Witness fears block release of ‘Trojan Horse’ judgment

♦ A tribunal has refused to publish its judgment on a former chairman of governors at a Birmingham school which was embroiled in an alleged “Trojan Horse” Muslim takeover plot amid fears for the witnesses.

Tahir Alam was chairman of governors at Park View School in Alum Rock, Birmingham, from 1997 until 2014, and chairman of a trust set up to manage the school.

He was issued with a ban by the Department for Education (DFE) in Sept 2015 after officials concluded he had engaged in conduct aimed at undermining fundamental British values. He appealed the ban at a specialist tribunal hearing in London in March but his case was refused.

Now a spokesman for the judiciary said the full ruling will not be published – even though the hearing was staged in public – as the tribunal had barred the publication of the identities of some witnesses.

He said the tribunal feared that their identities might be revealed if the ruling was published – and described the decision not to publish as “exceptional”.

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Perry Beaches, said that the decision was symptomatic of the “unbelievable” intimidation which has dogged the witnesses and shows that more needs to be done to protect the whistleblowers.

John Hemming, the former Birmingham Liberal Democrat MP, said the decision was “concerning”, and said: “There may well be good reasons for not revealing the identities of some witnesses. Nevertheless, the principle of open justice underlies the British court system.

“Surely it must be possible to make public parts of the ruling – for example, the tribunal’s summary of the issues, its analysis of the relevant law and the thinking behind its conclusions – without revealing identities.”