How did teacher jailed over school terror plot get 2 council houses?
MPs yesterday demanded an inquiry into how a man jailed over a terror plot was handed two council flats.
Muhammad Abid, 27, covered up for an Islamic State supporter who was trying to train a ‘minimilitia’ of child jihadists.
Abid, a mosque teacher, was sentenced to four years and three months on Tuesday for failing to alert police to the murderous plans of his friend Umar Haque.
Haque, 25, was trying to brainwash children to launch 40 simultaneous atrocities.
He and Abid worked at a mosque in east London where Haque groomed 110 pupils as young as 11. He showed them footage of beheadings and made them carry out war games.
MPs reacted with astonishment yesterday after it emerged that Abid had boasted at his Old Bailey trial that he took legal action to get two taxpayer-funded flats – one for himself and one for his wife, Juwayriyah Noor. He argued she needed the second property – a 20-minute drive away from his own – to maintain ‘her independence’.
Abid pocketed even more public money by claiming benefits as her carer, saying she had depression. He told the Old Bailey: ‘We are not legally obliged to live together.’
But Newham council did not know they were a couple because the housing claims were submitted under separate names.
During his trial Abid said he had instructed a solicitor to help secure him council accommodation in 2012 after being kicked out of a homeless shelter. He was given a one-bedroom council flat in a tower block in Manor Park, east London, a year after he married in 2012, but he later moved to a homeless hostel. The couple went on to have three children, but Abid told the court they did not live together for ‘many reasons’, explaining: ‘She wanted to maintain her independence from myself and, number two, because of her health conditions.’
He said his wife suffered stress and post-natal depression, and they instructed a solicitor again to get a second property in 2013, when Abid became her registered carer.
Abid said council officials ‘lied and said you are not both entitled to housing, but my wife was – she continued and eventually got temporary accommodation’.
He added: ‘She wanted to maintain her independence and didn’t want to give that up, and I was living in a hostel. We explained the circumstances. We are not legally obliged to live together.’
During his trial, it emerged that Abid, who has a conviction for assault and had no teaching qualifications, was allowed to instruct children on a temporary basis at the Ripple Road mosque in Barking.
He left there to set up his own school at a Sri Lankan community centre teaching children from the age of four.
He had a lucrative sideline operating as an ‘alternative therapist’ offering psychotherapy and ‘cupping’ which involves cutting the skin to draw out toxins. Again he had no formal qualifications.
He secured certification from the Hijama and Prophetic Medicine Institute and took out public liability insurance to support his ambition of teaching the alternative therapies in schools.
MPs yesterday called for a probe into the housing scandal.
Former Tory Cabinet minister Priti Patel told the Sun: ‘The abuse of the housing register and benefits sys-
‘Should have been more vigilant’
tem is scandalous and questions must be asked as to how he cheated it. At a time when there is a shortage of housing Newham should have been more vigilant and carried out more checks.’ Fellow Tory MP David Davies said: ‘ It’s an absolute disgrace. It needs to be properly investigated.’ A Newham council spokesman said: ‘ No individual received two council properties. Two people presented themselves to the council housing service separately claiming to be in housing need in 2013. They were not dealt with by our housing service as a couple.
‘ The council carried out all reasonable checks to ensure the individuals who presented themselves to us were who they said they were, and were each provided with the appropriate one- bedroom accommodation based on that information. The council is currently undertaking a review of the information that has come to light since the trial.’
Haque was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years for terror offences. An accomplice was handed a 12- year sentence.