Anger at police raid on ‘bullet’ Muslim pupil, 7

POLICE descended on the home of a Muslim boy aged seven after his teachers mistook a brass cylinder he had taken into school for a bullet.

The pupil had said his teenage brother, who has attended an Army Cadets course, had held a rifle.

St Edward’s Catholic Primary School in Birmingham informed police about the boy’s claims the cylinder was ‘a bullet’.

But the pupil’s family were not told and were shocked when two police cars arrived outside their home. His mother, an academic, refused the officers’ request to interview the boy and said she found the response ‘intimidating’.

The woman, who accused the school of ‘racial profiling’, told the Sunday Times: ‘I don’t think the school would have escalated it if we were not Muslim. It was almost as though we needed to prove our innocence rather than they would need to prove that they had a reasonable basis for questioning us or proving our guilt… The school and police were heavy-handed.’

The family received an apology from the school, which has around 40 Muslim pupils. But head Joanne Kennett said: ‘There have been disclosures made of a similar nature from children who were not from Muslim families and the same course of action has been taken.’

A spokesman for West Midlands Police said the item ‘was examined and found not to be a bullet’.