Mick Hartley

This is good news:

One of the country’s best-known state schools has won a High Court challenge over a ban on “prayer rituals” brought by one of its students in a victory for Britain’s “strictest headmistress”.

A pupil, who cannot be named, took legal action against Michaela Community School in Brent, northwest London, claiming that the policy was discriminatory and “uniquely” affected her faith due to its ritualised nature.

The pupil alleged that the school’s stance on prayer, one of the five pillars of Islam, was “the kind of discrimination which makes religious minorities feel alienated from society”, a judge was told.

The case against the free school was heard at the High Court in London in January.

In an 83-page judgment dismissing the student’s case on Tuesday, Mr Justice Linden said: “It seems to me that this is a case … where the claimant at the very least impliedly accepted, when she enrolled at the school, that she would be subject to restrictions on her ability to manifest her religion.

“She knew that the school is secular and her own evidence is that her mother wished her to go there because it was known to be strict.

“She herself says that, long before the prayer ritual policy was introduced, she and her friends believed that prayer was not permitted at school and she therefore made up for missed prayers when she got home.”…

Katharine Birbalsingh, headmistress and founder of Michaela, said that the family that brought the court case had decided to send their younger child to the school in September but was already threatening to sue over another matter.

She questioned whether it was right that the student had received £150,000 in legal aid to bring the case.

“The judge is clear that the child’s statements were not written by her alone. Indeed this mum intends to send her second child to Michaela, starting in September. At the same time, this mum has sent a letter to our lawyers suggesting that she may take us to court yet again over another issue at the school she doesn’t like, presumably once again at the taxpayer’s expense….

“Last year, we watched our Muslim pupils put under pressure by a tiny number of others to fast, to pray, to drop out of the choir, to wear a hijab.

“I watched one of my black teachers racially abused and intimidated, another teacher who had her personal home nearly broken into, and another with a brick thrown through her window. I have a duty of care to protect all of our pupils but also to my staff.

“There is a false narrative that some try to paint about Muslims being an oppressed minority at our school. They are, in fact, the largest group. Those who are most at risk are other minorities and Muslim children who are less observant.”

You have to wonder what group was behind this – another clearly orchestrated attempt to impose Islamic standards on a secular institution, and funded by the taxpayer.