, Vickers and Hughes also claimed: “The report authors contacted us before publication and sent us a draft of the report asking us for our comments, but we were very clear in our response to them that the draft contained a number of factual inaccuracies.
“Unfortunately, these mistakes have not been corrected, and we also said that we believed it would not be fair to identify some individuals. Again, this was not acted upon.
“You will recall that, in fact, the school supported all of our students, their families and our staff equally, including the teacher involved for whom we provided counselling and wider support. We delivered on our responsibilities and we followed due process.”
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