Teacher jailed for life over child jihadist plot struck off from profession

A teacher who was jailed for life after he used Islamic State (IS) propaganda in attempts to build an army of child jihadists to carry out terror attacks in London appeared at a misconduct hearing before he was struck off from the profession.

Umar Haque addressed a disciplinary panel convened by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) five years after he was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison for multiple terror offences.

In 2018, the Old Bailey heard Haque, then 25, made children aged between 11 and 14 act out battles between police and the IS fighters he idolised while teaching at Ripple Road Mosque in Barking.

He was employed at the Lantern of Knowledge School in East London for around six months before he was arrested at Heathrow attempting to travel to Syria to join Islamic State.

Appearing on the first day of the virtual hearing, Haque said: “It does not bother me an inch that the Teaching Regulation Agency seeks to impose upon me a lifetime ban from teaching for indeed I will merely be re-employed by The Islamic Caliphate (The Islamic State) in the future…”

He refused to appear for days two and three of the hearing and have representation and has now been banned from the classroom for life.

In his absence the TRA found: “It was clear that Mr Haque’s conduct demonstrated a lack of tolerance and/or hatred on the grounds of race/religion and/or the undermining of fundamental British values.”

In 2018, The Central Criminal Court had been told the teacher tried to raise an army of ‘junior jihadis’ ready to attack London.

The teacher drew up a list of targets in the capital including Heathrow Airport, Parliament, Big Ben and the Westfield shopping centre to terrorise innocents.

He also noted that gay clubs were ‘definitely’ among 30 targets and blasted ‘mass fornication and illicit behaviour’ when questioned by police.

This week the Teaching Regulation Agency revealed Haque would often discuss Islamic State terrorist incidents once or twice a week at The Lantern of Knowledge School.

He was employed as a teacher at the school from around July 2015 to January 2016.

They were shown a video of one boy, referred to only as Pupil A, telling Counter Terrorism Officers how Mr Haque began teaching him when he was in Year 9.

The TRA said: “He stated that Mr Haque was calm during lessons but would talk about IS and terrorism incidents on the news concerning IS around once or twice a week.

“Child A described this as unusual, as no other teacher spoke about such topics. Child A also submitted that Mr Haque showed pupils a video on a projector from YouTube but did not explain the video.

“Child A stated that the video started with four to five people with guns and ammunition and included the burning of red passports in a fire.

Maxine Cole, who chaired the Teaching Regulation Agency hearing in Coventry, said: “His conduct ran counter to what should have been at the very core of his practice as a teacher with a duty of care towards children.

“By virtue of his position, Mr Haque was in a position of trust and responsibility in relation to his pupils. He abused that position.”

The hearing was told Haque had contact with more than 200 children aged between nine and 16 with 55 of those identified as having been exposed to extremism and attempts at radicalisation.

Banning him from the profession, the panel ruled Haque’s actions “raised obvious and significant public and child protection concerns”.